Recent ASR Articles on Organizations and Work

Both occupations and organizations are the subject of the latest version of the American Sociological Review (ASR), the flagship journal of our parent organization the American Sociological Association (ASA). The issue includes “Professional Role Confidence and Gendered Persistence in Engineering” (Erin Cech, Brian Rubineau, Susan Sibley, and Caroll Seron), which introduces the concept of professional role confidence to help explain the persistence of gender barriers in STEM professions. They argue that women have on average lower levels of confidence in their ability to fulfill professional roles. They find that women’s relative lack of professional role confidence explains some of the attrition of women from STEM occupations.

Also in the issue is Emilio Castilla’s article “Managerial Influences on Workplace Inequality.” Castilla uses longitudinal data to investigate the ways in which managers influence employee assessments in the workplace. He finds that a number of mechanisms, several of which have not been fully investigated in previous work, help explain the assessments managers make of employees.

Finally, Matt Marx discusses the role of non-compete clauses in “Non-compete Agreements and Mobility of Technical Professions.” He argues that this is a traditionally under investigated area in spite of data that suggests that over half of technical professionals are subject to such agreements. Non-compete agreements allow firms to take back a measure of control against increasing levels of professional mobility. Marx finds that individuals working under non-compete agreements are more likely to change professions when making a career move.

We encourage you to check out all three articles, which can be found on the ASR’s website.