Ethnography is at the heart of what researchers in management and organization studies do. This crucial book offers a robust and original overview of ''doing'' organizational ethnography, guiding readers through the essential qualitative methods for the study of organizations. Preparing students to enter the field with a confident outlook and a toolkit of skills, chapters present a series of action-learning projects to arm readers with practical exercises that will hone the abilities of the organizational ethnographer. Expert contributors offer crucial outlines into a variety of essential skills, including shadowing, autoethnography, interviews, media analysis and storytelling. The book concludes with a chapter by a doctoral student, providing unique insights into the development of the ethnographic understanding of organizational realities. Featuring useful exercises and an accessible style, this book is critical reading for PhD and Masters students in business administration and organizational theory, as well as social science students undertaking qualitative methodology programmes. It will also be useful for students on MBA courses in need of a humanistic approach to organizations.

Ethnography is at the heart of what researchers in management and organization studies do. This crucial book offers a robust and original overview of ''doing'' organizational ethnography, guiding readers through the essential qualitative methods for the study of organizations. Preparing students to enter the field with a confident outlook and a toolkit of skills, chapters present a series of action-learning projects to arm readers with practical exercises that will hone the abilities of the organizational ethnographer. Expert contributors offer crucial outlines into a variety of essential skills, including shadowing, autoethnography, interviews, media analysis and storytelling. The book concludes with a chapter by a doctoral student, providing unique insights into the development of the ethnographic understanding of organizational realities. Featuring useful exercises and an accessible style, this book is critical reading for PhD and Masters students in business administration and organizational theory, as well as social science students undertaking qualitative methodology programmes. It will also be useful for students on MBA courses in need of a humanistic approach to organizations.

This book reflects on organizations through archetypical tales-stories particularly resonant with deep meanings present in culture and the soul. Archetypes are common patterns containing hidden images of human motivations, offering inspiration and awakening imagination. This book is a collection of such tales, connected to twelve organizational archetypes, where each is illustrated by more general theoretical reflections, current management and organization theory literature, as well as practical examples. Monika Kostera proposes an imagery and language for self-management and self-organization for non-corporate use including entrepreneurs and multipurpose NGOs. Stories and examples from and of, contemporary organizations in different contexts will prove insightful to students, academics and researchers of management, business, sociology and economics. Social entrepreneurs and NGO activists will also find plenty of invaluable information in this inspirational study.

Offering a practical guide on How to be an Ethnographer, this book will be a valuable resource for advanced students and early career researchers of organisation studies, anthropology and sociology. It will also be a useful introduction to scholars exploring ethnography as a new research method. This book explores the aims, main methods, and ethical and methodological standards of ethnography. Placing human beings at the centre, it showcases why ethnography is a valuable method of research. Highlighting the importance of ethnographic engagement as a means to learn about different ways of being human, the book employs a range of case studies from researchers at all career stages to provide examples of different methods used in research projects. Going beyond tools and techniques, the authors discuss moral and methodological principles as well as community related modes that are important in conducting ethnography.

This book is a reaction to the reductionist and exploitative ideas dominating the mainstream contemporary management discourse and practice, and an attempt to broaden the horizons of possibility for both managers and organization scholars. It brings together the scholarly fields of humanistic management and organizational aesthetics, where the former brings in the unshakeable focus on the human condition and concern for dignity, emancipation, and the common good, while the latter promotes reflection, openness, and appreciation for irreducible complexity of existence. It is a journey towards wholeness undertaken by a collective of management and organization theorists, philosophers, artists, and art curators. Reading this book's contributions can help both academics and practitioners work towards building organizational practices aimed at (re)acquiring wholeness by developing aesthetic awareness allowing for more profound understandings of performativity, insights into the dynamics of power, appreciation of ambiguity and ambivalence, and a much needed grasp of complexity. The varied ways of engaging with art explored by the authors promote imaginative insights into and reflection on the beauty and vicissitudes of organizing, of management knowledge and collective expression. It will be of interest to researchers, academics, practitioners, and students in the fields of organizational theory and practice, business and management history, human resource management, and culture management.

