Organizations 2nd Ed.

Cases, Issues, Concepts

Rob Paton, Rosalind Armson

Publisher: PCP, 1994, 256 pages

ISBN: 1-85396-280-5

Keywords: Organizational Development, Management

Last modified: July 22, 2021, 2:26 a.m.

Organizations are always more confusing in practice than in theory. They are much messier, more complex and more unpredictable than we hope. They reflect the people who work in and through them. But would a rational, unitary and goal-seeking organization, even if it existed, have the flexibility and creativity to respond to its bewildering environment? How can we understand organizations and the events that happen in them?

This book highlights some of the issues and tensions that arise in real organizations. The selected readings cover large and small organizations, and deal with concepts ranging from interpersonal to multi-organizational levels of analysis. Issues are generalizations of particular problem areas that Concepts will allow students to identify in their own experience. Cases illustrate particular issues and applications of the concepts.

This book is designed for use in introductory courses on management and organizations and is suitable for students who are not specializing in management.

  • Part 1: Cases
    1. Changing complex information systems: medical records at Anersley Hospital
      J. Berridge
    2. Banks of the War
      L. A. Walsh and R. Armson
    3. Information systems strategy: Royal Holdings respond to change
      S. Walnott
    4. IDAF: the International Defence and Aid Fund
      J. N. T. Martin
    5. Changes at Guy's Hospital
      L. A. Walsh
  • Part 2: Issues
    1. The Meaning and satisfaction of work: Working
      S. Terkel
    2. Skilling and deskilling: Engineers and the work that people do
      H. H. Rosenbrock
    3. Misunderstandings: Understanding problems and the problem of understanding
      C. Eden, S. Jones and D. Sims
    4. Equal opportunities: (a) But some are more equal than others (b) Cat in the hat
      R. Richard Ritti
    5. Managing technological change: The process of introducing information technology
      K. D. Eason
    6. Planning and strategy:
      (a) The challenge of corporate planning
      D. E. Hussey
      (b) Forecasting and planning: an evaluation
      R. M. Hogarth and S. Makridakis
      (c) The tactics of strategic opportunism
      D. J. Isenberg
  • Part 3: Concepts
    1. Interpersonal psychology: Personality dynamics and transactional analysis (TA)
      J. Martin
    2. Goals and decision-making
      (a) The analysis of goals in complex organizations
      C. Perrow
      (b) Lindblom on policy making
      A. O. Hirschman and C. E. Lindblom
      (c) Theories of choice and making decisions
      J. O. March
    3. Control: Sir Geoffrey Vickers
      D. S. Pugh, D. J. Hickson and C. R. Hinings
    4. Organizational structure: Organizational design: an information processing view
      J. R. Galbraith
    5. Power in organizations: Power visible and invisible
      R. Paton
    6. Leadership:
      (a) Harold Geneen at ITT
      G. Morgan
      (b) The American insurance company
      G. Morgan
      (c) Tao Te Ching: The way of subtle influence
      Lao Tzu (Translated by R. L. Wing)
      (d) The language of leadership
      C. B. Handy
      (e) Leadership roles
      Starhawk
    7. Organizational learning: Can organizations learn to learn?
      G. Morgan
    8. Organizational culture: The impact of organizational culture on approaches to organizational problem-solving
      P. Bate
    9. Interorganizational relations: Neither market nor hierarchy: network forms of organization
      W. W. Powell

Reviews

Organizations

Reviewed by Roland Buresund

Good ******* (7 out of 10)

Last modified: May 21, 2007, 3:16 a.m.

This is how a study guide about organisational theory should be written.

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