ESSAI - HOW FAR IS A SOCIOLOGY OF ORGANIZATIONS STILL NEEDED

Any scientific discipline experiences a life cycle. As a specific disc ipline, the sociology of organizations may well have reached a stage o f maturity and entered a declining return of the knowledge process. Th is is clearly the case with what might be called its standard platform or agenda of research. A major change in recent years has been the em ergence of an extended platform or domain. This raises the question: D oes this emergence renew the core identity of the discipline or does i t dilute the sociology of organizations as a specific discipline? This essai discusses the ambiguity of such a redefinition of the domain gr ound. It also calls for a more solid and interactive dialogue between general sociology and sociology dealing with organizations.