Organizing is made possible by sense-making. This book represents a narrative quest for a symbolic grounding to help leaders in times when stable social structures and institutions dissolve and disappear. Monika Kostera approaches this sense-making process through innovative and exciting research methods, collecting stories from participants and exploring plots and outcomes of an imagined meeting between two symbolic worlds: one of the internal and imaginative and the other of the external and corporate. Investigating the spatiality and temporality of these stories, the author offers critical implications for educational practice, arguing that teachers should engage and develop students' imaginations and creativity to question the hidden rules of social settings and interactions in organizational and business situations. Innovative and visionary in scope, this book will be critical for researchers of organization theory at all levels, particularly those looking for new research methods and applications. Students of business and organizational studies will also benefit from its unique insights into business-related settings, as well as leaders and practitioners searching for innovative directions in business environments.

Responding to the trend of formulaic writing in the academic community, How To Write Differently offers a refreshing approach to academic writing in a practical format. The book explores how, in order to write differently, an author needs to embrace complexity and alterity and write to be read. Highlighting the importance of bringing joy and enlightenment to readers rather than simply writing for the metrics, experienced contributors delve into the significance of poetry and idiom, writing from the heart and what to write about. Chapters also consider key practicalities such as, how to make an argument and not slide into reductionism? How to engage with literature without being dull and formulaic? How to describe important issues such as empirical research and insights? Finally, the book sheds light on the review process, where to publish, reflective referencing and how to revise your writing. Aiming to inspire academic writers and readers, while offering practical guidance, How to Write Differently will be a valuable resource for business and management researchers and students seeking to write in a new way.

This book is a reaction to the reductionist and exploitative ideas dominating the mainstream contemporary management discourse and practice, and an attempt to broaden the horizons of possibility for both managers and organization scholars. It brings together the scholarly fields of humanistic management and organizational aesthetics, where the former brings in the unshakeable focus on the human condition and concern for dignity, emancipation, and the common good, while the latter promotes reflection, openness, and appreciation for irreducible complexity of existence. It is a journey towards wholeness undertaken by a collective of management and organization theorists, philosophers, artists, and art curators. Reading this book's contributions can help both academics and practitioners work towards building organizational practices aimed at (re)acquiring wholeness by developing aesthetic awareness allowing for more profound understandings of performativity, insights into the dynamics of power, appreciation of ambiguity and ambivalence, and a much needed grasp of complexity. The varied ways of engaging with art explored by the authors promote imaginative insights into and reflection on the beauty and vicissitudes of organizing, of management knowledge and collective expression. It will be of interest to researchers, academics, practitioners, and students in the fields of organizational theory and practice, business and management history, human resource management, and culture management.

Crumbling social institutions, disintegrating structures, and a profound sense of uncertainty are the signs of our time, stemming from a situation in which traditional systems are dying but the new cannot yet be born. In this timely book, this contemporary crisis is explored and illuminated, providing narratives that suggest how the notion of hope can be leveraged to create powerful methods of organizing for the future, in communities, workplaces and businesses. In response to the increasing attention being paid to the shocking seriousness of the current state of the world, this innovative book offers a variety of ways of bringing hope into a situation otherwise defined by hopelessness, following a tradition of radical dissent by public intellectuals such as Zygmunt Bauman and Vaclav Havel. Chapters first consider theoretical and philosophical perspectives on hopeful organizing, followed by both empirical discussions about achieving change and more imaginative narratives of alternative and utopian futures, including an exploration of the differing roles of work, creativity, idealism, inclusivity and activism. Organizing Hope will be a critical and thought-provoking read for researchers and students of organization theory and sociology, as well as other social sciences. Politicians, policy makers and other decision makers in government will also find the book insightful and useful. Contributors include: G. Cairns, C. Ciupke, S. Clegg, M. Cwikla, D. Ericsson, A. Goral, M. Izak, M. Kallifatides, M. Kostera, W. Kupers, R. Longman, K. Matyjaszkowicz, J. G. McClellan, A. Milczarczyk, A. Morgan, T. Padan, M. Parker, R. Paulsen, M. Pina e Cunha, M. Polec, A. Rego, A.V. Simpson, A. Strauss, J. Vaughan, K.E. Weick

It can be said that our times are characterized both by the omnipresence of organizations and by the destabilization of organized social life, caused by the erosion of its structural and moral foundations such as long-term employment, social trust or an actual observance of the proclaimed codes of ethics. At the same time there is a huge and growing potential for organized change due to the amount of students and graduates of different types of management studies and programmes all over the world.

