Topic: Organizational Culture & Socialization
Article:
“Inequality regimes: Gender, Class, and Race in Organizations” by Dr. Joan Acker
Book (Chapter 6):
Learning Objectives:
- To engage with course materials in a substantive manner
- To analyze organizational research and develop practical applications
- To prepare for class discussions
Directions:
- For each new topic of the class, read the associated chapter and articles listed on the syllabus carefully. Then craft a set of Questions, Connections & Reflections to be used in class discussions and projects.
Specifically, craft a document that includes the following information…
- At least two questions for each reading Some weeks, this will be a chapter and two popular articles. Other times, it might be a chapter and a journal article. Either way, craft two questions for each reading. Your questions can be about the topic, theory or methods of the readings, or directed to me or the class about our experiences.
- Reflections—What did you think about the readings collectively? What was the most important thing you learned? What surprised you? What troubled you? What should organizations change about their practices, according to our readings? (A couple/few paragraphs here—make sure to address all of the readings)
- Current Event Connections—Develop connections between our set of readings and current events in the news. Example: Let’s say we read about gender and sexuality in the workplace, and you notice an article in the Sacramento Bee discussing the 2020 election and how gender influences voting. Write a paragraph or two discussing the connections and include a URL to the news article. (Note: “news” generally refers to magazines, newspapers, or TV shows that report a broad spectrum of news stories at local, national, or international levels such as NPR, BBC, Time Magazine, The Wall Street Journal, Sacramento Bee, or the New York Times). Current events connections should be recent, within the last few weeks.
QRC posts are due on Canvas on Mondays by 9 a.m. (note the syllabus calendar for any exceptions to this)
- Have your QRC assignments handy during class to aid discussion
- Note that your lowest three QRC scores will be dropped. On Canvas, there will be a tiny X in grey next to the dropped scores.
Formatting:
Use the categories above as headers. Make sure to be clear about where your information is coming from (author last name and year is fine) and include ALL of the readings unless stated otherwise in the week’s Module. (See formatting samples below, with an eye for format, not content or length!)
Format Examples
Article: Malvini Redden, S. (2020). Why In-N-Out is Terrible: A Treatise on Fast Food French Fries. Journal of Absolutely True Facts, 1, 22-30.
Questions:
- For the class—What your favorite fries and why?
- For the professor—How many fries did you have to eat to complete this research?
- How do you decide which fast food to get with your significant others?
Reflections:
In this article, I learned that despite the competition, McDonald’s fries are still the best fast food fries on the planet. While French fry technology has changed in the last 80 years, one company still stands supreme with the crunchiest, perfectly salty fries, according to recent research.
The author does not consider mom and pop restaurants. It concerns me that the author only considered major chain restaurants, emphasizing a certain French fry hegemony—that good fries only come from large corporate restaurants, when we know that isn’t necessarily true. Squeeze Inn, for instance, has excellent fries.
This article connects to past research about restaurants that we’ve read, including Malvini Redden’s work discussing how Popeye’s Spicy Chicken Sandwich is the King of Chicken Sandwiches, and how Jimboy’s tacos are the consistently best drive-thru tacos. (Adalberto’s are obviously excellent, but too). Malvini Redden uses participant observation methods to deeply understand fast food and makes important connections to ideas about customer satisfaction, convenience, and organizational identity, which we read about in week 2.
Current Events Connections:
This article connects to the newspaper piece, “Why Fast Food Restaurants Should Listen to Their Customers” by Sandra Smartypants, published in the New York Times on August 15, 2021. URL: www.newyorktimes/newstoriesimadeupjustnow.com (Links to an external site.) In this article, Smartypants (2020) elaborates on the troubles restaurants are facing in light of COVID-19, and how important it is for them to listen to their customers in order to stay in business.
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