Structure, Content and Meaning of Organizational Networks: Extending Network Thinking: 53 (Research in the Sociology of Organizations) - Hardcover

Written by management, sociology, organizational sciences, and other researchers from Europe, the US, Australia, and South Korea, the nine essays in this book consider the structure, content, social relations, and meaning of organizational networks, emphasizing the social structure of meaning systems and the meaning of social structure. They discuss organizational fields as relational structures and meaning systems; how organizations converge and diverge from meaning in texts, focusing on party manifestos and press releases of organizations in Dutch politics; the network structure of organizational vocabularies; shared meanings and interpersonal ties in sociocultural networks in creative organizations in Europe; the cultural dimension of luxury watchmaking and the impact on price of connections between cultural elements and the way markets are formed and sustained; the connection between individuals' beliefs about Buddhism and its relationship to everyday life with organizational activities, rituals, and religious practices; the relationship between culture and structure in the Frankfurt School of Critical Theory's formation and fragmentation; and how understanding meaning in organizational networks should be more important in organizational theorizing. -- Annotation (c)2018 * (protoview.com) *

To better understand how structure, content and meaning are interrelated, there is great potential in conceptualizing mixed structure linkages, where social relations, events, actions and text-based information intersect. This potential is all the more salient in view of the large data flows and analytical tools that researchers can draw on. However, the increasing availability of tools and data seem to outpace theory development. In response to these trends, this volume aims to advance theoretical understanding of how structure, content and meaning are dynamically intertwined, in both online and offline domains. We also explain the methodological implications of such investigations. This volume therefore responds to the need for in-depth analyses studying the theoretical and methodological implications of the assumed unity of network approaches at the intersections of structure, content and meaning. With these analyses, we show promising approaches, provoke debates in the field, and suggest potential future directions.