INTERPLAY OF INSTITUTIONAL AND CULTURAL THEORIES OF ORGANIZATION

Author(s): Nebojša Janićijević / Language(s): English Issue: 3/2015

In this paper, similarities and differences between the institutional theory of organization and organizational culture theory are analysed, and how these theories complement each other is highlighted. This study posits that both the institutional and cultural theories of organizations have the same research subject and that they approach it from the same research paradigm. The level of analysis distinguishes the two, and therefore, an interaction between the institutional and cultural theories of organizations is useful. Organizational culture theory supports the institutional theory in explaining the underlying factors and the forms of the implementation of institutional pattern in organizations. The institutional theory of organizations supports the organizational culture theory to expand its findings regarding the sources of organizational culture.

IDEOLOGIJA U OKVIRIMA POPULARNE KULTURE: PREDLOG TEORIJSKO-INTERPRETATIVNOG OKVIRA

Author(s): Nemanja Zvijer / Language(s): Serbian Issue: 3/2015

The paper gives a proposal of theoretical-interpretive framework for studying the relationship between ideology and popular culture. It will start with two relatively similar analytical approach to ideology, and after their partial consideration it will be offered some definitions of thatphenomenon. After that, it will be considered the theoretical insights of some authors who have dealt with the issue of connection between ideology and popular culture. Also, something will be saidabout theways of ideological (re)producing in the popular culture, but also about the forms of potential symbolic resistance to ideological domination that can be developed within it.

POIMANJE FIZIČKOG PROSTORA U DRUŠTVENOJ TEORIJI

Author(s): Svetlana Radović / Language(s): Serbian Issue: 1/2016

This paper presents different conceptions of the physical space in social theory aiming to review the consequences that they as metatheoretical assumptions have to the treatment and position of the spatial dimensions of the city in sociological analysis. The first part presents characteristics of the absolute concept of physical space and indicates the different implications of the adoption of this concept in urban sociology. After that, the text considers features of the relational concept of physical space whose adoption enabled the spatial turn in the social science, and its adequacy to the contemporary social context of movement, permeation, interaction between people, capital, goods and cultures. The third part highlights, the importance of understanding space as the product and context of practice – of produced, and not given, for the conceptualization of physical space as an inherent quality of social space, inseparable from time and the symbolic and subjective meanings. The conclusion points to the relevance of adopting Lefebvre’s production of space concept through representations of space, spatial practices and representations of space as an analytical framework for studying spatial form of city as the overall dimensions of social life.

LGBT PERSPEKTIVA – IZAZOV ZA SAVREMENU SOCIOLOGIJU

Author(s): Marija Radoman / Language(s): Serbian Issue: Special/2016

This paper analyzes certain theoretical and methodological problems in the research of (homo) sexuality. It also provides an overview of some of the conclusions about LGBT parenting. There are both theoretical and practical reasons behind making connections between the topics of parenting and problems of a different sexual orientation. On the one hand, there is a need to expand the knowledge of the LGBT population and same-sex families in domestic sociology (considering that these issues are present for more than a decade in our society), while on the other hand, LGBT parenting problem analytically refers to the study of homosexuality because these two issues are inseparable in the public discourse. In general, the aim of this paper is to introduce LGBT perspectives in sociology and sociology of the family by pointing out the epistemological importance of studying non-heterosexual orientation and alternative family forms of LGBT. The first part includes the analysis of certain theoretical and methodological problems in the study of the LGBT population, and the second part gives an overview of contemporary research on same-sex families.

KONCEPT OTPORNOSTI U SOCIOLOGIJI

Author(s): Olivera Pavićević / Language(s): Serbian Issue: 3/2016

In this paper, we introduce the social dimension of the term resilience which is different than all the other theoretical disciplines that use this term. The connection between the concept of resilience and the theory of social systems is viewed from a critical standpoint, and also with different ontological perspectives in regard to understanding resilience. The resilience as it exists in ecological or socio – ecological theories in social reality is more complex when considering social relations and changes that have different effects on functionality, adaptability and transformational capacities of society and its units. In regard to that, the constructivist approach offers an analytical framework that includes two tasks. On the one hand, the discovery of the interpretative meaning of social resilience as a concept, and on the other hand, using the normative neutral approach as a way of dealing with various social situations that are burdened with risks, troubles, but also with possibilities.

