The third volume in a series of three focuses on myth in everyday organizational life. The mythical narratives presented in this volume serve as metaphors of an organizational issue that can take inspiration from or be better understood through the myth to reveal an archetypal dimension of organizing and organizations.

This collection of essays demonstrates how novels are not only comparable, but often superior to the case histories used in business education. As many novelists have had personal experience of working in organizations, their work combines introspective insight with analytical skill.

Approaches to leadership and management are still dominated by prescriptions – usually claimed as scientific – for top executives to choose the future direction of their organization. The global financial recession and the collapse of investment capitalism (surely not planned by anyone) make it quite clear that top executives are simply not able to choose future directions. Despite this, current management literature mostly continues to avoid the obvious – management’s inability to predict or control what will happen in the future. The key question now must be how we are to think about management if we take the uncertainty of organizational life seriously. Ralph Stacey has turned to the sciences of uncertainty and complexity to develop an understanding of leadership and management as the ordinary politics of daily organizational life. In presenting organizations as a series of complex responsive processes, Stacey’s new book helps us to see organizational reality for what it actually is – human beings engaged in many, many local conversational interactions and power relations in which they negotiate their ideologically based choices. Organizational continuity and change emerge unpredictably, rather than as a result of any overall plan. This is a radically different picture from the one painted by most of the management literature, which explains "organizational continuity and change" as the realization of the global plans and choices of a few powerful executives within an organization. Providing a new foundation for understanding complexity and management, this important book is required reading for managers and leaders wanting to understand the reality of complexity in organizations, including those engaged in postgraduate studies in leadership, organizational behaviour and change management.

Written to introduce readers to the experiences people have in organizations, this book provides a reality-based perspective on the everyday happenings in organizations at all professional levels. With current and informative readings that provoke reflection and discussion, this book gives readers a real-world overview of organizational behavior from executive managerial levels to those of lower level participants. For professionals with a career in organizational behavior, management, business relations, organizational psychology, communications, public relations, education, and social work.

Providing a critique of the ways that complexity theory has been applied to understanding organizations, and outining a new direction, this book calls for a radical re-examination of management thinking.

This text describes and assesses the impact of restructuring and downsizing on both employees and companies. It presents case studies showing how organizations have successfully managed restructuring, and discusses principles and practices for revitalizing companies affected by restructuring.

Structure of the Book: The structure is logical and easy to use. The book begins with an introductory section (Part I) which describes and illustrates the Foundations of Organizational Behaviour. The book next discusses, in Part II, Individual Processes and Behaviour. It then moves, in Part III, to examine the interactions among individuals in Group Behaviour. Part IV discusses The Organization System and, finally, in Part V, the book presents Organizational Dynamics.Numerous up-to-date examples: Because many students have limited exposure to real organizations, the book contains recent examples from a broad spectrum of organizations to illustrate the major concepts and to help students apply the knowledge.Some Distinctive Pedagogical Features: Organizational Behaviour offers a number of distinctive, time tested and interesting features for students as well as new and innovative features. These features should facilitate the students' acquisition and retention of the material.v Learning objectives focus student attention on upcoming chapter content and show what happens to the manager or organization.v Cases at the end of the chapter provide students an opportunity to apply their knowledge in making managerial decisions and recommendations.v Numerous review and discussion questions follow each chapter. These questions are designed to enhance student learning and interest.