Track Director: Mark Suchman (on leave, AY 2022-23)
Interim Track Lead Advisor: Lisa Di Carlo
Concentration Advisors: John B. Diamond, Nicole Gonzalez Van Cleve, Michael Kennedy, Laura López-Sanders, Josh Pacewicz, J. Timmons Roberts, and Carrie Spearin.
The Organizational Studies degree track (“OS”) provides a solid foundation in sociological theory and methods, coupled with a focused expertise in sociological research on: micro-, meso-, and macro-level organizations, broadly defined, including non-profit, for-profit, and governmental enterprises. In addition to covering topics such as entrepreneurship, work, management, and leadership, the track is unique in its examination of families as organizations, religious organizations, as well as contemporary, non-traditional examples of organizations. Students will gain academic and practical knowledge about important people, processes, and activities, as well as internal and external mechanisms associated with organizations. Moreover, courses in the track examine key social, cultural, economic, and political environments associated with diverse organizations. In addition to frameworks common to organization studies literature, the track offers perspectives and strategies to identify and understand organizational strengths as well as challenges and ways to develop creative solutions.
This track option is available in both Sociology and Social Analysis and Research concentrations. Students who successfully complete the OS degree track requirements will graduate with a transcript notation reading "Organizational Studies”.
Through this track, SOC and SAR concentrators develop crucial analytical and methodological skills for careers in:
- Public, private, and non-profit management and consulting
- Law, health, finance, public relations, information technology and other professions
- Commercial and social entrepreneurship
- International, national, and local activism and policy-making
- Organizational, economic, and market research
The Organizational Studies track also provides outstanding preparation for postgraduate study in a wide range of fields, including sociology, business and management, public policy, law, and health sciences.