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Books > Business & Economics > Business & management > Management & management techniques > Organizational theory & behaviour
This book trailblazes co-evolution approaches which have been prototyped and tried out by the authors, with global academic and practitioner backgrounds. It was devised to help humanity, people, perceived as complex adaptive systems, to self-organize, co-create, and manage complexity, by showcasing with own example, as individuals and open networks. The book bundles main components needed for facilitation in complexity, while each chapter covers conceptual solutions for specific complexity strategies, tactics, operations - projects. These solutions serve as blueprints and roadmaps, providing approaches for practitioners and researchers alike. The main features incorporated in all the approaches are transcending silos and organizational hierarchies toward a borderless collaboration between diverse stakeholders with dynamic roles and accountabilities regarding purposes, missions and solutions. The book includes suggestions for strategic, tactical and operational managerial and governance approaches for disruptive, short-term, innovative, open, large-scale engagements where rapid onboarding, situational awareness, innovation and innovation in context, and action are expected while fast facilitation, dynamic reconfiguration, and self-organization are required. It also describes how long-term sustained co-creative action needs to be facilitated, to adapt to external and internal complexity dynamics while initiating positive change. This book showcases how co-creation and co-dreaming emerge with co-evolution. Chapters 1, 2, and 11 are available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com.
African Leadership is an edited collection enriched by the people who have lived and experienced indigenous leadership first-hand, demonstrating how African leadership is distinctive from usual Western hegemonic paradigms. Providing an indepth discussion of the components, context, followers, and skills that contribute to the success of African leaders, African Leadership concludes with meaningful applications for 21st-century leaders globally.
This book takes a new approach to ethics by focusing on the kinds of dilemmas that confront people almost daily on the job. The author's unique contribution is to meld philosophy with everyday decisionmaking, offering the reader a common sense approach to making ethical decisions. Mary Guy introduces ten core values which surround ethical dilemmas, demonstrating the way in which personnel can sensitize themselves to the values involved in a problem and reach a solution which maximizes the important values. Real-life case examples illustrate ethical dilemmas that involve personnel practices, organizing strategies, reporting functions, supervisory practices, whistleblowing, and more. Throughout, the author emphasizes the kinds of concerns which confront the vast majority of employees--from ambitious entry-level personnel to top executives. Realistic in tone, the discussion acknowledges the inevitable need to make compromises, showing how to optimize ethical values situations that arise on the job and for which no formal rules exist. In her introductory chapter, Guy defines ethics, clarifies the relationship between ethical behavior and morality, and presents the ten guiding values that serve as the foundation for ethical decisions. Turning to a focus on decisionmaking, she explores such issues as the theoretical framework for rational decisionmaking, rational decisionmaking in real life, the application of ethical analysis to decisionmaking, and the definition of ethical decisionmaking. The four subsequent chapters present case studies of problems that personnel commonly encounter. In each case, Guy examines the ethical issues involved, applies various scenarios for reaching an ethical decision, and demonstrates the tension that exists among ethical decisionmaking, coping with daily exigencies, and accommodating the preferences of stakeholders. The concluding chapter summarizes the relationship between ethics and decisionmaking and offers a prescription for ensuring ethical decisionmaking throughout the organization. Must reading for managers in business, government, and not-for-profit organizations, this book is also an excellent supplemental text for advanced undergraduate and graduate level courses in business and public administration.
This important and timely book provides a systematic treatment of temporary organizations - an increasingly prevalent organizational form in which organizations work together on a joint task - for example, a movie production, a rescue operation, development of a new product - for an ex ante limited period of time. Demonstrating that temporary organizations are increasingly common, the book provides insights on how they differ from the classical organization and contributes to our understanding of what makes temporary organizations effective. Contributions by reputed organization scholars focus on the impact that this limited duration has on the way that temporary organizations structure their activities, organize work, use resources and achieve outcomes. Moreover, the tenability of various organizational concepts and theories for temporary contexts is examined and some unique phenomena inherent to temporariness are explored. Researchers interested in organizational design and project management scholars will warmly welcome this book, as will graduate students in organization studies, management studies, public policy studies, leisure studies, public administration and students of project management.
