In this lively and, ultimately, disturbing study of policy analysts who are employed in bureaucracies, the author finds a startling paradox. The analysts know that the papers they so painstakingly prepare will not be used; as one analyst remarked, "Either it won't get done in time, or it won't be good enough, or the person who wanted it done will have left and no one will know what to do with it, or the issue will no longer exist." Yet the analysts continue to work at producing these papers. The means of producing information is at the heart of the paradox. The process systematically produces information that is difficult to use directly in decision-making. Yet analysts can do little to alter the constraints of the process. They continue to produce papers because it is their job, they value doing it, and it is their major means of influencing policy. In so doing they make a unique, though indirect, contribution to policy making. Drawing on eighteen months of observation and participation in the work of the policy office of the U.S. Department of Energy, the author fully investigates the conditions that create the paradox and the positive as well as the negative implications of the process of information production in organizations.

Contains an Open Access chapter. As organizations become increasingly distributed and diverse, and products, technologies and services more complex and dispersed, there is mounting pressure to understand how work can be coordinated across geographical, cultural and intellectual distance, both within and across organizations. As a result, questions arise about how work is accomplished through organizational practices and routines and in particular how patterns of actions are replicated and transformed across different contexts and over time. Routine dynamics has started to explore these dynamics by focusing attention on how routines (as practices) are enacted and, thus, created and re-created over time and across organizational locations through the actions of people and machines. This book explores central themes in the enactment and coordination of organizational routines, drawing in particular on in-depth case studies and empirically-grounded theorizing. The chapters explore important organizational phenomena in the areas of strategy, entrepreneurship, human resources, health care, social policy, and the arts. Focusing in particular on four central themes in routine dynamics: replication and transfer; ecology and interdependence; action and the generation of novelty and technology and sociomateriality.

Over the last two decades, Routine Dynamics has emerged as an international research community that shares a particular approach to organizational phenomena. At the heart of this approach is an interest in examining the emergence, reproduction, replication and change of routines as recognizable patterns of actions. In contrast to other research communities interested in those phenomena, Routine Dynamics studies are informed by a distinctive set of theories (especially practice theory and related process-informed theories). This Handbook offers both an accessible introduction to core concepts and approaches in Routine Dynamics as well as a comprehensive and authoritative overview of research in different areas of Routine Dynamics. The chapters of this Handbook are structured around four core themes: 1) Theoretical resources for research on the dynamics of routines, 2) Methodological issues in studying the dynamics routines, 3) Themes in Routine Dynamics research and 4) Relation of Routine Dynamics to other communities of thought.

"Reconstructing Reality in the Courtroom" explains what makes stories believable and how ordinary people connect complex legal arguments and evidence presented in trials to assess guilt and innocence. The explanation takes the core elements of narrative-the who, what, where, when, how, why-and shows how average people who hear hundreds of stories every day use the connections between these elements to assess credibility.

A series of simple experiments outside the courtroom provides evidence for the explanation, showing that there is little relationship between the actual truth of a story and the degree to which the story is believed to be true by an audience of random listeners not familiar with the teller. So, how do jurors make a particular legal judgment? Based on courtroom observation, trial transcripts, and credibility experiments, Bennett and Feldman create a method of diagramming stories that shows exactly what makes some stories more believable than others. Prosecutors and defense attorneys can use this method of analyzing stories to weigh the strategies and tactics available to them; scholars can use it to assess the process of legal judgment.

Now in its Second Edition, this much-cited resource adds a new preface by the authors, as well as new forewords from divergent perspectives. From his experience in law practice, William S. Bailey notes that the authors "adapt a broad structural framework of storytelling to the criminal trial context, making it come alive in the dynamic real world courtroom environment." Law-and-society scholar Anna-Maria Marshall writes that the book's "emphasis on storytelling will resonate with scholars studying legal consciousness, where narrative plays an important theoretical and methodological role. ... This new edition will be a welcome addition to the Law and Society community."

""Reconstructing Reality in the Courtroom "is as timely as it was when this classic was first published. Here Bennett and Feldman provide great insight into the importance of storytelling as a basis of justice in American criminal trials. It deserves very wide readership." - Elizabeth F. Loftus Distinguished Professor, University of California, Irvine Author, "Eyewitness Testimony "(1996)

"This classic law and society study on the power of legal stories is a rich and compelling empirical analysis of the dynamics of story construction in trials. The book remains an essential resource for law students, litigators, academics, and any others who wish to understand the interpretive significance of the stories told in the courtroom." - Jeannine Bell Professor of Law and Neizer Faculty Fellow, Indiana University Maurer School of Law - Bloomington Author, "Hate Thy Neighbor" (2013)

Part of the" Classics of Law & Society" Series from Quid Pro Books.

"Presented in a clear, understandable format, this book provides a broad . . . comparative starting point for researchers considering various techniques for interpreting data."

--Choice

Analyzing and interpreting the mounds of notes you have accumulated from the field can be daunting tasks. Sometimes it?s unclear which analytic strategy will best answer the questions that first drew you into the field in the first place. This brief volume outlines four key interpreting strategies for dealing with qualitative data: ethnomethodology, semiotics, dramaturgical analysis, and deconstruction. The author examines the strengths and weaknesses of each strategy and shows you when to use them. In addition, each technique is applied to a single data set to illustrate potential differences in results. Strategies for Interpreting Qualitative Data is an ideal tool for teaching students to analyze and interpret qualitative data. Professionals involved in qualitative methods, sociology, anthropology, and nursing will find assistance in this volume.