The Micropolitics Of Knowledge: Communication And Indirect Control In Workgroups

For Many Years Emmanuel Lazega Has Explored Communication Behavior And Decision-making Processes Of Small Workgroups Within Larger Organizations. To Account For The Knowledge Claims Of Members Of Those Groups, And For The Ways In Which Such Claims Are Legitimated Collectively And Translated Into Action, He Presents A Theory Of The Interactive Elaboration Of Information. This Volume May Be Seen As An Extension Of That Theory, Addressing The Question, What Do Workgroup Members Consider To Be An Informed Decision?--book Jacket. Lazega's Answer Applies A Microsociological Approach To Larger Organizational Perspectives. As Such, It Is A Contribution Both To The Sociology Of Knowledge--the Amount Of Social Control Exercised On Varying Types Of Competing Claimants By Epistemic Coalitions That Support Their Claims--and To The Sociology Of Work In Office Settings.--book Jacket. The Author Focuses Particular Attention Upon Salient Aspects Of The Behavior Of These Workgroups That Earlier Theories, Such As The Human Relations Tradition, Have Slighted. The Knowledge Claims He Identifies Have An Interactive And Rhetorical Dimension; They Involve The Negotiation Of Roles And Identities And Some Forms Of Direct And Indirect Social Control. The Link Between Information And Decision Is Seen As Mediated By Social Control Processes And Structural Constraints.--book Jacket. After Mapping Out A Theoretical Framework In Which The Structure Of Workgroups Is Defined In Terms Of Authority Relationships In Organizations, Lazega Employs Case Studies Of Two Rather Different Units Of Public Administration In Geneva, Switzerland To Illustrate The Implications Of His Theory.--book Jacket. Emmanuel Lazega. Includes Bibliographical References (p. 131-143) And Index.