Emotions,affects and the production of social life

While many aspects of social life possess an emotional component, sociology needs to explore explicitly the part emotions play in producing the social world and human history. This paper turns away from individualistic and anthropocentric emphases upon the experience of feelings and emotions, attending instead to an exploration of flows of ‘affect’ (meaning simply a capacity to affect or be affected) between bodies, things, social institutions and abstractions. It establishes a materialist sociology of affects that acknowledges emotions as a part, but only a part, of a more generalized affective flow that produces bodies and the social world. From this perspective, emotions are not a peculiarly remarkable outcome of the confluence of biology and culture, but part of a continuum of affectivity that links human bodies to their physical and social environment. This enhances sociological understanding of the part emotions play in shaping actions and capacities in many settings of sociological concern.     

The outside and family therapy: A perspective from the relational thinking of Gilles Deleuze

This article was inspired by a reflection on what unfolded with the COVID-19 virus, especially how it brought to light the interconnectedness of individual and collective well-being. This calls for a reassessment of the family therapy approach, which has traditionally focussed on the internal dynamics of the family to explain problems faced by individuals inside the family system without taking into account social, political and historical aspects. This approach, which is referred to in the article as ‘familialism,’ is challenged using the relational philosophy put forward by Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, and a fresh viewpoint is also given from the concept of the ‘outside.’ This outside perspective seeks to prevent the family system from closing in on itself, allowing for the creation of open systems. By doing so, it is argued, it is possible to incorporate different elements of the social, political and historical order in therapeutic practice and prevent underestimating the complexity of the human experience.     

Juvenile life without the possibility of parole: Constitutional but complicated

The Supreme Court's recent decision in Miller v. Alabama found that juvenile life without the possibility of parole sentences for homicide crimes was unconstitutional if mandated by state law. Thus, allowing this sentence only after an individualized decision determines the sanction proportional given the circumstances of the offense and mitigating factors. This decision, for a number of reasons, does not go far enough in protecting those youthful offenders afflicted with maltreatment victimizations, mental health problems, and/or learning disabilities — all potential links for some adolescents to serious offending and potentially homicide. While the Supreme Court has not protected these youthful offenders from a potential life sentence, there are early interventions and preventative programming that can help decrease serious adolescent offending behaviors. So while many states will, post Miller, allow this life imprisonment sentence, it is only just, in light of the extensive difficulties for many of these adolescents, that their future allows at least the possibility of a parole hearing.     

Understanding microfascism: reading Deleuze and Guattari alongside management guru texts

ABSTRACT

The ‘management guru’ text has long been a source of interest for academic audiences. In this tradition, this paper argues that the content and underpinning ideology of the guru guide hold important insights for organizational scholars interested in the works of Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari (and vice versa). Specifically, this paper will demonstrate that a close reading of entrepreneur and guru, Tim Ferriss’s, Tools of Titans, can provide meaningful exegesis and development of the concept of ‘microfascism’ presented by Deleuze and Guattari across their shared and independent corpuses. Building upon extant organization studies literature, this paper will endeavour to contribute to the commentary on the management guru by suggesting that the desire for fascism, power, conformity, and rule-following of which Deleuze and Guattari speak offers a productive way of understanding the success of the management guru and the broader allure of the management advice industry.     

New materialist social inquiry: designs,methods and the research-assemblage

This paper discusses issues of research design and methods in new materialist social inquiry, an approach that is attracting increasing interest across the social sciences as an alternative to either realist or constructionist ontologies. New materialism de-privileges human agency, focusing instead upon how assemblages of the animate and inanimate together produce the world, with fundamental implications for social inquiry methodology and methods. Key to our exploration is the materialist notion of a ‘research-assemblage’ comprising researcher, data, methods and contexts. We use this understanding first to explore the micropolitics of the research process, and then – along with a review of 30 recent empirical studies – to establish a framework for materialist social inquiry methodology and methods. We discuss the epistemological consequences of adopting a materialist ontology.     

