Complexity And Organizational Reality

Author : Ralph D. Stacey
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 264 pages
File Size : 43,8 Mb
Release : 2009-12-18
Category : Business & Economics
ISBN : 9781135188665

Get Book

Complexity and Organizational Reality by Ralph D. Stacey Pdf

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.

Author : Ralph D. Stacey
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 264 pages
File Size : 42,6 Mb
Release : 2009-12-18
Category : Business & Economics
ISBN : 9781135188672

Get Book

Complexity and Organizational Reality by Ralph D. Stacey Pdf

Offers an alternative way of thinking about management that is based on the management experience of uncertainty.

Author : Ralph D. Stacey,Douglas Griffin,Patricia Shaw
Publisher : Psychology Press
Page : 242 pages
File Size : 40,8 Mb
Release : 2000
Category : Business & Economics
ISBN : 0415247616

Get Book

Complexity and Management by Ralph D. Stacey,Douglas Griffin,Patricia Shaw Pdf

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.

Author : William H. Starbuck
Publisher : OUP Oxford
Page : 644 pages
File Size : 43,9 Mb
Release : 2006-04-27
Category : Business & Economics
ISBN : 9780191537158

Get Book

Organizational Realities by William H. Starbuck Pdf

William H. Starbuck is one of the most creative, productive, and wide-ranging writers in management and organization studies. His work spans three decades and encompasses a whole variety of issues, yet it has never been collected together in one place. This book does just that - bringing together his most seminal writings, prefaced by a personal reflection on some of the themes and conclusions of that emerge from this, and the context in which they were written. What emerges from this is a picture of organizations and their strategies that emphasizes the characteristics of real-life human beings: their idiosyncratic preferences, their distrust for each other, their struggele for dominance, their personal interests which don't always coincide with the interests of the organization, and the internal politicking and contests between interest groups that take place in organizations. Some chapters review research literature, some report empirical findings, some propose conceptual reformulations, and some offer advice to managers. This book will be a unique guide to the work of an influential thinker in management and organization studies, and will be of interest to academics, researchers, and students of management, strategy, and organization studies.

Author : Chris Mowles
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 182 pages
File Size : 43,7 Mb
Release : 2015-03-24
Category : Business & Economics
ISBN : 9781317550358

Get Book

Managing in Uncertainty by Chris Mowles Pdf

The reality of everyday organizational life is that it is filled with uncertainty, contradictions and paradoxes. Yet leaders and managers are expected to act as though they can predict the future and bring about the impossible: that they can transform themselves and their colleagues, design different cultures, choose the values for their organization, be innovative, control conflict and have inspiring visions. Whilst managers will have had lots of experiences of being in charge, they probably realise that they are not always in control. So how might we frame a much more realistic account of what’s possible for managers to achieve? Many managers are implicitly aware of their messy reality, but they rarely spend much time reflecting on what it is that they are actually doing. Drawing on insights from the complexity sciences, process sociology and pragmatic philosophy, Chris Mowles engages directly with some principal contradictions of organizational life concerning innovation, culture change, conflict and leadership. Mowles argues that if managers proceed from the expectation that organizational life as inherently uncertain, and interactions between people are complex and often paradoxical, they start noticing different things and create possibilities for acting in different ways. Managing in Uncertainty will be of interest to practitioners, advanced students and researchers looking at management and organizational studies from a critical perspective.

Author : Ralph D. Stacey
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 241 pages
File Size : 51,5 Mb
Release : 2002-01-04
Category : Business & Economics
ISBN : 9781134538973

Get Book

Complexity and Management by Ralph D. Stacey Pdf

Complexity theory is generating increasing interest amongst strategic thinkers. This fascinating book covers issues such as predictability, creativity and relationships as it considers how complexity, and its central principles of emergence and self-organization, are being used to understand organizations. The book: introduces the variety of views put forward by different writers on complexity and management outlines and critiques the way that complexity theory is frequently interpreted purely in the context of systems thinking draws a new perspective on using complexity sciences to understand organizational stability and change by focusing on the emergence of novelty and creativity in the course of everyday processes calls for a radical re-examination of management thinking. Timely and controversial, Complexity and Management is essential reading for anyone interested in strategy, systems thinking, organization and management theory, and organizational change.

