Sociologists have shown that the presence of organizations shapes the integration of people and organizations across lines of difference. But extant studies of cities and neighborhoods conceal how organizational characteristics shape the production of two types of urban integration: social integration, creating social ties among constituents, and systemic integration, connecting constituents to institutional resources. We argue that organizations’ integrative practices are explained by the presence of suite-level expertise (“I know the system”) and street-level expertise (“I know the people”). Representative survey and interview data of San Francisco Bay Area nonprofits collected over 15 years shows that the institutional embeddedness of organizations shifts the attention from one form of expertise to another, thus undermining their propensity to produce both forms of integration. Bridging organizational and urban sociology, we challenge the stylized fact that nonprofits foster community and suggest an alternative understanding of how organizations are embedded in their urban environment. (co-authored with Krystal Laryea, Stanford University)

About the speaker:

Christof Brandtner is an organizational and economic sociologist, an Assistant Professor of Social Innovation at EM Lyon, and a Visiting Assistant Professor in HKU’s Faculty of Social Sciences for the month of April. He is also a senior research fellow at Stanford’s Civic Life of Cities Lab and a CIFAR Azrieli Global Scholar. His mixed-methods research examines how institutions and organizations shape how social innovations emerge, diffuse, and are implemented in cities. He received his PhD in sociology from Stanford in 2019.

Departmental Seminar - From Street Smarts To Org Charts: Professional Expertise And The Organizational Production Of Urban Integration

Date: 10 April, 2024

Time: 3:00pm - 4:00pm

Venue: CJT-9.29

Speaker: Professor Christof Brandtner

Registration: https://hkuems1.hku.hk/hkuems/ec_hdetail.aspx?ueid=93437