Network stability in organizational flux: The case of in-house management consulting

This article explores the effects of organizational flux on the statics of interpersonal knowledge exchange structures. In our empirical case, organizational flux refers to high rates of personnel turnover, temporary project work, constant recombination of team memberships, and short-term collaboration. Network statics refers to the balance between forces composing and decomposing a network. Set in continuously changing organizational compositions of an in-house management-consulting unit, our study offers insights into the relationship between organizational characteristics and informal networks between experts. Against conventional intuition, we find a dense and stable structure of knowledge exchange. Furthermore, we elaborate on the two concepts of organizational flux and network statics, by comparing the observed structures with theoretical (random graphs) and empirical references (other empirical cases), and by using ERG models to account for different factors of organization, social balance, and individual attributes.     

I can’t smile without you: Spousal correlation in life satisfaction

This paper tests whether one partner’s happiness significantly influences the happiness of the other partner. Using 10 waves of the British Household Panel Survey, it utilizes a panel-based GMM methodology to estimate a dynamic model of life satisfaction. The use of the GMM-system estimator corrects for correlated effects of partner’s life satisfaction and solves the problem of measurement error bias. The results show that, for both genders, there is a positive and statistically significant spillover effect of life satisfaction that runs from one partner to the other partner in a couple. The positive bias on the estimated spillover effect coming from assortative mating and shared social environment at cross-section is almost offset by the negative bias coming from systematic measurement errors in the way people report their life satisfaction. Moreover, consistent with the spillover effect model, couple dissolution at t + 1 is negatively correlated with partners’ life satisfaction at t.     

Organizational structure,leadership and readiness for change and the implementation of organizational cultural competence in addiction health services

Increasing representation of racial and ethnic minorities in the health care system and on-going concerns about existing health disparities have pressured addiction health services programs to enhance their cultural competence. This study examines the extent to which organizational factors, such as structure, leadership and readiness for change contribute to the implementation of community, policy and staffing domains representing organizational cultural competence. Analysis of a randomly selected sample of 122 organizations located in primarily Latino and African American communities showed that programs with public funding and Medicaid reimbursement were positively associated with implementing policies and procedures, while leadership was associated with staff having greater knowledge of minority communities and developing a diverse workforce. Moreover, program climate was positively associated with staff knowledge of communities and having supportive policies and procedures, while programs with graduate staff and parent organizations were negatively associated with knowledge of and involvement in these communities. By investing in funding, leadership skills and a strategic climate, addiction health services programs may develop greater understanding and responsiveness of the service needs of minority communities. Implications for future research and program planning in an era of health care reform in the United States are discussed.     

Reducing turnover is not enough: The need for proficient organizational cultures to support positive youth outcomes in child welfare

Objective

High caseworker turnover has been identified as a factor in the poor outcomes of child welfare services. However, almost no empirical research has examined the relationship between caseworker turnover and youth outcomes in child welfare systems and there is an important knowledge gap regarding whether, and how, caseworker turnover relates to outcomes for youth. We hypothesized that the effects of caseworker turnover are moderated by organizational culture such that reduced caseworker turnover is only associated with improved youth outcomes in organizations with proficient cultures.

Methods

The study applied hierarchical linear models (HLM) analysis to the second National Survey of Child and Adolescent Well-being (NSCAW II) with a U.S. nationwide sample of 2346 youth aged 1.5- to 18-years-old and 1544 caseworkers in 73 child welfare agencies. Proficient organizational culture was measured by caseworkers' responses to the Organizational Social Context (OSC) measure; staff turnover was reported by the agencies' directors; and youth outcomes were measured as total problems in psychosocial functioning with the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL) completed by the youths' caregivers at intake and at 18-month follow-up.

Results

The association between caseworker turnover and youth outcomes was moderated by organizational culture. Youth outcomes were improved with lower staff turnover in proficient organizational cultures and the best outcomes occurred in organizations with low turnover and high proficiency.

Conclusions

To be successful, efforts to improve child welfare services by lowering staff turnover must also create proficient cultures that expect caseworkers to be competent and responsive to the needs of the youth and families they serve.     

When organizational crises meet nationalism: Crisis communication of multinational corporations in the Chinese context

The purpose of this study is to explore how nationalism shapes the public perception of multinational corporations’ crises on Chinese social media. Using qualitative content analysis, this study examines 1000 public comments from the top 10 hashtag posts and explores the interaction between nationalist expression (i.e., content and sentiment of nationalism) and the public’s perception of the United Airlines crisis in 2017. The findings demonstrate how nationalist content impinged upon the interpretation of United Airlines’ misconduct. Six concrete emotions (anger, hared, amusement, pride, encouragement, and disgust) were identified from the sample comments, which were categorized into inward-directed and outward-directed nationalist sentiments. Given the findings, this study argues that nationalist expression has driven the evolution of the United Airlines crisis beyond the discussion of organizational misconduct. While inward-directed sentiment served to strengthen the Chinese public’s national identity, outward-directed sentiment was utilized to exclude multinational corporations as “out-groups.” The theoretical and practical implications are also discussed.     

