People who strive to set things in motion within corporations and organizations, be it as managers or consultants, encounter stubborn resistance. Even though new strategies have been adopted, the desired changes do not materialize. A reorganization that was intended to finally produce clarity, creates only a new round of confusion. Wolfgang Schnelle, co-founder of the consulting firm Metaplan, learned from four decades of experience in the field that it pays to think of organizations and strategy within the context of opinions, interests, and power and trust relationships. His approach draws on organizational sociology and helps to shed light on the diverse realities of the players involved. If anything is to be accomplished, these realities must be moved toward convergence. Organizational and strategy consultants using a discursive approach think of themselves as leaders of processes that create shared understanding. This approach allows them to spot resistance early and overcome it through argumentation and discourse. New and often surprising opportunities for action emerge. The new concepts can then be implemented faster, because thought processes have taken place in the minds of those who will subsequently perform the actions.
The critical concern of the book “Utopia Computer” is the euphoria, expectation and hope inspired by the introduction of computers within architecture in the early digital age. With the advent of the personal computer and the launch of the Internet in the 1990s, utopian ideals found in architectural discourse from the 1960s were revisited and adjusted to the specific characteristics of digital media. Taking the 1990s discourse on computation as a starting point, the contributions of this book grapple with the utopian promises associated with topics such as participation, self-organization, and non-standard architecture. By placing these topics in a historical framework, the book offers perspectives for the future role computation might play within architecture and society. Die Publikation „Utopie Computer“ thematisiert die Euphorie und die Erwartungen, die mit der Einführung des Computers in der Architektur im frühen digitalen Zeitalter verbunden sind. Mit dem Aufkommen des Personal Computers und der kommerziellen Nutzung des Internets in den 1990er Jahren werden utopische Ideen, die bereits den Architekturdiskurs der 1960er Jahre prägten, aufgegriffen und an die spezifischen Möglichkeiten der digitalen Medien angepasst. Ausgehend vom Diskurs eines computer-basierten Entwerfens der 1990er Jahre setzen sich die Beiträge dieses Buches mit Entwurfskonzepten der Nachkriegszeit auseinander. Es werden Themen wie Partizipation, Selbstorganisation oder Non-Standard-Architektur in einen historischen Kontext gesetzt und Perspektiven für die zukünftige Rolle des Computers in der Architektur und Gesellschaft entwickelt.
Management consultants of various kinds play an important role in the world of business, and within other types of organization. The Oxford Handbook on Management Consulting is a comprehensive overview of thinking and research on management consultancy with contributions from leading international scholars. The first section provides an account of the historical developments in management consulting research, and how current thinking has evolved from prior work. The second section focuses on disciplinary and theoretical perspectives, their diversities, areas of synergy, and parallel concerns. The following sections examine consulting as a knowledge business, consultants and management fashion, and the relationship between management consultants and their clients. The Handbook concludes with an assessment of areas of future research and debate. By bringing together a wide range of research and thinking on management consulting across different disciplines, sub-disciplines, and conceptual approaches, the Handbook provides a comprehensive understanding of both current thinking and future directions for research.
Discourse-based approaches to studying organizations have grown in significance over the last 25 years. This accessible and insightful book exemplifies how to use a discursive approach to study organizations. By drawing on her own empirical research, Cynthia Hardy aligns key theoretical assumptions with a range of case studies to demonstrate the value and adaptability of a discursive approach.
Examining some of the new and emerging issues in strategic management, Loizos Heracleous offers a fresh approach to the established ideas of strategy. Beginning with the historical development of the strategy field, including the influence of industrial organisation and the resource-based view, he develops a new perspective labelled an 'organisational action' view of strategy. This approach is theoretically underlain by organisation theory and takes seriously such issues as the role of agency, the need for a longitudinal focus on process, the complexities of strategy implementation, and organisational facets such as strategic choice, organisational culture, organisational discourses and learning. Combining theoretical subtlety with an applied orientation, Heracleous examines topical areas such as corporate governance, inter-organisational networks, and organising for the future. With original research and extensive surveys of the strategy literature, combined with a strong practical orientation, this book is ideal for MBA students, strategy researchers and the more thoughtful practitioner.
The tenth volume in the Research on Management Consulting series—Client–Consultant Collaboration: Coping with Complexity and Change—draws on papers presented at the Academy of Management’s Management Consulting Division International Conference on this theme in Copenhagen, Denmark in June 2007. The volume presents twelve chapters that explore a broad range of questions and concerns that illustrate the scope and complexity of the consultant–client relationship. The chapters illustrate the richness and excitement that takes place not only in research on consulting but also in its application as the various empirical analyses of consulting in practice portray.
Organizations change. They grow, they adapt, they evolve. The effects of organizational change are important, varied and complex and analyzing and understanding them is vital for students, academics and researchers in all business schools. The Routledge Companion to Organizational Change offers a comprehensive and authoritative overview of the field. The volume brings together the very best contributors not only from the field of organizational change, but also from adjacent fields, such as strategy and leadership. These contributors offer fresh and challenging insights to the mainstream themes of this discipline. Surveying the state of the discipline and introducing new, cutting-edge themes, this book is a valuable reference source for students and academics in this area.