This book seeks to answer the question of 'leadership for what?'. We shall outline an answer by focusing on responsible leadership of purpose through an inter-disciplinary perspective. Responsible leadership moves the axis of leadership from leader-followers to leader-stakeholders; away from looking at leadership as person-centric - the qualities, abilities, and effectiveness of the leader, to a focus on the purposes, responsibilities and activities of leadership. Leadership orientation is about realising value for a range of constituencies, not just the shareholders of the business. In this way this book offers up an alternative business model to that of dominant neo-liberal approaches to capitalism and its flow-on effect to the leadership project. This is a model that draws on a most obvious assumption - if leaders maximise the use of all the capitals of their business they will maximise their dividends, and thus deliver their responsibility to the shareholders as well as other relevant stakeholders. This book explores how five dividends (based on five capitals) can be developed through attention to a sixth dividend (and sixth capital) - the dividend from our planet and communities. The planetary dividend is the flourishing of humanity - but it is also a significant dividend to the business. For example, by engaging the business in a purpose-led orientation to enhance the planetary dividend, the dividend from human resourcefulness becomes manifest - employee sense of purpose, commitment, passion and energy. The realisation of such can also connect with dividends from innovation, operations and brands. For example, the business benefits from a purpose-driven brand. In short, responsible leadership of purpose outlines a case for leadership to focus on a connected portfolio of 'good' dividends as an answer to the question 'leadership for what?' The book is written by academics and organisational leaders. It draws on a range of research with leaders from a variety of contexts to illustrate the challenges but also the benefits of this argument. It is an ambitious book: ambitious, in terms of moving leadership towards realising purpose; ambitious by seeking to align a range of business disciplines around responsible leadership; and ambitious because it challenges the dominant assumptions that shape business leadership. However, it is based on a simple question: why would a business not wish to generate good dividends for all its stakeholders?
In a modern world in which one can observe managerial and investors' behaviors characterized by high risk, short term orientation, moral hazard and speculation, there is a need to form a new ethical paradigm to drive a more ethical oriented education and a substantial change to norms regulating markets and business behavior to sensitize investors and financial practitioners, so that humanity can evolve in a sustainable way. Therefore the main question we are striving to answer throughout the book Organizational Social Irresponsibility: individual behaviors and organizational practices is the following: Do individual behaviors influence organizational socially irresponsible practices? Each separate chapter aims to find an answer to the above question. The book is divided into three parts: first: "The dark side of organizational behaviors", second: "Individual skills and the workplace" and third: "Organizational politics, practices and tools. This book is authored by a range of authors from all over the world. They provide us with several theoretical and practical contributions into the topic of organizational social irresponsibility and individual behavior, facing different aspects (e.g. workplace wellness, decision?making, diversity management). We hope it will be useful for both business and academia and it will help to shape reflective, socially responsible managers of the future.
Remarkable features of revenue management (RM) problems in the cargo, manufacturing and broadcasting industries are so-called flexible products. "Flexibility" means that the actual mode of production is not defined at the time of purchase, but can be chosen later on by the service provider. This book is among the first to analyze RM problems with flexible products and RM in broadcasting companies. The implications of flexibility are explicitly taken into account in the models and methods presented. As an aside, the book contains descriptions of algorithms to generate stochastic demand data streams for general RM problems. An implementation as a Microsoft Windows executable file is available, which can directly be used both by theoreticians and practitioners in their own simulation studies. This book will be of great value for researchers, managers and students interested in RM with flexible products in general and broadcasting companies in particular.
This book uses a system-based approach to decipher and organize the concepts and conclusions relevant for creating and capturing value in business. It develops a scientific theory based on systems science and logical reasoning that is commonly employed in mathematics and natural science. The resulting new theory focuses on the organizational nature of the world and the organic and holistic feature of human organizations and their interactions. To this end, this book identifies a few axioms, instead of empirical discoveries, on which it reliably constructs the entire theory.
