This broad, balanced introduction to organizational studies enables the reader to compare and contrast different approaches to the study of organizations. This book is a valuable tool for the reader, as we are all intertwined with organizations in one form or another. Numerous other disciplines besides sociology are addressed in this book, including economics, political science, strategy and management theory. Topic areas discussed in this book are the importance of organizations; defining organizations; organizations as rational, natural, and open systems; environments, strategies, and structures of organizations; and organizations and society. For those employed in fields where knowledge of organizational theory is necessary, including sociology, anthropology, cognitive psychology, industrial engineering, managers in corporations and international business, and business strategists.
This volume explores recent advances in network research, strengthening theorizing on social structures and meaning in and between organizational networks. The volume will interest researchers seeking to explain organizational phenomena through the analysis of communications and information from archival/secondary electronic sources.
Drawing on the wealth of insights into organizational life accumulated over the past few decades, this collection takes stock of the foundations of research in this area, examines the status of the current work and identifies future directions for the field. Topics covered include theoretical and methodological foundations; social capital; strong ties, weak ties and structural holes; small worlds/network structures; centrality and power; social networks of entrepreneurship; identity, cognition and individual differences in social networks; and network dynamics.
What fuels long-term business success? Not operational excellence, technology breakthroughs, or new business models, but management innovation—new ways of mobilizing talent, allocating resources, and formulating strategies. Through history, management innovation has enabled companies to cross new performance thresholds and build enduring advantages. In The Future of Management, Gary Hamel argues that organizations need management innovation now more than ever. Why? The management paradigm of the last century—centered on control and efficiency—no longer suffices in a world where adaptability and creativity drive business success. To thrive in the future, companies must reinvent management. Hamel explains how to turn your company into a serial management innovator, revealing: The make-or-break challenges that will determine competitive success in an age of relentless, head-snapping change. The toxic effects of traditional management beliefs. The unconventional management practices generating breakthrough results in “modern management pioneers.” The radical principles that will need to become part of every company’s “management DNA.” The steps your company can take now to build your “management advantage.” Practical and profound, The Future of Management features examples from Google, W.L. Gore, Whole Foods, IBM, Samsung, Best Buy, and other blue-ribbon management innovators.
Understanding Organizations: Theories and Images introduces students to the key principles of understanding, designing, and managing organizations in an accessible and practical way. The book provides a conceptual toolkit containing the essential models, theories and concepts needed for working in, managing and evaluating organizations. Key Features: Insightful anecdotes discuss how for- and not-for profit organizations fit within our current society from a social and economic perspective. Theoretical framework and multi-perspective approach focuses on economics, institutionalism and evolution theory highlighting the relationship between organizations, employees and the broader society. Research-focused approach analyses organizational phenomena in light of recent studies. This textbook is ideal for undergraduates and postgraduates studying general management, organizational theory, organizational design, and organizational sociology.
In Managing Organizations Stewart Clegg, Cynthia Hardy and Walter Nord explore the major issues and debates in management and organization. The textbook addresses key topics such as leadership, decision-making and innovation in organizations alongside such themes as diversity, globalization and ecology. Students and teachers of management will find this a comprehensive and wide-ranging resource on the core issues for contemporary managers and organizations.
`The authors should be congratulated for not only offering an excellent tour de force of cutting-edge work in social network analysis, but also charting some new possible territories for future organizational research′ - Environment and Planning Social Networks and Organizations provides a compact introduction to major concepts in the area of organizational social networks. The book covers the rudiments of methods, explores major debates, and directs attention to theoretical directions, including a vigorous critique of some taken-for-granted assumptions. The book is aimed at all of those who seek a lucid and lively treatment of social network approaches to organizational research, with a particular emphasis on the neglected area of interpersonal networks in organizations. In this book, Martin Kilduff and Wenpin Tsai offer new insights to those already familiar with network analysis, and motivate those interested in pursuing network research to embark on journeys of discovery. `This book is extremely timely. It provides a wonderful synthesis of the recently burgeoning literature in the area of organizations and social networks. It should be relevant at once for both the experienced network scholar as well as those entering this growing area′ - Ranjay Gulati, Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University `Martin Kilduff and Wenpin Tsai have done a marvellous job of not only reviewing and integrating the diverse streams of literatures on social networks, but also of showing the enormous potential of this research approach that still lies untapped. Overall, this book will prove to be an invaluable resource for interested graduate students as well as for established scholars in the field′ - Sumantra Ghoshal, Professor of Strategic and International Management, London Business School `Research on social networks is already one of the most vibrant areas of organizational inquiry. How can it possibly become any more so? This book by Kilduff and Tsai opens up many new avenues for network research and theory-building. Whether you′re newly-interested in social networks or a veteran of the topic, you will benefit from Kilduff and Tsai′s marvellous contribution′ - Donald C Hambrick, Smeal College of Business Administration, The Pennsylvania State University
The Communication Yearbook annuals publish diverse, state-of-the-discipline literature reviews that advance knowledge and understanding of communication systems, processes, and impacts across the discipline. Sponsored by the International Communication Association, each volume provides a forum for the exchange of interdisciplinary and internationally diverse scholarship relating to communication in its many forms. This volume re-issues the yearbook from 1987.
(Black & White version) Fundamentals of Business was created for Virginia Tech's MGT 1104 Foundations of Business through a collaboration between the Pamplin College of Business and Virginia Tech Libraries. This book is freely available at: http://hdl.handle.net/10919/70961 It is licensed with a Creative Commons-NonCommercial ShareAlike 3.0 license.
The integrated meta-model for organizational resource audit is a consistent and comprehensive instrument for auditing intangible resources and their relations and associations from the network perspective. This book undertakes a critically important problem of management sciences, poorly recognized in literature although determining the current and future competitiveness of enterprises, sectors and economies. The author notes the need to introduce a theoretical input, which is manifested by the meta-model. An expression of this treatment is the inclusion of the network as a structure of activities, further knowledge as an activity, and intangible assets as intellectual capital characterized by a structure of connections. The case study presented is an illustration of the use of network analysis tools and other instruments to identify not only the most important resources, tasks or actors, as well as their effectiveness, but also to connect the identified networks with each other. The author opens the field for applying her methodology, revealing the structural and dynamic features of the intangible resources of the organization. The novelty of the proposed meta-model shows the way to in-depth applications of network analysis techniques in an intra-organizational environment. Organizational Network Analysis makes a significant contribution to the development of management sciences, in terms of strategic management and more strictly resource approach to the company through structural definition of knowledge; application of the concept of improvement-oriented audit abandoning a narrow understanding of this technique in terms of compliance; reliable presentation of audits available in the literature; rigorous reasoning leading to the development of a meta-model; close linking of knowledge and resources with the strategy at the design stage of the developed audit model, including the analysis of link dynamics and networks together with an extensive metrics proposal; an interesting illustration of the application with the use of metrics, tables and charts. It will be of value to researchers, academics, managers, and students in the fields of strategic management, organizational studies, social network analysis in management, knowledge management, and auditing knowledge resources in organizations.
