Focusing on service-providing organizations established by health and human service professionals in post-Communist Poland, this book adds a new dimension to the sociological study of voluntary organizations. The author investigates the motives and interests of the people who establish these organizations and the connections among organizational forms, the social organizations of production, and the occupational interests of professional service providers.

Inhalt

Preface. 1. Introduction. 2. What Is to Be Explained and Why? 3. Professional Aspirations to Class Power: A Comment on Civil Society in a Centrally Planned Economy. 4. Professional Innovation and Information Gap. 5. Organizations and Social Construction of Expert Commodity. 6. Organizations and Social Processing of Information. 7. Professional Service and Public Benefit Status. 8. Toward a Partial Theory of the Origins of Social Proximity Organizations. Appendix: Primary Data Sources and Methodological Notes. Bibliography. Index.