Nonprofit organizations are conventionally positioned as generators of social and cultural forms of capital for the common good. As such they occupy a different space to other types of organizations such as corporate firms that exist primarily to generate economic capital for private owners/shareholders. Recent years, however, have seen professionalization promoted widely by funders, policy-makers and nonprofit practitioners across the globe. At the same time, there has been an increasing cross-over of employees from private and public bodies into nonprofits. But do such shifts open up space for the wholesale importation of managerialism into and commercialization of the nonprofit sphere? Are nonprofits at risk of being reconstituted as primarily economic entities, serving the interests of a leadership elite? How are such changes in an organization's trajectory brought about? What are the consequences for trustees, staff, members and the nature of managerial work? The authors engage with critical questions such as these through a unique insider account of one professional institute experiencing unprecedented changes that challenge its very reason for being. Drawing on a three-year ethnography, they narrate organizational inhabitants' struggles in their search for purpose and analyze the myriad of changes within different aspects of organizing including structure, strategizing, pay and reward, governance and leadership. The book will enable readers to reframe and rethink organizational change as a process involving power, persuasion and authority, and will be of value to researchers, students, academics and practitioners interested in managerial work and organizational change in non-profit organizations.
This handbook compiles the latest knowledge in critical areas of human resource management, including employee financial and non-financial participation in the enterprise, employer flexibility, unions, collective bargaining and workplace dispute resolution.
This edited book explores how stakeholders play a key part in any entrepreneurial endeavour because of their investment in the outcome. This book highlights that it is important to understand the reason and rationale for stakeholder engagement in entrepreneurship. Furthermore, this book showcases how there are different kinds of stakeholders from businesses directly linked to an entity to others that have a more policy influence on the industry segment. This book demonstrates that it is useful to understand to what extent stakeholders influence entrepreneurial decision making. This book states that most stakeholders tend to take an indirect role in the governance of a business in terms of what strategic decisions are made. This can change in times of crisis or change depending on the nature of the relationship. This book makes the case that stakeholders can take positive action in the form of advice or help. This book asserts that stakeholders who have an ongoing direct role are likely to invest more time and effort in an entrepreneurial endeavour. This book uncovers that it is important to re-evaluate on a continual basis whether the relationship is working and what needs to be done in order to increase efficiency. This edited book focuses on the role of stakeholders in an entrepreneurial context thereby being amongst the first research books to place specific attention on stakeholder management through public and private partnerships.
There is a widespread perception that life is faster than it used to be. We hear constant laments that we live too fast, that time is scarce, and that the pace of everyday life is spiraling out of our control. The iconic image that abounds is that of the frenetic, technologically tethered, iPhone/iPad-addicted citizen. Yet weren't modern machines supposed to save, and thereby free up, time? The purpose of this book is to bring a much-needed sociological perspective to bear on speed: it examines how speed and acceleration came to signify the zeitgeist, and explores the political implications of this. Among the major questions addressed are: when did acceleration become the primary rationale for technological innovation and the key measure of social progress? Is acceleration occurring across all sectors of society and all aspects of life, or are some groups able to mobilise speed as a resource while others are marginalised and excluded? Does the growing centrality of technological mediations (of both information and communication) produce slower as well as faster times, waiting as well as 'busyness', stasis as well as mobility? To what extent is the contemporary imperative of speed as much a cultural artefact as a material one? To make sense of everyday life in the twenty-first century, we must begin by interrogating the social dynamics of speed. This book shows how time is a collective accomplishment, and that temporality is experienced very differently by diverse groups of people, especially between the affluent and those who service them.
High-technology and globalization are arguably the two most important forces driving the US economy today. This book analyzes how they interact and the implications of that interaction. The methodology applies data and statistical analysis to determine the impact of these forces over a broad spectrum of the US economy. Key topics addressed include why the US economy runs a continuing trade deficit in manufactured high-tech goods, why high-tech firms steadily lose manufacturing jobs, while creating professional jobs, and why high-tech industries rely on foreign outsourcing for much of their manufacturing.
This book reviews the field of Knowledge Management, taking a holistic approach that includes both "soft" and "hard" aspects. It provides a broad perspective on the field, rather than one based on a single viewpoints from Computer Science or Organizational Learning, offering a comprehensive and integrated conception of Knowledge Management. The chapters represent the best Knowledge Management articles published in the 21st century in Knowledge Management Research & Practice and the European Journal of Information Systems, with contributors including Ikujiro Nonaka, Frada Burstein, and David Schwartz. Most of the chapters contribute significantly to practise as well as theory. The OR Essentials series presents a unique cross-section of high quality research work fundamental to understanding contemporary issues and research across a range of Operational Research topics. It brings together some of the best research papers from the highly respected journals of the Operational Research Society, also published by Palgrave Macmillan.