TEORIJA RACIONALNOG IZBORA I DRUŠTVENA ISTRAŽIVANJA

Author(s): Bojan Krstić,Miloš S. Krstić / Language(s): Serbian Issue: 4/2016

The paper is devoted to the analyses of methodological and metatheoretical problems of rational choice theory. The methodological challenge is associated with the questions: whether rational choice theory can be appropriately empirically tested and whether RCT allows researchers to derive interesting hypotheses with regard to substantive fields of application? The answers to these questions have important implications for the rational choice theory’s ambition to be appropriate basis for the implementation of social research. In this paper,also, we analyse the following metatheoretical problems: how to deal with the apparent counterevidence that stems from applied fields of sociological research: Is it possible to provide explanations of this evidence within RCT by widening its core assumptions and thereby broadening the set of allowed auxiliary assumptions? Or does RCT have to be enriched (and if so, how?) by integrating concepts and mechanisms of other sociological approaches for it to remain a reasonable workhorse and starting point for sociological research?

Potencijal zdravorazumske kritike u Gofmanovoj sociologiji okvira

Author(s): Srđan Prodanović / Language(s): Serbian Issue: 2/2017

In this paper, I will try to appraise the critique potential of Erving Goffman’s sociology. The starting hypothesis will be that Goffman’s understanding of common sense offered in Frame Analysis opens the possibility of attaining a critical insight into the structural givens of everyday practice. I will also try to show that Goffman’s understanding of common sense was under heavy influence of pragmatism and phenomenology – and that the often-overseen epistemological differences between these two schools of thought had significant consequences on his sociology. Namely, in the Frame Analysis we can easily find a certain tension between insistence on the autonomous theoretical importance of common sense putforward by the pragmatist and reductionist tendencies towards this type of thought found among the phenomenologists. Therefore, I will argue that this ambivalence regarding the role of common sense in interpreting social realty is the main reason why critique potential of Goffman’s sociology remains implicit in its character.

O primeni filozofije nauke i epistemologije Gastona Bašlara na problem razumevanja u istoriji sociologije

Author(s): Dejan Petrović / Language(s): Serbian Issue: 2/2017

Sketch of the methodological approach, alternative to presentism and historicism, based on the Gaston Bachelard’s philosophy of science and epistemology and its key concepts like epistemological break, epistemological obstacle and error, will be showed in this text. These two dominant methodological approaches in history of sociology and its similar disciplines try, each in its own way, to provide solution to fundamental problem of the said disciplines, thus the problem of understanding.In other words, how to come to the proper interpretation of specific author’s thought through the analysis of texts left behind him? As it will be presented below, the basic characteristics of presentism and historicism, and therefore their shortcomings, arise from the specific model of science on which these approaches are based upon. It is in this context the relevance of Bachelard’s philosophy of science and epistemology can be seen to the problem of understanding, or to put it in another way, to the solution of mentioned methodological approaches’ shortcomings.

From the Social to the Communicative Construction of Reality

Author(s): Hubert Knoblauch / Language(s): English Issue: 11/2016

Veliki projekat Kamelot: implikacije i reperkusije jedne kontroverze u društvenim naukama

Author(s): Marko Bala / Language(s): Serbian Issue: 2/2018

The paper examines the relationship between social sciences and the military-industrial complex in the United States of America during the Cold War era. Based on the review of the most representative texts on this problematique, the author’s main goal is to prove the plausibility of critical view according to which the social sciences have been instrumentalized during the Cold War by centers of power such as CIA and the Pentagon in order to accomplish certain strategic goals. The main focus of our interest is Project Camelot, an ambitous research program which was canceled in the midst of the international scandal which erupted as a consequence of the exposure of the project’s political nature. The first part of the paper describes the Camelot controversy and the reaction of social scientists, as well as the debate on ethical, epistemological, political and practical implications of social scientific research, which was triggered by the affair. The second part of the paper describes research projects whose characterics are similar to those of Project Camelot, and the author hypostasizes that the controversial project cannot be viewed as an isolated case, but rather as a paradigmatic example of the Cold War social science. The text pays special attention to the question of sponsorship/sources of funding of social research, an issue whose scale and importance is especially highlighted in the third section of the paper. The concluding part points on the problem of militarization and instrumentalisation of social sciences fifty years after Project Camelot, while the emphasis is put on the necessity of maintaining the memory on the worst cases of the abuse of behavioral expertise.

La Piste Antique des Femmes Perverses : Une interprétation girardienne des Plaines de l’Espoir d’Alexis Wright

Author(s): Mylène Charon / Language(s): French Issue: 1/2018

How do René Girard’s theories apply to a context of double colonization? Through anew interpretation of Alexis Wright’s novel Plains of Promise, this paper aims to show the cross-cultural relevance of mimetic theory. The study will highlight the way in which the scapegoat mechanism is represented in the Australian colonial context. It also offers a Girardian analysis of the predicament of female characters of Aboriginal descent who are victims of sexual violence.

