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.

This is an expanded version of the supplement from the original Episode 6 on Max Weber's Bureaucracy. This release includes both the original supplement from Dmitrijs along with an extended commentary from Tom to cover contemporary views on bureaucracy since the original episode's January 2016 release.

In this release, we take a retrospective look at Weber's famous work and our original episode. How has our views about bureaucracy changed over the past decade (2016-when the original Weber episode was released) or century (1918-when the speech was delivered).

This is an edited re-release of our Episode 6, Part 2 on Max Weber's bureaucracy, originally from January 2016. Next week, we will provide an additional discussion where we bring Weber's ideas to contemporary times.

We are revisiting an older episode, our Episode 6 on Weber’s bureaucracy. The original episode explored the work objectively, trying to understand how Weber was encouraging the use of rational rules and hierarchical systems to foster greater stability in society rather than efficiency. But it never seemed to happen as bureaucracies became a dominant organizational form. By re-reading Weber through the lens of institutional logics, we hope to better understand why this is the case. This week, we release an edited version of Part 1 of the original episode.