Quarter examines business owners who use their firms as laboratories for social innovation. After providing an introduction to this phenomenon in an historical perspective and discussing the 19th-century British industrialist Robert Owen, he provides ll case studies of contemporary innovators from six countries-the UK, US, the Netherlands, Germany, Canada, and New Zealand. The case studies fall into two broad groups. The first involves business people who promote innovative ownership and decision-making strategies such as donating their shares to a trust and thereby creating a company without shareholders so that employees can assume greater control; creating a worker co-operative; and transferring ownership to employees through an employee stock ownership plan. The second group of case studies involves innovative efforts at changing the relationship to the surrounding community through creating socially and environmentally responsible businesses. Quarter concludes by looking at the potential and limitations of this phenomenon for building a social movement. A provocative look at the social organization of work that will be of interest to scholars and researchers of industrial organization and to business leaders examining innovative ownership arrangements.
This book highlights the key contemporary issues and challenges relating to workplace religious diversity and inclusion. Challenging organizations to take religion and religious inclusion in the workplace seriously, it explores multiple perspectives and themes - from workplace stigma and employment discrimination, to strategic diversity and inclusion management. The author focuses on integrating theory and practice in examining emerging religious inclusion issues in the workplace, providing insights based on real-world case studies from around the world.
This book offers an accessible reference and roadmap for the practical application of cross-cultural competence (3C) for leaders dedicated to leading with diversity, inclusion and personal development in mind. Developing Cross-Cultural Competence for Leaders takes readers from ideational to real, asking them to step out of their comfort zone and learn to navigate cultural differences. The authors invite readers to join them on a journey of discovery of themselves, their personal and professional peers and ultimately the cultural landscape they inhabit both knowingly and oftentimes unknowingly all in the hopes of opening doors to empathetic and effective communication. The skillset required for 3C is developed throughout the book beginning with a discussion of relevant concepts, leading the readers through narratives of extreme environments and ending with a roadmap for use in leadership positions. Each chapter discusses a foundational idea contextualized with sample narratives and ending with thought questions. The authors summon readers to embrace dissimilarities, shift perspectives, dare to engage and navigate in new and even adverse social and cultural contexts. Developing Cross-Cultural Competence is an essential reading for students of leadership development, as well as military and non-military professionals.
Leadership has never been more important - and divisive - than it is today. The idea and discourse of the leader remains a critical factor in organizational and societal performance, but there is evident tension between the persistent focus on the critical importance of individual leaders and the increasing emphasis on collective leadership. The Routledge Companion to Leadership provides a survey of the contentious and dynamic discipline of leadership. This collection covers key themes in the field, including advances in leadership theory, leadership in a range of contexts and geographies, leadership failure, leadership process, and leadership development. Topics range from micro studies to wider political analyses of leadership, taking in unusual but important aspects such as portrayals of leadership in architecture, media, and science fiction. Contributions from 61 internationally renowned authors from 16 countries make available the full range of perspectives, approaches, and insights on the idea of leadership. Providing both a social sciences and a psychological approach, these go beyond common themes to offer diverse perspectives on such topics as emotion and leadership, portrayals of leadership. This volume situates leadership debates and evidence within contemporary leadership crises, while ensuring that the explorations of the issues are of enduring relevance. With wide and critical coverage of the key topics and potent contextualization of themes in current events, The Routledge Companion to Leadership is the ideal resource for graduate study in leadership.
SHORTLISTED FOR THE BUSINESS BOOK AWARDS 2022 Does 'woke capitalism' improve capitalism's image or does it threaten the future of democracy? From Nike's support for Colin Kaepernick, to Gillette's engagement with the toxic masculinity debate, the 21st century has seen a sharp increase in corporations taking over public morality, a phenomenon which has come to be known as 'woke capitalism'. Carl Rhodes takes us on a lively and fascinating history of woke capitalism - from 1950s corporate social responsibility, through 1980s neoliberalism, tracing it alongside the adoption and mutation of the term 'woke' from Black American culture - and brings us right up to current-day debates. By examining the political causes that woke capitalism has co-opted, and the social causes that it has not, he argues that this surreptitious extension of capitalism has serious implications for us all.
