Talking About Organizations Podcast

We conclude our discussion of the War of the Currents using an article from Cole and Chandler on competitive impression management as it applied during the famous War of the Currents between Edison and Westinghouse. The article's aim was to uncover the strategies used between the competitors and build a framework that extended the literature on impression management to better account for situations involving direct competition between two (or more) actors.

We continue or discussion of the War of the Currents using an article from Tushman and Anderson on the impacts of technological breakthroughs and how they increase uncertainty and complexity in organizational environments. through the study of three industries – minicomputer, cement, and airlines. We then contrast their findings to the uniquely circumstances behind the unfolding of the War of the Currents between Edison and Westinghouse.

This is Part 1 of our latest "movie" episode. The film we watched is from 2017 The Current War, directed by Alfonso Gomez-Rejon, and distribution by 101 Studios. It dramatized the so-named War of the Currents that was a real competition between two important industrial figures – Thomas Edison and George Westinghouse – over which type of power would become the dominant standard for distributing electricity across the United States.

Coming soon! We will explore the famous War of the Currents as part of our occasional "movie" episode, this time the 2017 film "The Current War" that dramatized the dispute between Thomas Edison and George Westinghouse over which form of electrical current -- AC or DC -- would become the de facto standard across the USA and subsequently the world.

In Part 2, we further contrast the relational work perspective of Zelizer and Bandelj with the dominant embeddedness perspective promoted by Granovetter and other early economic sociologists a few decades ago. The embeddedness perspective remains “embedded” in the field despite the relational work perspective providing more robust and interesting scholarly research. Are we seeing the emergence of a new paradigm shift as described in our episode on Thomas Kuhn’s scientific revolutions?

This month we examine three pieces from the relational work perspective in economic sociology, one by Viviana Zelizer and two by her former student Nina Bandelj. The relational work perspective examines how ordinary economic transactions and social relationships work together to establish meaning behind each movement of money. Initially describing decisions in household budgets and other microeconomic moves, this perspective is now finding traction in the study of whole organizations and its programming and budgeting actions.

Coming soon! We will examine a contemporary stream in economic sociology, the relational work perspective, championed by Viviana Zelizer and furthered by some of her students such as Nina Bandelj and others. How does this perspective compare with the more economics-driven models of before, and why is the relational work perspective gaining traction? Tune in and find out.

In Part 2, we bring Max Weber’s speech about Science as a Vocation to the present day and show that many of the same themes and concerns Weber express are still relevant. Modern technologies such as artificial intelligence may have changed academia in compelling ways, but the worthiness of scientific pursuit remains a valid concern.

We return once more to Max Weber and look at one of his most important and noteworthy speeches, “Science as a Vocation.” The speech includes a number of major themes such as what is the worth of science, what are the roles of junior academics as they establish themselves as scientists, and what constitutes proper teaching. Controversial in its day, but required reading for many graduate programs today.

Coming soon! We return once more to Max Weber and look at one of his most important and noteworthy speeches, “Science as a Vocation,” delivered in 1918 at Munich University. This speech may be seen as a text assigned to rising graduate students in many fields, owing to its exhortations to go beyond researching and writing about important knowledge and consider the ethical and moral implications of that research.