The role of the state may become atrophied and corporations seem all too eager to seize ever more power while renouncing responsibility towards the environment and the employees, but a huge and unprecedented number of people from all walks of life, all social classes and all countries now have the qualifications to take over the responsibility for social organizations.

The objective of "Occupy Management: Inspirations and Ideas for Self-Organization and Self-Management" is to make it evident to the student why and how he or she can manage without becoming part of corporate power structures. Aimed at postgraduate students studying organizational and management theory as well as social entrepreneurship, this book is not a simple repetition of essential knowledge in these areas, but a re-direction of such knowledge towards self-management and self-organization.

Widely known as a leading intellectual, Zygmunt Bauman's thinking is often categorized as sociology or philosophy. But his work has been hugely influential in other fields as well, not least within organization studies. From increasing management control and growing standardization of work activities, to the increase in uncertainty and insecurity experienced by contemporary workers, organizations themselves are becoming ever more ephemeral entities. Bauman's themes: globalization, liquid modernity and postmodern ethics are arguably fundamental to contemporary notions of organization and management and his thinking has never been more relevant. However, despite the obvious and continuing influence of Bauman's ideas on business studies, there has been no comprehensive attempt to chart his impact on organization theory. In this innovative and insightful collection, an international selection of leading management scholars explore key topics in current organizational discourse, including networked organizations, control and ambiguity, technologies, work and responsibility, extending Bauman's liquid modernity to the "liquid organization". The book will be essential reading for scholars and academics and students in management and organizational theory, and also sociology, managing culture and organizational ethnography.

An Imaginoscope for Organizers offers practical exercises to use both individual and collective imagination to activate and mobilize creative organizing impulses. It proposes intellectual, symbolic and poetic food for thought and practice. Each chapter is a step on the quest for creative ideas and practices and introduces a language that can be used to invent and communicate your own.

Over the past ten to fifteen years there has been an increasing interest in emotion in organizations, in diversity, ethics, care and the ubiquitous pursuit of quality. These concerns, however, have consistently been reduced to issues of management and regulation. There is now a growing need to confront issues related to the dehumanization of organizations. This book brings these issues together, presenting an original construction of the organization via an emphasis on the (m)other.
This book is not a feminist tract, nor is it primarily about the experiences of women in organizations. It rather argues that conventional representations of the organization are patriarchal, masculine, directed by the animus and that such representations reduce the notion of 'organization' to abstract relationships, rational actions and purposive behaviour.
This challenging book will be of essential interest to all critical management theorists. With its innovative approach, it will also appeal to students, teachers, and all those looking for an approach to management that does justice to the complexity, ambivalence and chaos of the world of organizing.

It can be said that our times are characterized both by the omnipresence of organizations and by the destabilization of organized social life, caused by the erosion of its structural and moral foundations such as long-term employment, social trust or an actual observance of the proclaimed codes of ethics. At the same time there is a huge and growing potential for organized change due to the amount of students and graduates of different types of management studies and programmes all over the world. The role of the state may become atrophied and corporations seem all too eager to seize ever more power while renouncing responsibility towards the environment and the employees, but a huge and unprecedented number of people from all walks of life, all social classes and all countries now have the qualifications to take over the responsibility for social organizations. The objective of Occupy Management: Inspirations and Ideas for Self-Organization and Self-Management is to make it evident to the student why and how he or she can manage without becoming part of corporate power structures. Aimed at postgraduate students studying organizational and management theory as well as social entrepreneurship, this book is not a simple repetition of essential knowledge in these areas, but a re-direction of such knowledge towards self-management and self-organization.

Over the past ten to fifteen years there has been an increasing interest in emotion in organizations, in diversity, ethics, care and the ubiquitous pursuit of quality. These concerns, however, have consistently been reduced to issues of management and regulation. There is now a growing need to confront issues related to the dehumanization of organizations. This book brings these issues together, presenting an original construction of the organization via an emphasis on the (m)other.
This book is not a feminist tract, nor is it primarily about the experiences of women in organizations. It rather argues that conventional representations of the organization are patriarchal, masculine, directed by the animus and that such representations reduce the notion of 'organization' to abstract relationships, rational actions and purposive behaviour.
This challenging book will be of essential interest to all critical management theorists. With its innovative approach, it will also appeal to students, teachers, and all those looking for an approach to management that does justice to the complexity, ambivalence and chaos of the world of organizing.

eBook available with sample pages: 0203216555

This important book focuses on the role of human dignity, its protection and promotion in the context of organization and Humanistic Management. The recent phenomenon of humanism in management already has a rich body of literature and takes up many themes both theoretically, and from a practitioner perspective. Dignity and the Organization is the first book to explicitly deal with the topic of human dignity and management. The chapters address various aspects and problems from a humanistically-oriented perspective, taking up issues relevant for the contemporary management theorists and practitioners, and are concerned with organization, management and the social and cultural context. The book develops the notion of human dignity in conceptual and theoretical terms in its practical application, within the context of organizations.