Voľnočasové aktivity v Slovenskej a Českej republike: sú faktory, ktoré ich ovplyvňujú, národne špecifické?

Author(s): Ivan Chorvát,Jiří Šafr / Language(s): Slovak Issue: 2/2021

Leisure Activities in Slovakia and the Czech Republic: Are the Factors that Influence them Nationally Specific? This article focuses on the factors that influence leisure time in Slovakia and the Czech Republic by using a dataset from coordinated surveys on leisure time carried out in 2016 (Slovakia) and 2011 (Czech Republic). We show the internal structure of leisure activities determined by the social logic of cultural taste. Amongst more than 20 activities examined, we identify three basic spheres–active lifestyle/highbrow culture (forming cultural capital), out-of-home entertainment/consumption of new media and domesticity/family life. The main goal is to identify the factors differentiating these elementary lifestyles. We test hypotheses on the divergent influences of age, education and residence size on leisure activities in the two countries. The analysis confirmed the hypotheses in only two areas of leisure–active lifestyle/highbrow culture and partly in out-of-home entertain¬ment/new media consumption. The results show that more culturally demanding forms of leisure are determined not only by individual factors but also to some extent by structural differences in settlement arrangements and broader historical and cultural circumstances. Sociológia 2021, Vol. 53 (No. 2: 147-179)

Od modernih k deliberativnim predstavam o mnenjskih procesih

Author(s): Andrej Pinter / Language(s): Slovenian Issue: 41/2002

Mnenje je ključen pojem modernih predstav o družbi in vlogi posameznika v njej, pri čemer je tesno povezan z izhodišči razsvetljenske misli (kot na primer pri Tonniesu, Habermasu in drugih). Odsotnost obče sprejetih opredelitev in modelov odpira vprašanje, ali in na kakšen način mnenja še izpolnjujejo vlogo, kot jo postavlja razsvetljenska filozofija (in moderne teorije družbe) - so še mehanizem miselnega osvobajanja in oblikovanja kritične drže v sodobnem javnem življenju? Analize kažejo, da je bilo preoblikovanje javnega vselej odvisno od mnenjskih procesov, problem sodobnih družb pa je, da postajajo vse bolj izmuzljivi. Namen besedila je v tem smislu ugotoviti, kako dve sodobni tradiciji raziskovanja mnenjskih procesov postavljata pogoje za razmislek o pre-oblikovanju javnega. Gre za klasično, empirično komunikološko raziskovanje, v katerem je izmenjavanje mnenj dejansko opredeljeno kot del javnosti, ter za ideje deliberativne demokracije. Ključno vprašanje, ki ga postavljam z analizo, je, ali velja ohraniti linearističen pogled na mnenjske procese in kako omogočiti združevanje v skupna mnenja.

Die Performativitat des Namens - Anmerkungen zur Semantik von Inklusion und Exklusion

Author(s): Urs Staheli / Language(s): German Issue: 37-38/2001

(Performativnost imen - komentar k semantiki vključitve in izključitve): Avtor se ukvarja z vprašanjem družbene vključitve in izključitve (inkluzije in ekskluzije), ki se nahaja v centru moderne družbene sistemske teorije, zlasti v zadnjih nekaj letih. Osrednjo pozornost namenja nasprotjem med normativnim diskurzom inkluzije in realnim procesom ekskluzije v modernih demokratičnih družbah. Normativni diskurz inkluzije se dogaja preko dejanja identifikacije in samodeskripcije (performativnost imena), ki ga ni mogoče razumeti v smislu mehanične identitete, temveč v smislu dialektičnih procesov diferenciacije. Avtor dokazuje, da v modernih demokratičnih družbah univerzalni značaj pojma “državljan”, ki imanentno temelji na nasprotju med inkluzijo in ekskluzijo, deluje samo kot fikcija v politični sferi. Družbena realnost je namreč vseskozi prežeta z različnimi oblikami ekskluzije.

STILIZACIJA VSAKDANJEGA ŽIVLJENJA

Author(s): Mirjana Ule / Language(s): Slovenian Issue: 27-28/1998

Stilizacija življenja je zbirni termin, ki združuje različne oblike tematizacij vsakdanjosti posameznikov in ustreza vse večji potrebi po refleksivnih oblikah vsakdanjega življenja v sodobnih tržnih družbah. Povečane potrebe po tematizaciji in refleksiji vsakdanjosti se kažejo tudi v vse večjem zanimanju družbenih ved za vsakdanje življenje posameznikov in skupin.

