Do scale and size matter for culture and action?
Event Title
International Interdisciplinary Conference: Advances in Comparative Culturology
Location
MBG06, Lam Woo Lecture Theatre, Patrick Lee Wan Keung Academic Building, Lingnan University
Start Date
16-5-2025 2:00 PM
End Date
16-5-2025 2:30 PM
Language
English
Description
How do people make choices about their actions? Broadly speaking, social scientific explanations tend to fall into two camps, emphasizing either individual decision-making or cultural/structural constraints. Scholars who examine organizational spheres offer a middle ground of sorts, focusing on the structure of relations among a set of actors and showing that individuals look to others in their organizational sphere to determine which actions lead to desirable outcomes. However, much of this work assumes that individuals operate within a single organizational sphere. Yet, in the contemporary world, many people are embedded in multiple spheres -- even within the same domain of activity -- each with distinct cultural and structural characteristics that shape how individuals obtain information about their cultural environment and make choices about their actions. This paper develops a theory of scalar variation in organizational spheres, arguing that spheres differ in both scale (from sub-national to supra-national) and size (from small to large), with significant consequences for how individuals navigate their social environments and make decisions. We propose a typology of organizational spheres based on these dimensions and explore how multi-scalar embeddedness influences action. By shifting the focus from fields as abstract structures to actors navigating organizational spheres with varying interpersonal dynamics, we build on and extend theories of fields to better account for how individuals make choices in complex social environments.
Document Type
Presentation
Recommended Citation
Leschziner, V. (2025, May 16). Do scale and size matter for culture and action? Presented at the International Interdisciplinary Conference: Advances in Comparative Culturology, Lingnan University, Hong Kong.
Do scale and size matter for culture and action?
MBG06, Lam Woo Lecture Theatre, Patrick Lee Wan Keung Academic Building, Lingnan University
How do people make choices about their actions? Broadly speaking, social scientific explanations tend to fall into two camps, emphasizing either individual decision-making or cultural/structural constraints. Scholars who examine organizational spheres offer a middle ground of sorts, focusing on the structure of relations among a set of actors and showing that individuals look to others in their organizational sphere to determine which actions lead to desirable outcomes. However, much of this work assumes that individuals operate within a single organizational sphere. Yet, in the contemporary world, many people are embedded in multiple spheres -- even within the same domain of activity -- each with distinct cultural and structural characteristics that shape how individuals obtain information about their cultural environment and make choices about their actions. This paper develops a theory of scalar variation in organizational spheres, arguing that spheres differ in both scale (from sub-national to supra-national) and size (from small to large), with significant consequences for how individuals navigate their social environments and make decisions. We propose a typology of organizational spheres based on these dimensions and explore how multi-scalar embeddedness influences action. By shifting the focus from fields as abstract structures to actors navigating organizational spheres with varying interpersonal dynamics, we build on and extend theories of fields to better account for how individuals make choices in complex social environments.
Additional Information
Speaker
Vanina LESCHZINER (University of Toronto, Canada)
Vanina Leschziner is an Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Toronto, and Affiliated Faculty at the Culinaria Research Centre at the University of Toronto. Her primary areas of interest are social theory, culture, cognition, evaluation, organizations, and creativity and innovation. Her book At the Chef's Table: Culinary Creativity in Elite Restaurants (Stanford University Press) analyzes the creative work and occupational careers of elite chefs to explain the social dynamics of cultural creation. Her current work includes a book manuscript titled Culture and Creativity (under contract with Polity Press), research on cognition and the senses, action in organizational fields, and social influence. Her research has been published in Annual Review of Sociology, Sociological Theory, Theory and Society, Social Psychology Quarterly, and Sociological Forum among other publications.