Since the dawn of social science, theorists have debated how and why societies appear to change, develop and evolve. Today, this question is pursued by scholars across many different disciplines and our understanding of these dynamics has grown markedly. Yet, there remain important areas of disagreement and debate: what is the difference between societal change, development and evolution? What specific aspects of cultures change, develop or evolve and why? Do societies change, develop or evolve in particular ways, perhaps according to cycles, or stages or in response to survival necessities? How do different disciplines-from sociology to anthropology to psychology and economics-approach these questions? This book provides complex and nuanced answers to these, and many other, questions. First, the book invites readers to consider the broad landscape of societal dynamics across human history, beginning with humanity's origins in small nomadic bands of hunter gatherers through to the emergence of post-industrial democracies. Then, the book provides a tour of several prominent existing theories of cultural change, development and evolution. Approaches to explaining cultural dynamics will be discussed across disciplines and schools of thought, from "meme" theories to established cumulative cultural evolutionary theories to newly emerging theories on cultural tightness-looseness. The book concludes with a call for theoretical integration and a frank discussion of some of the most unexamined structures that drive cultural dynamics across schools of thought.
This book examines human resource development (HRD) strategy as a learning process, connecting learning and adult development with organizational development and change, and talent development, with a particular focus on the use of artificial intelligence (AI). It provides professionals and practitioners as well as students with processes and tools that will help them meet the needs of employees and the organization. It takes a scholar-practitioner perspective connecting theory with practice. HRD has evolved into a mature field of scholarship in recent decades. At the same time, practices of learning and development in organizations continues to evolve dramatically. At the individual, developmental, and organizational levels, workers, managers, and executives have to be continually learning from current and emerging trends in order to strategically reposition themselves for performance and future possibilities. This includes developing the competencies to navigate the complexities of a world in which people are interacting with 'smart' digital technologies that are broadly grouped together under the umbrella term artificial intelligence (AI). Featuring specific strategic learning methods and case studies from senior HRD professionals, this book is a valuable resource for managers, practitioners, students, scholars and others interested in strategic HRD practice.
Imagine if you were there, taking notes, as a small pizza joint became one of the most successful restaurants in the world. The Domino's Story will help you understand and adopt the competitive strategies, workplace culture, and business practices that made the iconic pizza chain the innovative restaurant and e-commerce leader it is today. As one of the most technologically advanced fast-food chains in the market, Domino's has cemented their reputation for innovation, paved in industry-leading profits. In February 2018, according to Ad Age, Domino's unseated Pizza Hut to become the largest pizza seller worldwide in terms of sales. Rather than just tampering with a recipe that was working, they decided to think outside of the pizza box by creating digital tools that emphasized convenience and put the customer first. For the first time, the adaptable strategies behind the rise and dominance of Domino's are outlined in these pages. Through the story of the Domino's, you'll learn: How to create meaningful innovation without changing the core of the product that people already love. How to recognize and take advantage of unique opportunities to alleviate your customers' pain points. How to grow a company by taking a holistic approach to the business. And, the importance of delivering a quality experience that will keep customers calling for more.
This handbook provides a forum for leading researchers in organization theory to reflect on their own discipline: how it has developed and why; what sorts of knowledge claims it regards as aceptable and why; and where it may be, or should be, going. Focussing on organization theory, the aim of this volume is to hold up for examination its key assumptions and knowledge claims, the chief explanatory strategies used, its relationship with the real world, and the future of organization theory. The book is divided into five sections under the following headings: Organization Theory as Science; The Construction of Organization Theory; Meta-theoretical Controversies in Organization Theory; Organization Theory as a Policy Science; and The Future of Organization Theory.
Why is finance so important? How do stock markets work and what do they really do? Most importantly, what might finance be and what could we expect from it? Exploring contemporary finance via the development of stock exchanges, markets and the links with states, Roscoe mingles historical and technical detail with humorous anecdotes and lively portraits of market participants. Deftly combining research and autobiographical vignettes, he offers a cautionary tale about the drive of financial markets towards expropriation, capture and exclusion. Positioning financial markets as central devices in the organisation of the global economy, he includes contemporary concerns over inequality, climate emergency and (de)colonialism and concludes by wondering, in the market's own angst-filled voice, what the future for finance might be, and how we might get there.
Contributions from senior and experienced practitioners in their field, who provide practical insight for managers and students. The titles all build into a comprehensive resource, providing essential reading for anyone interested in management and complexity, systems thinking, organization and management theory and organizational change. The series explains how the application of complexity science to today's organization could have radical implications for management practice. |
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