Organizations are affected by and related to culture in multiple ways. The classical sociology of organiza-tions mainly asked whether differences in national culture affect hierarchies and forms of cooperation within organizations, how organizations develop their own organizational culture indepently of their en-vironment and how (culturally) diverse teams cooperate in comparison to more homogenous teams. Rese-arch in the sociology of organizations, however, has focused less on the question how organizations regu-late the cultural and religious diversity of their employees and clients. This class starts with a general intro-duction to some of the main concepts used by the sociology of organizations as well as by sociological re-search on cultural and religious difference. We will then review studies on organizations and national cul-ture, organizational culture and cultural and religious differences across employees. In a third step, we will discuss a number of recent studies that have been conducted in fields other than the sociology of organiza-tions. These studies show how public organizations such as prisons, schools, hospitals, administrations or the military deal with cultural and religious diversity in terms of organizational practices and regulations as well as ideas and legitimations. We will try to use our acquired knowledge to discuss the empirical findings of these studies in the light of the sociology of organizations.
- Lehrende/r: Ines Michalowski