Focuses on a major philosopher who has had, or should have, a major influence on organization theory.

"This excellent, pioneering book is a must-read as we enter the new millennium." --David J. Farmer, State University of New York Comprehensive and timely, Postmodern Management and Organization Theory provides a critique of postmodern theory as it stands today. The text gives an overview of issues as they relate to management and organization theory and its history and assembles in one volume a variety of important works on postmodern philosophy--including feminist, cultural, and environmental philosophies. The contributors address the future of postmodern advancement in management and organization theory and method, establishing an agenda for future research. This thought-provoking book will be useful to scholars, researchers and upper-level students in organization theory, organization behavior and change, management, and industrial psychology.

Essential reading for all those concerned with contemporary theorizing of organization, this important and thought-provoking volume explores the implications of postmodernist/poststructuralist thinking for organizations and organizational analysis. The book introduces the concepts underpinning a postmodern organizational analysis, contrasting modern and postmodern forms of explanation and addressing the distinctions between postmodernity and postmodernism. Succeeding chapters then examine and assess the interplay of major postmodernist themes - such as deconstruction, desire, difference, pluralism and relativism - with key topics of organizational analysis and research. The final section is one of critique, as its authors variously argue that postmodernism fails adequately to address the realities of power, control and change in a globalizing world.

Understanding of the history and development of organization theory has recently made advances through work emerging on the history of management thought as well as through the institutionalization of critical approaches to organizations and organizational knowledge. This book provides a new reading of the historical development of organization.

Organization Theory offers a clear and comprehensive introduction to the study of organizations and organizing processes. It encourages an even-handed appreciation of the main perspectives defining our knowledge of organizations and challenges readers to broaden their intellectual reach. Organization Theory is presented in three parts: Part I introduces the reader to theorizing using the multi-perspective approach. Part II presents different core concepts useful for analysing and understanding organizations - as entities within an environment, as social structures, technologies, cultures and physical structures, and as the products of power and political processes. Part III explores applications of organization theory to the practical matters of organizational design and change, and introduces the latest ideas, including organizational identity theory, process and practice theories, and aesthetics. An Online Resource Centre accompanies this text and includes: For students: Multiple Choice Questions For registered adopters: Lecturer's guide PowerPoint slides Figures and tables from the book

In response to the needs of lecturers, the acclaimed Handbook of Organization Studies has been made available as two major paperback textbooks. In this, the first of a two-volume paperback edition of the landmark Handbook of Organization Studies, editors Stewart Clegg and Cynthia Hardy survey the field of organization studies. Studying Organization is an ideal textbook around which to build courses on organization theory and research methodology. Central to the enterprise has been a concern to reflect and honour the manifest diversity of the field, including recognition of the extent to which the very notion of a single field of organization studies is debated. Part One locates the study of organization by reviewing some of the most significant theoretical paradigms to have shaped our understanding. The second part reflects on the relationships between theory and research in organization studies.

2) How has organization theory developed over time, and what structure has the field taken? What assumptions does knowledge produced in organization theory incorporate, and what forms do its knowledge claims take as they are put forward for public adoption? 3) How have certain well-known controversies in organization theory, such as for example, the structure/agency dilemma, the study of organizational culture, the different modes of explanation, the micro/macro controversy, and the differnet explanations produced by organizational economists and sociologists, been dealt with? 4) How, and in what ways, is knowledge generated in organization theory related to action? What features must organization theory knowledge have in order to be actionable, and of relevance to the world 'out there'? How have ethical concerns been taken into account in organization theory? 5) What is the future of organization theory? What direction should the field take? What must change in the way research is conducted and key theoretical terms are conceptualized so that organization theory enhances its capacity to generate valid and relevant knowledge?