The dual network structure of organizational problem solving: A case study on open source software development

We reconstruct the dual network structure generated by the association between 72 contributors and 737 software bugs engaged during a full development cycle of the free/open source software project Epiphany. Estimates of structural parameters of Exponential Random Graph Models for two-mode networks reveal the structural logics shaping activities of collaborative problem solving. After controlling for contributor-specific and software bug-specific characteristics, we find that contributors (“problem solvers”) tend to distribute their activity over multiple software bugs. At the same time, however, we find that software bugs (“problems”) tend not to share multiple contributors. This dual tendency toward de-specialization and exclusivity is sustained by specific local network dependencies revealed by our analysis which also suggests possible organizational mechanisms that may be underlying the puzzling macro-structural regularities frequently observed, but rarely explained, in the production of open source software. By combining these mechanisms with the influence of contributors characterized by different levels of involvement in the project, we provide micro-level evidence of structural interdependence between “core” and “peripheral” members identified exclusively on the basis of their individual level of contribution to the project.     

Putting empathic feelings into words during times of crisis: The impact of differential verbal empathy expressions on organizational reputation

Organizations in crisis should, above all, demonstrate compassion, concern, and empathy to relieve psychological distress among their stakeholders. In addition, a display of empathy can mitigate reputational damage as well. But how can an organization in crisis put expressions of empathy into words? This study examines three distinct manners to verbally express empathy (i.e., claiming vs. demonstrating understanding; cognitive vs. affective empathy; intensified vs. unintensified verbal expression of empathy) and explores their impact on the post-crisis reputation through three experimental studies. The first two studies also examine the crisis type as a potential boundary condition. The results confirm that an expression of empathy can help protect an organization’s reputation, during both a victim crisis and a preventable crisis. When an organization expresses empathy for those who suffer from a crisis, the public may in turn experience empathic concern towards the organization, which helps to alleviate reputational damage. The positive effect of empathy expressions differs, however, depending on the way in which it is verbally articulated.     

Interplay of gender subtext and local culture in the organizational logic: the case of a textile factory in Turkey

This paper examines gender as a constitutive element of inequality regimes in the workplace. The organizational logic of workplace is reproduced through accepted but unequal policies and principles. The organizational dynamics of the gendered workplace are embedded in the articulation of global and local markets. The article elaborates on the nature of the organizational logic by focusing on the local dynamics of a Central Anatolian city, Çorum, based on a case study conducted in Turkey. We observe how capitalist organizational logic and gender subtext operate in and through the conservative culture specific to this locality. Through the interactions between employers and employees, the engagement between the capitalist organization and gender subtext constructs the realities of workplace. Workers’ responses to the structural, cultural, interactional and identity dynamics of the organization are to be understood within the triangle of skill, care and honour in capitalist organizational logic. Embedded in all these responses is a specific emphasis on virtuous female worker. Such an ideal worker fits both the capitalist organizational logic and patriarchal system.     

Minoring Shakespeare: Deleuze’s Storm – Caliban or the last of the Palestinians

ABSTRACT

There will be no more thinking with Shakespeare, only transposition of his corpus into a minor mode. Transposition and no more thinking ever: but transposition from Major to Minor, for ‘when one sees,’ writes Gilles Deleuze, ‘what Shakespeare is subjected to […], his magnification, normalization, one clamors at present for another treatment that would rediscover in him an active minoritarian force’. One must now rediscover this force both dissident (Hamlet) and minor, and regress with Shakespeare through the legacy of his Tempest, that is: a parcel of earth, an island situated precisely in the Orient, in the Middle East, and its inhabitant, as savage as legitimate, that creature, race-people, ‘oppressed, bastard, inferior, anarchic, nomadic, irremediably minor […] summoned forth by art and philosophy’: Caliban.     