Author : Stig O. Johannessen
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 124 pages
File Size : 46,6 Mb
Release : 2022-03-03
Category : Business & Economics
ISBN : 9781000590838

Get Book

Complexity in Organizations by Stig O. Johannessen Pdf

Written with pace and clarity, this book is a comprehensive and compact overview and introduction to the research landscape of complexity in organizations. In addition to conveying a gripping history of how complexity has influenced organizational ideas, theories, and practices throughout the 20th century and into our present age, the book sheds light on how ground-breaking ideas in chaos and complexity research have emerged and challenged the very foundations of science into a changed vision of nature, society, and human organizations. As well as being an exciting investigation into complexity research in organizations, the book shows how, in the past, researchers who were immersed in the power politics of their day grappled with the theme of complexity in their quest to understand the dynamics of organization in nature and society. By welding fundamental theoretical themes and practical implications into the political and social contexts in which they emerged, this overview provides both depth and breadth to the history, as well as the future, of studies of complexity in organized activity. The book is a lucid and essential study of a topic that will be of interest to scholars, researchers, and students in the fields of business and management, especially those with an interest in the ways that complexity affects and transforms organizations.

Author : Robert R. Janes
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 448 pages
File Size : 47,8 Mb
Release : 2013-05-29
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9781135958145

Get Book

Museums and the Paradox of Change by Robert R. Janes Pdf

Museums throughout the world are under increasing pressure in the wake of the 2008/2009 economic recession and the many pressing social and environmental issues that are assuming priority. The major focus of concern in the global museum community is the sustainability of museums in light of these pressures, not to mention falling attendance and the challenges of the digital world. Museums and the Paradox of Change provides a detailed account of how a major Canadian museum suffered a 40 percent loss in its operating budget and went on to become the most financially self-sufficient of the ten largest museums in Canada. This book is the most detailed case study of its kind and is indispensable for students and practitioners alike. It is also the most incisive published account of organizational change within a museum, in part because it is honest, open and reflexive. Janes is the first to bring perspectives drawn from complexity science into the discussion of organizational change in museums and he introduces the key concepts of complexity, uncertainty, nonlinearity, emergence, chaos and paradox. This revised and expanded third edition also includes new writing on strengthening museum management, as well as reflections on new opportunities and hazards for museums. It concludes with six ethical responsibilities for museum leaders and managers to consider. Janes provides pragmatic solutions grounded in a theoretical context, and highlights important issues in the management of museums that cannot be ignored.

Author : Banerjee, Santo
Publisher : IGI Global
Page : 449 pages
File Size : 44,8 Mb
Release : 2012-11-30
Category : Business & Economics
ISBN : 9781466625105

Get Book

Chaos and Complexity Theory for Management: Nonlinear Dynamics by Banerjee, Santo Pdf

Although chaos theory refers to the existence between seemingly random events, it has been gaining the attention of science, technology and managements fields. The shift from traditional procedures to the dynamics of chaos and complexity theory has resulted in a new element of complexity thinking, allowing for a greater capability for analyzing and understanding key business processes. Chaos and Complexity Theory for Management: Nonlinear Dynamics explores chaos and complexity theory and its relationship with the understanding of natural chaos in the business environment. Utilizing these theories aids in comprehending the development of businesses as a complex adaptive system.

Author : Patricia Shaw
Publisher : Psychology Press
Page : 214 pages
File Size : 40,5 Mb
Release : 2002
Category : Business & Economics
ISBN : 0415249147

Get Book

Changing Conversations in Organizations by Patricia Shaw Pdf

Focusing on the essential uncertainty of participating in evolving events as they happen, this book considers the creative possibilities of such participation from a complexity perspective.

Author : Kurt A. Richardson
Publisher : IAP
Page : 593 pages
File Size : 51,6 Mb
Release : 2005-06-01
Category : Business & Economics
ISBN : 9781607524694

Get Book

Managing Organizational Complexity by Kurt A. Richardson Pdf

Author : David Byrne,Gillian Callaghan
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 310 pages
File Size : 52,7 Mb
Release : 2013-09-11
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9781134084913