VREDNOTE MLADIH

Author(s): Spomenka Hribar / Language(s): Slovenian Issue: 30-31/1999

The essay resumes the author’s lecture in a course on actual subjects for students and intelectuals, held at the Faculty of Theology in Ljubljana, November 19th, 1985. The author mediates overvalues, the basic value in particular, which at present time has been most clearly expressed in the Program of the former Communist Party of Yugoslavia: "Nothing which has been created is so sacred that it could not be surmounted, and would not give way to what is more progressive, more free, more human.” If, however, nothing is as sacred... everything is at disposal. The above sentence is defined by the author as an example, as the fundamental sentence of nihilism of our time: Everything and everybody is available for various political options. The author ascertains that the talk only about values that are lacking... is insufficient. The basic question is the creation of a new sacred world. Because equalization of the ideologically consecrated and holy is what led to a general manipulation, when nothing is intangible - sacred. Neither the human being. Nor the holy.

Dlaczego dobra i dlaczego dyskusyjna jest książka Raewyn Connell o teorii społecznej?

Author(s): Maria Szmeja / Language(s): Polish Issue: 2/2021

The domination of a metropolitan social theory is the main topic of Raewlyn Connell’s work. Her 2007 book titled The Southern Theory: The Global Dynamics of Knowledge in Social Science has provoked discussion among European and American sociologists alike. The main axis of the work revolves around questioning the beginning and evolution of sociology, and showing alternative sources of social knowledge. Undoubtedly, the book has its advantages and disadvantages, and the discussion of sociologists on preserving or changing the existing paradigm of social sciences has also absorbed Polish sociologists.

Semnificaţii psihopedagogice ale Noţiunii de „Interes”

Author(s): Elena Davidescu / Language(s): Romanian Issue: 01/2021

Interest is a substructure of personality, that motivational component of personality that is expressed through a positive, active and persevering attitude towards certain objects or activities. // The article reflects the most relevant psycho-pedagogical meanings of the notion of interest, from which we deduce the typologies of interests: cognitive and professional. Children / pupils / students must be supported in the accumulation of knowledge, assimilation of the content of educational disciplines, verification of the usefulness of the assimilated knowledge and the rationality of their application in practice. It is necessary to awaken in students the aspiration and the need to always deepen their knowledge, to form new skills, habits, habits and to be guided by them in life. All these actions contribute to the development of intellect, preparation for life and activity in society.

Към една рефлексивна теория на кризата

Author(s): Georgi Medarov / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 1/2021

The article proposes a reflexive theory of the conceptualizations of the capitalist crises. Reflexivity entails acknowledging that the notions of crisis do not simply and transparently reflect its essence, but can themselves reflect upon that essence. Firstly, I study the productivity of the appearance of the crisis and argue that the nature of the crisis is not given before its practical representation. Then I introduce the non-classical dialectical logic or what can be called an organon of the theories of mediating structures. Lastly, I apply the proposed theoretical construction in the analysis of the conditions for the possibility of the appearance of the current environmental crisis as a necessary and not contingent effect of the nature of capitalism.

Community Quality of Life. A Case Study of the New Popești-Leordeni, Ilfov

Author(s): Andreea Acasandre / Language(s): English Issue: 4/2020

This paper is concerned with the analysis of some worrying present tendencies of urban sprawl in the large, important economic centers of Romania. It focuses on the tendency of building new residential apartments on the outskirts of the big cities. Most of these developments target young people that belong to a still-developing middle class. Big problems emerge, however, when real estate investors take advantage of the buyers’ lack of experience and of the authorities’ poor management, offering small, badly-built apartments in new residential areas which are designed around only one function: housing. The absence of complementary functions that could support the development of communities gravely impairs the inhabitants’ quality of life. At the local level, I was able to identify two main problems: the absence of the necessary infrastructure to support such a massive increase in population, and the absence of local amenities. On a larger scale, the consequences are significant as well: chronic traffic jams due to the large number of people who commute to Bucharest daily, for work. Even though at first Popeşti-Leordeni (a satellite-town of Romania’s capital) was considered a good housing option, the people living there are rapidly becoming highly unsatisfied with their quality of life. In their opinion, the biggest problems of this urban area are the absence of green spaces, of leisure services, of parking options, and of means of public transportation. To these complaints, the inhabitants add dissatisfaction with the general problems caused by the endless building sites, which also represent one of the main causes for the lack of cleanliness, bad roads, noise and pollution plaguing the area. This paper, based both on the analysis of statistical data and on empirical research, aims to show that Popeşti-Leordeni, especially the New Popeşti neighborhood, is an example of bad housing caused by corruption, investors’ greed, bad management on the part of the authorities, and the young buyers’ inexperience.