First published in 1998. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Organizational Pathology draws an extended metaphor that the life cycle of an organization is akin to the biological life cycle. Like all living things, organizations will encounter problems that lead to decline and eventual failure. This work discusses the basic problems and life threatening diseases responsible for organizations' failure and death, including organizational politics, organizational corruption, and organizational crime. The book also contains a critical look at crises and fixations; failure and survival; and processes of disbandment and closure of dying organizations. The consideration of these issues follows a diagnostic model of failure. Yitzhak Samuel argues that if the problems that lead to failure can be predicted or diagnosed early, their severity can be assessed and possible remedies can be implemented to avoid escalating crises. At the very least, an understanding of why and how decline happens can be gained from this analysis. This book offers facts about the causes and consequences of organizational downfall and clues about diagnoses of certain symptoms of abnormal behavior, and how to identify early signs of decline or failure. In order to illustrate these abstract arguments and concepts, Samuel uses various real-life examples of events that have occurred in cross-country contexts. In this way, Organizational Pathology: Life and Death of Organizations should serve a variety of readers. Although primarily intended for students and scholars in the social and behavioral sciences who are familiar with the study and the practice of organizations, this book's informal style makes it easily accessible to a wide range of readers. Just as Samuel's previous book on organizational politics led to new lines of research and theory, this book will encourage similar studies in organizational pathology and institutional malaise.

First published in 1998. This is Volume VIII of the eighteen in the Sociology of Work and Organization series and offers an analysis of modern theories in relation to organisation and bureaucracy. The present study tries to provide some guidance which may help students to orient themselves with greater ease in the labyrinth of organisational writings. More specifically, it tries to identify and examine critically some of the major approaches to the study of organisations, and the ways in which such approaches are linked with each other.

Organizational Pathology draws an extended metaphor that the life cycle of an organization is akin to the biological life cycle. Like all living things, organizations will encounter problems that lead to decline and eventual failure. This work discusses the basic problems and life threatening diseases responsible for organizations' failure and death, including organizational politics, organizational corruption, and organizational crime. The book also contains a critical look at crises and fixations; failure and survival; and processes of disbandment and closure of dying organizations.

The consideration of these issues follows a diagnostic model of failure. Yitzhak Samuel argues that if the problems that lead to failure can be predicted or diagnosed early, their severity can be assessed and possible remedies can be implemented to avoid escalating crises. At the very least, an understanding of why and how decline happens can be gained from this analysis. This book offers facts about the causes and consequences of organizational downfall and clues about diagnoses of certain symptoms of abnormal behavior, and how to identify early signs of decline or failure. In order to illustrate these abstract arguments and concepts, Samuel uses various real-life examples of events that have occurred in cross-country contexts. In this way, Organizational Pathology: Life and Death of Organizations should serve a variety of readers.

Although primarily intended for students and scholars in the social and behavioral sciences who are familiar with the study and the practice of organizations, this book's informal style makes it easily accessible to a wide range of readers. Just as Samuel's previous book on organizational politics led to new lines of research and theory, this book will encourage similar studies in organizational pathology and institutional malaise.

Mouzelis puts forward a post-Marxist conceptual framework which overcomes economic reductionism while retaining some distinctive features of the Marxist paradigm which are seen to be indispensable for an examination of how whole social orders are constituted, maintained and transformed.

Nicos Mouzelis argues against a marked tendency in present- day sociology to conflate philosophy and sociological theory. In trying to demonstrate the relative autonomy and specific logic of sociological theorising, he draws from a variety of theoretical traditions in order to construct a set of interrelated concepts useful for bridging the gulf between macro and micro sociologies. Drawing examples from the sociology of development and from the theory of organisations, the author shows concretely how the conceptual framework proposed can help the researcher to avoid both the reification of macro institutional structures and their reduction to the intersubjective understandings of micro actors.

There is a growing conflict between modern and postmodern social theorists. The latter reject modern approaches as economistic, essentialist and often leading to authoritarian policies. Modernists criticize postmodern approaches for their rejection of holistic conceptual frameworks which facilitate an overall picture of how social wholes (organizations, communities, nation-states, etc.) are constituted, reproduced and transformed. They believe the rejection of holistic methodologies leads to social myopia - a refusal to explore critically the type of broad problems that classical sociology deals with. This book attempts to bridge the divide between these two conflicting perspectives and proposes a novel holistic framework which is neither reductionist/economistic nor essentialist. Modern and Postmodern Social Theorizing will appeal to scholars and students of social theory and of social sciences in general.

How can we understand social democracy today? This ambitious book offers a global perspective on the nature of capitalism; its past and future possibilities of survival; the differentiation between neoliberal, authoritarian and social democratic systems, exemplified by the United States, EU and China; and the conflict relationships between them. Reflecting on urgent global risks, such as climate change, pandemics and nuclear confrontation - Mouzelis & Sotiropoulos explore why these risks can only be dealt with by the cooperation of these three major players in the global arena. They explore how the model of social democracy, which in the previous century tamed unfettered capitalism in some national contexts, can help contain the excesses of global capitalism now. In clear, compelling and coherent terms, the authors demonstrate how unchecked antagonism among these three major players has the potential to spill-over into inertia or reluctance to manage the these urgent risks, to the detriment of humanity as a whole.

There is a growing conflict between modern and postmodern social theorists. The latter reject modern approaches as economistic, essentialist and often leading to authoritarian policies. Modernists criticize postmodern approaches for their rejection of holistic conceptual frameworks which facilitate an overall picture of how social wholes (organizations, communities, nation-states, etc.) are constituted, reproduced and transformed. They believe the rejection of holistic methodologies leads to social myopia - a refusal to explore critically the type of broad problems that classical sociology deals with. This book attempts to bridge the divide between these two conflicting perspectives and proposes a novel holistic framework which is neither reductionist/economistic nor essentialist. Modern and Postmodern Social Theorizing will appeal to scholars and students of social theory and of social sciences in general.