Historically considered a "gift" from an other-worldly source, today creativity is championed by politicians and business leaders for its economic value. Yet we know relatively little about how people and ideas come to be viewed as creative in real-world business organizations. In this dissertation, I examine the social process of recognizing creativity through an investigation of a quintessential creative industry--advertising. Using a mixed methodological approach, I draw on original data collected through a survey of a probability sample of U.S. advertising agencies, semi-structured interviews with survey respondents, and several months of participant observation in an agency. I find that social exclusion shapes the recognition of creativity in these ostensibly open and tolerant sectors of the labor market. Socioeconomic status and gender affect occupational entry and advancement through evaluations that rely on familiarity with high-status culture and identity characteristics that match artistic stereotypes to signal creativity. Additionally, the assessment of creative work itself is used as a form of boundary work to exclude those outside the profession from making contributions considered creative. Taken together, this dissertation suggests that although creativity has been widely heralded as a force for expanding opportunity and social progress, inequality plays an enduring role in the formation and maintenance of this workforce.

This study focuses on video game developers and their working environments in a growth industry. While some research documents the culture of video games and the people who play them, much less is understood about the labor environment for those who make games. I conducted 20 personal interviews with game developers in order to learn more about what inspired them to select this field, how they gained entry to it, and what their work is like today. Using insights from the interviews, I analyze how workers contend with its male-dominated culture and how creative skilled laborers deal with the challenges of corporate control and precarious work in the new economy.

This project examines the professional experiences of women of color faculty to uncover less visible mechanisms of inequality in the academy. It is a mixed-methods study with both qualitative and quantitative components. I address the limitations of past research by revealing how even despite the relative successes of women of color in academia, they continue to struggle daily with professional legitimacy and belonging. My main research question is: How do women of color faculty at selected public research universities engage with discourses and practices of professionalism? Professionalism refers to the taken-for-granted and seemingly neutral norms that guide workers in various institutions and organizations such as the university. Researchers have found that professionalization is both a gendered and raced process, where "doing" professionalism often requires one to perform both masculinity and whiteness. Professionalism only recently has been given attention in the literature regarding minorities' experiences of work, but little has been written about either the unique experiences of women of color or how professionalism functions at the university. Ultimately, this dissertation research uncovers two major paradoxes for women of color in relation to discourses of professionalism: first, although women of color are increasingly being incorporated into universities, specifically to fulfill the rhetoric of inclusion, they are structurally denied legitimacy as scholars and educators due to the fixed and immutable norms of professionalism. Second and related, although women of color faculty often successfully signal professionality through vigilant control of their dress, emotions, and demeanor, they nevertheless fail to garner professional legitimacy due the systemic invalidation of their professional priorities. / Sociology

From the socio-economic turmoil of the 20th century, Japan has repeatedly revealed its resilience. During these trying times, scientific work has been an important element in Japan's economic development. However, the 1990s revealed weaknesses in this “economic miracle.” During this period, several socio-structural factors have contributed to this social landscape. Future successes in Japanese socio-economic spheres will partially depend on scientific work. In this study, it is suggested that identifying structural factors in the Japanese “system” that contribute to its scientific organizations is key to ascertaining a more coherent assessment of scientific work in Japan. This assessment can lead to more in depth analyses of the interconnections between science and society. The focus of this study is on scientific institutes and their organizational structure. The social networks that interconnect these institutes and couple their scientific work with other elements of Japanese culture are essential in the analysis of Japan's scientific enterprise. In the present study, a qualitative case study methodology is used to explore socio-structural networks within the cultural field of scientific work in Tsukuba, Japan. The structure of scientific work in Japan is composed of several cultural and material elements which have been distilled into two themes for evaluative purposes. These themes include cultural factors and scientific production/economic affairs. Through a reflexive-thematic lens an analysis of scientific work is conducted. Central to the method used in this study is a series of structured and un-structured in-person interviews using a format of open-ended questions. Most informants in this study were chosen by administrators of the institutes involved. Although, I did participate in assuring diversity in the sample, there is possible bias inherent in management's choices of particular informants. These interviews were held during the month of October 2002 in five separate university and non-university institutes in Tsukuba, Japan. The findings in this study reveal common, contradictory and idiosyncratic aspects that have important cultural and scientific/economic effects across organizational types. Common attributes include the observation of universal “top-down” organizational hierarchies with networks of labor being accumulated through elite scientists. Generally, informants perceived little to no effect from the national economy on their particular institute's funding of science. Scientists spent an extraordinary amount of time at work and conducted highly specialized work tasks. The publishing activity concentrated among elite scientists while utilization of foreign scientists and contingent workers were segregated. Also, the use of tacit knowledge as a principal training tool was universally observed across institutes. Contradictory attributes include scientists' attitudes toward their work versus the city they live in, government policy versus actual laboratory work, and publishing versus conference presentations. The idiosyncratic attributes focus on levels of organizational formality across organizations. The organizational formality is related to the individual scientists' perceptions of what they enjoyed most about their work. Thus, scientists that enjoyed the 'processes' of their work tended to be located in more formal organizations whereas those scientists who enjoyed “discovery” were situated in less formal organizations. It is likely that the different levels of organizational formality observed in this study are associated with other elements of laboratory culture. Also, the composition of foreigners and women varied remarkably across institutes. Yet, their use in laboratories is relatively similar. / Ph. D.