William Charles

Education

• PhD Sociology - Boston College
• MA Sociology - Boston College
• BA Sociology - Westminster College

Dr. Charles' research interests include economic and organizational sociology, sociology of work, social movements, and social theory.

His research has focused on efforts at organizational change and innovation as well as how people experience and understand the labor process. He is currently working on several studies exploring status dynamics in collaborative workplace environments, as well as dimensions of labor control on for-profit gig economy platforms.

Dr. Charles has published research on the efforts of management consultants and healthcare administrators as they adapted and deployed a management model developed by Toyota to the context of healthcare work. He has also published a research on a variety of "new economy" and "digital economy" organizations, such as a multi-purpose production facility, popularly known as a makerspace, as well as two on-demand labor platforms, Postmates and Favor, which use software to match couriers with deliveries. He recently collaborated on a book, After the Gig: How the Sharing Economy Got Hijacked and How to Win it Back, with Juliet B. Schor and a team of researchers at Boston College, which was published in September of 2020.

He teaches undergraduate courses in sociology and organizational leadership including Social Problems, Economy and Society, Formal Organizations, and Research Methods.

Teaching and/or Research Interests

Economic and organizational sociology