ABSTRACT
The organization studies field has, over its history, imported various responses to the problem of order, drawn from thinkers such as K. Marx, Weber and Parsons. Andrew Abbott argues that social theory has too long ignored abundance, and that examining how we manage excess can illuminate an array of social processes: many great problems of our era are problems of excess: massive pollution, sprawling suburbs, a glut of information. Returning to the sociological problem of order, Abbott’s suggestion is that organizing often involves translating excess into scarcity, as can be seen when organizations mandate leadership turnover, rely on vitality curves, categorize employees by race, or create demand for a small set of consumer goods amenable to the logic of the market. Robert Cooper’s explanation of zero degree is quite communicational: The excess of meaning derives from the undecidability of language. The chapter also presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in this book.