This collected volume of essays offers glimpses of the future of university education. While universities consider the spirit of theoretical exchange and intellectual pursuit to be a defining trait of their identity, this book argues that this heritage is disappearing under the influence of the short-term demands of societies and markets. Universities used to be sites of dissent, civil courage and societal conscience, but have now instead become little more than pseudo-businesses, rendering them incapable of remaining critical or independent. However, with more people going to university every year, there is a strong resistance to the notion that the university as a collegial and critical institution is dead, among academics as well as the broader public. With contributions from scholars across the world, this edited collection explores the ramifications of marketization on universities, and provides glimpses of what higher education will look like in the future. It will be of great interest to teachers and students in higher education, as well as policy makers and those interested in the current and future state of higher education.

This collected volume of essays offers glimpses of the future of university education. While universities consider the spirit of theoretical exchange and intellectual pursuit to be a defining trait of their identity, this book argues that this heritage is disappearing under the influence of the short-term demands of societies and markets. Universities used to be sites of dissent, civil courage and societal conscience, but have now instead become little more than pseudo-businesses, rendering them incapable of remaining critical or independent. However, with more people going to university every year, there is a strong resistance to the notion that the university as a collegial and critical institution is dead, among academics as well as the broader public. With contributions from scholars across the world, this edited collection explores the ramifications of marketization on universities, and provides glimpses of what higher education will look like in the future. It will be of great interest to teachers and students in higher education, as well as policy makers and those interested in the current and future state of higher education.

This second volume in a trilogy on myth making in organizing focuses on organizational virtues and vices, as well as attributes and abilities of organizations, and legendary organizations that have become mythical in themselves. These narratives are presented as organizational sagas to reveal an archetypal dimension of organizing and organizations.

The second volume in a series of three focuses on organizational virtues and vices, as well as abilities of organizations, and legendary organizations that have become mythical in themselves. These narratives are presented as organizational sagas to reveal an archetypal dimension of organizing and organizations.

This book reflects on organizations through archetypical tales-stories particularly resonant with deep meanings present in culture and the soul. Archetypes are common patterns containing hidden images of human motivations, offering inspiration and awakening imagination. This book is a collection of such tales, connected to twelve organizational archetypes, where each is illustrated by more general theoretical reflections, current management and organization theory literature, as well as practical examples. Monika Kostera proposes an imagery and language for self-management and self-organization for non-corporate use including entrepreneurs and multipurpose NGOs. Stories and examples from and of, contemporary organizations in different contexts will prove insightful to students, academics and researchers of management, business, sociology and economics. Social entrepreneurs and NGO activists will also find plenty of invaluable information in this inspirational study.

Our times of crumbling structures and decaying social bonds are often depicted as apocalyptic. This book takes the apocalypse as a metaphor to help us in the search for meaning in our everyday realities. Yes, the apocalypse is when social structures and institutions fall apart and we are terrified and suffocated by the debris raining down upon us. But "apocalypse" also means "revelation". The very collapse reveals what dissipating institutions were constructed upon: where there ought to have been foundational common values, most often there is violence and raw power. Yet the values are there, too, and they can be found. This book is a guide to these values, showing how they can be of help to organizers and organizational dreamers.

This important book focuses on the role of human dignity, its protection and promotion in the context of organization and Humanistic Management. The recent phenomenon of humanism in management already has a rich body of literature and takes up many themes both theoretically, and from a practitioner perspective. Dignity and the Organization is the first book to explicitly deal with the topic of human dignity and management. The chapters address various aspects and problems from a humanistically-oriented perspective, taking up issues relevant for the contemporary management theorists and practitioners, and are concerned with organization, management and the social and cultural context. The book develops the notion of human dignity in conceptual and theoretical terms in its practical application, within the context of organizations.