301201 Experts in Organizations (BS) (WiSe 2021/2022)

Experts are essential to modern organizations. The variety of labels – technologists, professionals, specialists – reflects the wide array of expert work in organizations. For example, some experts maintain the critical technological infrastructures of organizations. Other experts produce convincing ideas that allow firms to compete in knowledge-centered markets. Public institutions also draw on experts to legitimize decisions with wide-ranging social consequences. Organizations provide an increasingly important context for all these forms of expert work. At the same time, being embedded in an organization – its rules, roles, and routines – can pose a challenge to the autonomy and identity of experts. The goal of this seminar is to explore the puzzling relationship between experts and organizations.

To achieve this goal, we will discuss questions such as: What makes an expert? What distinguished expertise from other forms of authority in organizations? How do experts establish and defend the boundaries of their jurisdiction? How do experts engage with other actors within and beyond the organization? To develop rich answers to these intricate questions, we will study a broad range of experts and organizations. For example, we will engage with research on radiologists in a hospital, compliance officers in a university, art historians in a startup, forensic scientists in a crime lab, professional strategists in a firm, and management consultants at a client. In this seminar, we will also engage with different theoretical perspectives on expertise from across the social sciences. For example, we will draw on analytic resources from organization studies, the sociology of professions, and science & technology studies.

The language of the seminar is English. Course syllabus and readings will be made available via Lernraum before the introductory seminar. After an introductory session, this seminar takes place as a block event on two weekends.

Bibliography

• Barley, S. R. (1986). Technology as an occasion for structuring: Evidence from observations of CT scanners and the social order of radiology departments. Administrative Science Quarterly, 78-108.
• Bechky, B. A. (2021). Blood, Powder, and Residue: How Crime Labs Translate Evidence into Proof. Princeton University Press.
• Bourgoin, A., Bencherki, N., & Faraj, S. (2020). “And who are you?”: A performative perspective on authority in organizations. Academy of Management Journal, 63(4), 1134-1165.
• Eyal, G. (2019). The Crisis of Expertise. John Wiley & Sons.
• Dreyfus, H. L., & Dreyfus, S. E. (2005). Peripheral vision: Expertise in real world contexts. Organization Studies, 26(5), 779-792.
• Huising, R. (2015). To hive or to hold? Producing professional authority through scut work. Administrative Science Quarterly, 60(2), 263-299.
• Sachs, S. E. (2020). The algorithm at work? Explanation and repair in the enactment of similarity in art data. Information, Communication & Society, 23(11), 1689-1705.
• Whittington, R., Cailluet, L., & Yakis‐Douglas, B. (2011). Opening strategy: Evolution of a precarious profession. British Journal of Management, 22(3), 531-544.