Get Book

Complexity Theory and the Social Sciences by David Byrne,Gillian Callaghan Pdf

For the past two decades, ‘complexity’ has informed a range of work across the social sciences. There are diverse schools of complexity thinking, and authors have used these ideas in a multiplicity of ways, from health inequalities to the organization of large scale firms. Some understand complexity as emergence from the rule-based interactions of simple agents and explore it through agent-based modelling. Others argue against such ‘restricted complexity’ and for the development of case-based narratives deploying a much wider set of approaches and techniques. Major social theorists have been reinterpreted through a complexity lens and the whole methodological programme of the social sciences has been recast in complexity terms. In four parts, this book seeks to establish ‘the state of the art’ of complexity-informed social science as it stands now, examining: the key issues in complexity theory the implications of complexity theory for social theory the methodology and methods of complexity theory complexity within disciplines and fields. It also points ways forward towards a complexity-informed social science for the twenty-first century, investigating the argument for a post-disciplinary, ‘open’ social science. Byrne and Callaghan consider how this might be developed as a programme of teaching and research within social science. This book will be particularly relevant for, and interesting to, students and scholars of social research methods, social theory, business and organization studies, health, education, urban studies and development studies.

Author : Ralph Stacey
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 276 pages
File Size : 50,5 Mb
Release : 2003-09-02
Category : Business & Economics
ISBN : 9781134535187

Get Book

Complex Responsive Processes in Organizations by Ralph Stacey Pdf

The past decade has seen increasing focus on the importance of information and knowledge in economic and social processes, the so-called 'knowledge economy'. This is reflected in the popularity amongst practicing managers and organizational theorists of notions of learning, sense-making, knowledge creation, knowledge management and intellectual capital in organizations and more recently, of emotional intelligence as an important management skill. This insightful book: argues that the information processing view of knowledge creation held by systems thinkers is no longer tenable develops the alternative perspective of Complex Responsive Processes of relating, drawing on the complexity sciences as a source for analogies with human action places self-organizing interaction at the centre of the knowledge creating process in organizations. Learning and knowledge creation are seen as qualitative processes of power relating that are emotional as well as intellectual, creative as well as destructive, enabling as well as constraining, and the result is a radical questioning of the belief that organizational knowledge is essentially codified and centralized. Instead, organizational knowledge is understood to be in the relationships between people in an organization and has to do with the qualities of those relationships.

Author : Chris Mowles,Karen Norman
Publisher : Taylor & Francis
Page : 186 pages
File Size : 45,8 Mb
Release : 2022-10-10
Category : Business & Economics
ISBN : 9781000686012

Get Book

Complexity and the Public Sector by Chris Mowles,Karen Norman Pdf

Since the early 1990s, public sector organisations have been overwhelmed with what has come to be termed New Public Management (NPM) methods. NPM idealises performance, metrics, transparency and marketisation. This book explores some of the tensions which arise in institutions where NPM methods prevail, introduces different ways of thinking about the task of managing for public good and offers a radical challenge to the dominant assumptions regarding why and how professional communities of practice may (or may not) come to change their working practices. In this third book in the Complexity and Management series, the expert authors bring together their experiences to provide vibrant accounts of how to manage in everyday public sector organisational situations using practical judgement. The book includes a brief introduction to complexity and public sector management, real-world narratives illustrating concrete dilemmas in the workplace and a concluding chapter that draws together the practical and theoretical implications of a complexity perspective. With both theoretical grounding and practical insights from senior managers and consultants, the book provides an ideal resource for students on management or executive leadership programmes for the public sector, as well as managers in and consultants to the sector.

Author : Sharon Varney
Publisher : Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
Page : 258 pages
File Size : 49,6 Mb
Release : 2021-10-25
Category : Business & Economics
ISBN : 9783110713343

Get Book

Leadership in Complexity and Change by Sharon Varney Pdf

If we needed a reminder that the world is complex and in constant motion, then 2020 certainly delivered. Suddenly, the inherent uncertainties and ambiguities of leadership were starkly revealed for all to see as the dynamics of complexity and change played out intensively, and very publicly, on the global stage. Leadership in Complexity and Change draws on complexity science to paint a picture of a world in constant motion, where leadership is enacted in the midst of complexity and continuous change. We must learn to engage with complexity. If not now, when? Part I of this insightful book brings complexity science to life by considering the practical challenges of complexity and its implications for leadership. Part II considers how leaders can reinvigorate existing tools and approaches with a new mindset, before offering some new tools and practices for learning informed leadership. Part III concludes by considering the person in the practice of leadership in complexity and change. Key ideas are presented through mini-cases and practical examples embedded throughout the book. This book will help executives, managers, and professionals recognise where some of the challenges come from understand why those challenges persist engage with the dynamic patterning of organisational life appreciate the scope for leadership recognise the choices that can be made choose how to manage themselves