Hidden in full view: the organization of public secrecy in Miéville’s The City and the City

ABSTRACT

In this article, we explore China Mieville’s novel The City and the City as a literary experiment for analyzing the dynamics of public secrecy. We explore public secrets as an intrinsic part of organizational life and as a framework for paying attention to the politics of organizing. First, we focus on the novel’s invention and use of the verb ‘unseeing’ to bring out the embodied and sensuous aspects of public secrecy as part of organizational processes. Second we unfold how, although the content of public secrets may turn out to be less spectacular than expected, it is exactly their mundaneness which is key to their political importance. This is important because in an increasingly disorganized and uncertain world, secrecy proliferates and the visibility of secrecy is often a strategic move to justify certain hidden actions.     

The Work and Family Researchers Network: an organizational and intellectual agenda

This essay outlines the organizational form and programmatic goals of the Work and Family Researchers Network (WFRN). This international membership organization aspires to bring together researchers and scholars from a range of academic disciplines as well as policy makers and practitioners. A brief sketch of the structure of the WFRN emphasizes its marriage of virtual and face-to-face communities. A sketch of the intellectual domain of work and family research maps this field with respect to basic social science and applied concerns. I suggest that the preoccupations of this field of inquiry are not marginal but rather occupy intellectually central space in several disciplines. Moreover, the policy questions of interest to work and family researchers are numerous and noteworthy, as they pertain to different stages of the life course and individuals facing a wide array of work and family interactions. Work and family research is interdisciplinary, based on the extensive cross-disciplinary citation patterns that are already well established in this area. WFRN can nonetheless play a role in facilitating communication and fostering collaborations. The essay ends with a brief note about opportunities and challenges that lie ahead.     

The end(s) of immanence in the anthropocene: militarized ecologies and the future of Deleuzian thought

Two features bear down fundamentally on our current historical occasion: structures of security, and breakdowns of planetary ecosystems. This essay argues that Deleuze is not only tracing a “geophilosophy” (that is, a nonhuman-centered theory of history that includes a geohistory of the planet) that moves from nomadic through State and finally through neoliberal forms that extend beyond the power of the State, but that he is also moving toward a theory of “control” that can teach us a great deal about the rise of the security society and its relation to the anthropocene. More specifically, this essay argues that philosophy is at a moment when the stakes of Deleuze’s conceptualizations of “immanence” have changed. This change hinges on the ecological circumstances of the twenty-first century – a set of conditions considerably underway, involving a course unlikely to change in time to reverse the seriousness of the situation (due in part to the supremacy of a self-destructive international neoliberal politics). The essay concludes by more sharply defining the workings of security in relation to immanence in the anthropocene.     

The impact of daily weather conditions on life satisfaction: Evidence from cross-sectional and panel data

Life satisfaction has been widely used in recent years for evaluating the effect of environmental factors on individuals’ well-being. In this study, using two major health surveys in Canada, we show that after controlling for individuals’ socioeconomic characteristics as well as local and seasonal climate, temporal weather variations have an impact on satisfaction with life. This effect is identified in a number of alternative specifications. Women and individuals with poor health condition are more affected by weather conditions. Although being statistically significant, the effect of weather on life satisfaction is small compared with major socioeconomic determinants of well-being. We cannot confirm the results of past studies which find an effect of long term climate variables on life satisfaction.     

The experience of sexual desire: Psychological correlates in a college sample

In order to elaborate on available models of sexual desire, we administered a sexual desire questionnaire to 144 college students, ages 18 to 54. Included in this measure were questions concerning the frequency of sexual desire, whether the respondent had participated in sexual activity without desire, or vice versa, experienced desire without sexual behavior, and a question assessing which cues are used by the subject to gauge sexual desire (e.g., frequency of intercourse, sexual dreams). Subjects also completed the Passionate Love Scale, Sexual Arousal Inventory, and Crowne‐Marlowe Social Desirability Scale. The results indicate that as a group, males report experiencing sexual desire more frequently than females. Males appeared to rely on similar indicators of desire as females, specifically genital arousal and sexual daydreams. For both males and females, sexual desire was significantly correlated with sexual arousal (r = 0.50, females; r = 0.44, males) while the correlation of desire and love was nonsignificant for both sexes. However, desire and sexual behavior did not necessarily co‐occur, as both males and females reported engaging in sexual behavior without desire. These data suggest that greater attention be paid to the definitional features of sexual desire in nonclinical samples, in an effort to clarify current diagnostic categories and to provide population base rates.