Global Sociology and the Struggles for a Better World: Contributions from the sociology of organization

Organizations have proven to be an important source of social innovation for how the future can be organized in the present to reach particular ends. Many scripts for practically attaining these ends derive from organizational theorising – from the early time-motion studies of Taylor and the Gilbreths to the emergence of a broad range of organisational actors who claim to have expertise on how the future can be managed (strategists, investment bankers, emergency planners, and the like). A quick glance across the concerns and vocabulary of contemporary sociology provides evidence of the grip that these organizational imaginaries continue to have on sociological thinking across the board (social movements, intensifying uncertainties, contingent outcomes, risks, and so forth). Accordingly, in this address we will begin by reviewing some of the ways that the classics of the sociology of organization continue to matter for a global sociology that struggles for a better world. We will also build on the increased attention to time, history and markets in organizational research to assert the centrality of the sociology of organisation for understanding our shifting relationship to the future.