Creative Organization Theory: A Resourcebook / Edition 1

by Gareth Morgan

Overview

Gareth Morgan believes that examining organizations and management should be interesting, creative, practical, challenging and directly relevant to the needs of both the organization and the researcher. In an ingenious selection of organizational stories, Morgan presents unique insights drawn from actual corporate (as well as non-profit, public and institutional) experience. These examples illustrate both organizational successes and failures - because we can learn from both. They are interwoven with excerpts from many of the "classics" in organizational literature. His aptly-named "Mindstretchers" entice readers to expand their personal repertoires of approaches to the understanding of, and solutions to, organizational problems and challenges, followed by cases and exercises that challenge us to view organizations in new ways.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780803934382
Publisher:	SAGE Publications
Publication date:	02/01/1989
Edition description:	First Edition
Pages:	376
Product dimensions:	7.38(w) x 9.12(h) x (d)

About the Author

Gareth Morgan is well known for his creative contributions to management. He is the author of seven books, including Images of Organization, Creative Organization Theory, Imaginization and Riding the Waves of Change. He acts as consultant and seminar leader to numerous organizations throughout Europe and North America, and is Distinguished Research Professor at York University in Toronto. He has sat on the editorial boards of the Academy of Management, and Organization Studies; and is a Life Fellow of the International Academy of Management. Born in Wales, he now lives in Toronto with his wife, Karen and their children Evan and Heather.

Table of Contents

PART ONE: MINDSTRETCHERS
Flexibility and Intelligence
What is This?
The Need for a Tool Chest
Framing and Reframing
Seeing the Same Situation in Different Ways
What is This?
Using Your ‘Right Brain'
We Learn How to See
What is a Paintbrush?
What is Truth?
Different Assumptions and Organizing Principles Generate Different Designs
Developing Multiple Interpretations
Understanding Different Viewpoints
Escaping From Dominant Ideas
Interpreting Patterns, Boundaries and Constraints
What is an Organization?
Viewing Your Organization as if You Are a Visitor from a Foreign Land
Where's The Customer
Some Thought Patterns
Today's Solutions Shape Tomorrow's Problems
Mindstretchers — Ideas and Solutions
PART TWO: READINGS, STORIES AND OTHER RESOURCES
The Evolution of Organization Theory
Max Weber's Concept of Bureaucracy
Taylor, Schmidt and Scientific Management
How to Kill Creativity
Working Under Mechanized Systems of Production
Computers and the Mechanization of Intellectual Work
From Bureaucracies to Networks
The Emergence of New Organizational Forms
Organization Design
An Information Processing Perspective
Organizational Technologies
Organizational Environments
The Emergence of Turbulent Environments
The Contingency Approach
Analyzing Relations Between Organization and Environment
Differentiation and Integration
One of the Paradoxes of Management
Collective Strategy
The Management of Interorganizational Relations
Tit for Tat
A Strategy for Cooperation and Survival
Organization and Environment
Adaptation or Selection
Do Organizations ‘Enact' Their Environments?
Organizational Growth and Development
Just in Time Systems of Management
Japanese Management
The Art of Self-Regulation
The Challenger Disaster
A Case of Discouraged Feedback?
Information and Misinformation
Some Unintended Consequences of Performance Controls
Collaboration and Control
Peopleless Factories
Peopleless Offices
Team-Based Manufacturing
Digital Tries the Bossless System
Growing Large While Staying Small
Organizational Learning
Innovating Organizations
The Case of 3M
Culture
A Complex and Subtle Language
Corporate Culture and Core Values
Corporate Culture
The Role of Stories
Transformational Leadership
The Tandem Corporation
A Successful Corporate Culture?
Service Master
Combining Vision and Control
Life on the Fast Lane at Datsun
Apple Computer and the Politics of Change
Politics at Work
Some Sources of Organizational Conflict
A Perspective on Conflict Management
Decision-Making in Conflict Situations
Managing Intergroup Conflict
Rational for Whom?
Powerless Power?
Gender and Corporate Politics
Game-Playing and the Psychodynamics of Organizational Life
Groupthink
The Problems of Conformity
Some Unconscious Aspects of Organization
The Destructive Side of Technological Development
Unfolding Contradictions
The Bhopal Disaster
‘Hooked' on Work
The Not-Enough World of Work
PART THREE: CASES AND EXERCISES
American Football
A Case of Mechanistic Organization?
arlie Chaplin's
Modern Times
Eagle Smelting
A Visit to Mc Donald's
Judging the Degree of Fit Between Organization and Environment
The Paradoxical Twins
Acme & Omega Electronics
Scholar Educational Products Inc.
The Changing Structure of Financial Services
Organizations Often Obstruct Learning
Product X
Arnold
The Paradox of Creativity
Understanding the Culture of Your Organization
Perfection or Bust
The Creation and Destruction of the Order of Maria Theresa
Sink or Swim
Reflections on a Corporate Training Program
The Nomizu Sake Company
The University as a Political System
The Fortress Insurance Company
Rainbow Financial Services
Global Inc
A Roleplay
How Politicized is Your Organization?
Pluralist Management
Meetings, Meetings, Meetings
The Sunnyvale Youth Centre
Conflict at Riverside
The Handgrenade
Jersey Packers
The Department of Information Services
Quality Co-Op
Who Builds the Dillworth Extension?
The Lakeside Literary Magazine
A New Direction for the Upstage Theatre
Tipdale Engineering
Visibility, Autonomy, Relevance and Relationships
Four Factors Shaping Power and Influence
Final Offer
Problems in the Machine Shop
Profit and Organizations
A Story of Exploitation?