. . . the four books comprising the series would certainly be a valuable addition to any entrepreneurship library. However, each book also stands alone as an individual purchase. Lorraine Warren, International Journal of Entrepreneurial Behaviour and Research The book delivers what it promises: a map of the uses of narrative methods in entrepreneurship studies. It is both an interesting contribution to the field and an important methodological handbook for all entrepreneurship researchers who are thinking of adopting qualitative methods in their inquiries. However, it may also be read with advantage by other researchers using ethnography as their main methodological approach to social studies. . . The aim of the book is to show how narratives can enrich entrepreneurship studies, a goal that in my opinion is aptly fulfilled. Monika Kostera, Scandinavian Journal of Management . . . the contributors in this text breathe fresh and imaginative linguistic resources and narrative/discursive frames of reference into the inquiry of entrepreneurial activities. The anecdote, the narrative, the metaphorical, the discursive and the dramaturgical are significant therefore, not only because they bring to the surface voices, emotions, processes and the relationality of (everyday) entrepreneurial activity that have possibly been previously silenced. But also, to paraphrase Steyaert, these approaches highlight the controversial and interactive aspects of the research process. . . The text is welcome because it treats narrative in a serious and scholarly way. Denise Fletcher, International Small Business Journal In their edited book Narrative and Discursive Approaches in Entrepreneurship, Daniel Hjorth and Chris Steyaert provide a fascinating glimpse into a perspective on entrepreneurship that will be enlightening for many readers. Entrepreneurship authors typically talk about theory, methods, and data as if a straight-forward linear process united them all, and making sense of entrepreneurship was simply a matter of knowing how to interpret one s findings . By contrast, the authors in this volume propose narrative and discursive approaches in which the contributing authors emphasize rich description, reflexive conceptualization, and interpretations offered as part of the story itself. They draw upon an international set of cases, including Russia, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Venezuela, and North America. The cases themselves make for fascinating reading, quite apart from what we learn about the difficulties of imposing a particular interpretation on a given story. For example, taxi drivers in Caracas, management consultants in Denmark, and women entrepreneurs in northern Norway all make for fascinating narratives from which to understand the entrepreneurial process. Unlike many edited books which have no plot , the editors have included opening and closing sections that link the chapters, offer alternative readings of them, and propose new and expansive ways of thinking about entrepreneurship. Howard Aldrich, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, US Daniel Hjorth and Chris Steyaert set out to advance the study of entrepreneurship by refocusing the lens of discovery from economics, management and marketing to other paradigmatic stances in social sciences and humanities like anthropology and literary studies. The result is a provocative collection of chapters that inspire the reader to consider and explore new ideas and research practice that incorporate both the context and place of entrepreneurship. From the perceptive insights of the editors to the rigorous and provocative discourse of the chapters and thoughtful responses in the conclusion emerges a story, in the best of storytelling tradition, about how a linguistic turn can rouse new insights. The editors ask, how do these texts move you? they entice, provoke, challenge, stimulate and guide. Their implications should be far reaching and required reading for any student of t
This major work from renowned scholars in the field, analyzes the role of language and symbolic media and shows how this enables us to move to new levels of understanding of contemporary organizational issues. An introductory chapter examines the role and growing importance of discourse in the study of organizations. It critically evaluates the contributions of various disciplines and defines organizational discourse as a subject area. The chapters in the first section, Talk and Action, explore the relationship between discourse, action and interaction and their impact on organizational structure and behaviour. Stories and Sensemaking focuses on the analytical potential of the `story' as a means of illuminating the ways in
*Shortlisted for the CMI Management Book of the Year* Practicing Strategy is a groundbreaking new textbook focusing on the strategy-as-practice approach, which considers strategy not only as something an organisation has but something which its members do. Practicing Strategy is a groundbreaking new textbook focusing on the strategy-as-practice approach, which considers strategy not only as something an organisation has but something which its members do. is a groundbreaking new textbook focusing on the strategy-as-practice approach, which considers strategy not only as something an organisation has but something which its members do. By bringing together a number of distinctive investigations of strategy practice, this book will enrich your understanding of the dynamic process through which organizational strategies are created and executed. Key features: The first textbook to be based on insights from the strategy-as-practice perspective, making it an ideal core text for related modules Packed with real-life mini case studies and a final section containing longer cases from Apple, Centrica, Marconi, Lafarge and Wikimedia, relating theory to practice Chapters include learning objectives, summaries, discussion questions and further readings and a Companion Website contains additional online readings, to consolidate your learning and encourage in-depth analysis. Practicing strategy is an invaluable text for undergraduate and postgraduate students of advanced strategy modules. Electronic Inspection Copy available for instructors here Visit the Companion Website at www.sagepub.co.uk/paroutis
