The chapters in this book showcase current sociological research, as undertaken both by established and budding social scientists in South Africa and Africa. The book covers a variety of topical themes, the first of which concerns the link between society, power and the environment, and how competing interests, whether these be corporate, legal, socio-ecological or environmentalist, relate to each. Another theme includes contributions on development, democracy and service delivery. Workplace change, resistance and well-being within the agricultural, manufacturing, mining and the service sector constitute a further central focus. The remaining theme addresses the interplay of race, class, gender and power within the context of specific topics, such as HIV/AIDS, tertiary education and minority groups. The collection of work presented in this book reflects a critical stance towards reification of roles, highlights contradictions between principles and practices in society, and underscores the complexity of societal issues on a broad range of contemporary themes. As such, the chapters are notable for their empirical richness and methodological pluralism, which are of interest to an interdisciplinary audience, whether scholars, professionals or practitioners.

Why is it so hard to make lasting changes in our companies, in our communities, and in our own lives? The primary obstacle is a conflict that's built into our brains, say Chip and Dan Heath, authors of the critically acclaimed bestseller Made to Stick. Psychologists have discovered that our minds are ruled by two different systems - the rational mind and the emotional mind—that compete for control. The rational mind wants a great beach body; the emotional mind wants that Oreo cookie. The rational mind wants to change something at work; the emotional mind loves the comfort of the existing routine. This tension can doom a change effort - but if it is overcome, change can come quickly. In Switch, the Heaths show how everyday people - employees and managers, parents and nurses - have united both minds and, as a result, achieved dramatic results: • The lowly medical interns who managed to defeat an entrenched, decades-old medical practice that was endangering patients • The home-organizing guru who developed a simple technique for overcoming the dread of housekeeping • The manager who transformed a lackadaisical customer-support team into service zealots by removing a standard tool of customer service In a compelling, story-driven narrative, the Heaths bring together decades of counterintuitive research in psychology, sociology, and other fields to shed new light on how we can effect transformative change. Switch shows that successful changes follow a pattern, a pattern you can use to make the changes that matter to you, whether your interest is in changing the world or changing your waistline.

This introduction to Chinese society uses the themes of resistance & protest to explore the complexity of life in contemporary China. It draws on perspectives from sociology, anthropology, psychology, history & political science, & covers issues including women, labour, ethnic conflict & suicide.

This book examines the important role which civil society organisations in South Africa play in challenging poor corporate governance in state-owned enterprises and demanding better government accountability, transparency and citizen participation. The book provides a powerful examination of the shortcomings in corporate governance in South Africa's state-owned enterprises, highlighting how civil society organisations, as citizen representatives, can push for change. It examines the legal provisions used by civil society organisations in South Africa to advance good corporate governance and accountability in state-owned enterprises. The book demonstrates the need for an enabling legal environment for civil society organisations to challenge poor governance in state-owned enterprises. Also critical is enforcing laws, so those responsible for poor corporate governance in SOEs are held accountable. The book will be useful to policy advisors, public servants and social justice activists, as well as to postgraduate students and researchers who are interested in African governance and accountability.

Entrepreneurship Development in the Balkans directly engages questions of innovation and risk management within various types of entrepreneurship, including female, social, migrant, and corporate entrepreneurship in the context of the Balkans.

Organization Development and Society: Theory and Practice of Organization Development Consulting offers a new approach for the practice of organization development (OD). The new approach, a habitus oriented OD (HOOD), sees consultees' thinking and behavior a result of habitus, a cognitive structure developed historically in endless interactions between human behavior and social structures. HOOD has two goals: The first goal is to redefine the objectives of individually oriented OD. The focus on habitus and social structure allows individually oriented OD scholars and practitioners to keep their subjective approach, which searches for consultees' inner world. However, this subjectivity searches not only for consultees' psychological but their social dispositions. It views the individual level, the habitus, as a site of social dispositions that from within the individual consultees generate thoughts and behaviors in a way that closely corresponds with the organization's social structure; with power relations and social positions and with accepted metaphors and common language. The HOOD links the concept of habitus to the field of OD and in so doing provides an alternative way to incorporate the individual and the social in OD. HOOD's second goal is to re/position OD between organizations and society and thus to produce a consulting practice that is both pragmatic and human. It is pragmatic since incorporation of habitus enables the consultant to liberate consultees' perspectives and behavior from the organization's social and structural hoops and to use these perspectives in processes of change and development. Considering the habitus as central to consulting projects is human since it enables consultants (and consultees) to identify the responsibility for organizational problems (and other phenomena) not only at the level of the individual but also at the level of the organization and the environment outside the organization.