Responding to the needs of market researchers, business analysts, CI professionals, and other decision makers who understand online technology, Vibert provides a series of problem-driven, analytical frameworks to help them make better sense--and use--of the vast amounts of information now available and easily accessed on the Internet. Organizational decision makers, forced to understand complex competitive environments, have two important aids; analytical tools and information sources. To be truly effective, these tools must be used in concert. Vibert's book focuses on these tools and their usages. In doing so it provides ways for organizational decision makers to protect their own operations as they seek to gain better knowledge of their competitors.

Analysts, market researchers, corporate trainers, CI professionals, and others in decision-making capacities, in industries enabled by the Internet, will see quickly how well the content of Vibert's book fits what they do day-to-day. Academics and other teachers will find that the book challenges the traditional case method style of teaching by showing how real-time analysis can be brought into the classroom, the corporate training suite, and other places where information and knowledge are transmitted. Vibert maintains that real-time teaching or training depends on the use of library resources--and the world's largest library is the Internet. Unfortunately, the net has grown so large so fast that stakeholders lack ways to organize the vast quantities of information available there. It is these ways, these tools and resources, that Vibert provides in his discussion of question-driven analytical frameworks, the core of his book.

This book provides a comprehensive summary of the major theories meant to explain the way business and other organizations work, why they look and act as they do, and what makes some succeed and others fail. Among the many different approaches to the subject, no one school of thought accurately reflects current thinking on these issues. The author presents a much-needed overview of thirty of the major theories that underpin Organization Theory and Economic Organization. Each theory is summarized in a stand-alone fashion, allowing each chapter to be used either in complement or as a separate perspective. Integration of the various topics and perspectives is accomplished within section introductions and in the overall introduction and conclusion to the text. The goal of this book is to inform students of the main issues confronting organizations, the main theoretical ideas within the different paradigms, why it is important to theorize about organizations, how these theories are constructed, and how learning is improved by scanning multiple perspectives. It can be used as a stand-alone uourse text or supplementary text for advanced undergraduate or graduate courses in Organization Theory.

Selected Contents: 1. Introduction2. A Primer on Organization Theory, Deborah HurstPart 1. Function Economic Theories of the Firm3. Neo-Classical Economics Perspective4. Chicago School Perspective5. Bain-Mason Perspective6. Transaction Cost Perspective7. Network Perspective8. Agency Perspective9. Stakeholder Perspective10. Resource Based Theory Perspective11. Behavioral Perspective12. Game Theory Perspective13. Property Right Perspective14. Knowledge Perspective15. Evolutionary Perspective16. Natural Environment Perspective, Greg BerryPart 2. Functional Organization Theories17. Bureaucracy Perspective18. Contingency Perspective19. Strategic Choice Perspective20. Resource Dependence Perspective21. Population Ecology Perspective22. Institutional Perspective23. Chaos PerspectivePart 3. Interpretive and Social Constructionist Perspectives24. Symbolic Interactionist Perspective, Deborah Hurst25. Dramaturgical Perspective26. Metaphorical Perspective27. Sensemaking Perspective, Jean Mills28. Organizational Rules Perspective, Albert Mills29. Culture PerspectivePart 4. Humanist and Structuralist Perspectives30. Configuration Perspective31. Postmodern Perspective32. Critical Theory Perspective33. Marxist Perspective34. Structuralist Feminism Perspective, Deborah Hurst Conclusion