Despite questions over whether we are past postmodernism', much debate continues over the potential of postmodern philosophy for organizational theory. Hitherto, there has been no single source which reviews in a thorough and scholarly fashion the work of the major postmodern theorists and assesses their contribution to transforming organization theory.

This book fills that gap. Each chapter in Organization Theory and Postmodern Thought focuses on a major philosopher who has had, or should have, a major influence on organization theory, with special consideration to their impact on management and organization studies more generally.

This book provides an excellent reference for students and academics alike for understanding the key elements of postmodern thinking with reference to organization studies.

The importance of communication for organizations has been an ongoing concern since management was first theorized. Yet language has tended to be viewed as simply a medium of communication - without language per se being theoretically problematized. This book enables a more critical exploration of the major theoretical positions on language and organization, explaining why language warrants a more central and considered place in organization studies. Language and Organization explains how various perspectives on the relationship between language and organization can be represented and explored. Concerned with issues such as power, knowledge and organizational discourse, this book will provide essential new links for a proper conceptualization and understanding of organizations.

This book views management as a complex set of social and symbolic processes often characterized by considerable ambiguity and paradox. In particular, it develops the body of work concerned with building experienced-based, grounded description and understanding of the processes of management and managing. The contributors explore: the dynamics, subtleties and complexities of managerial life; its informal as well as formalized features and practices; and the significance of the cultural and symbolic in organizations. There is a concern with meanings and the relationships between managerial talk, thought and action. The contributors also draw on both established social anthropological concepts - such as culture, myth, ritual, totem and taboo - for understanding the nature of managing, and concepts deriving from newer postmodernist themes and developments. Throughout, the book emphasizes the importance of critical reflection for learning and change in management and organization.

Organizational aesthetics, both as a body of theory and a method of inquiry, is a rapidly expanding area of the organizational sciences. The Aesthetics of Organization accessibly draws key contributions delineating the emerging parameters of the field. It explains the significance of concepts devised by postmodern thinkers, through which emerge meaning and order in organizations. Methodological problems associated with investigations of the aesthetic are also highlighted so the reader can identify and understand the importance of recent ideas on vision, perspective and periphery for learning in organizations. Through the contributions of leading international theorists, organizational aesthetics is defined in greater historical and theoretical depth, with a broad conceptual and practical range which academics will find invaluable.