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This is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 License. It is free to read, download and share on Elgaronline.com. Presenting the emergence of new organizational designs in a novel way, this insightful book blends theory and practice to examine major trends and directions, the key ideas that underpin organizational design and how these ideas might be applied.
This revised and extended second edition evaluates the diverse approaches to organizational change that have defined the field. Explaining the assumptions and implications that accompany these diverse philosophies, this book demystifies the complexities of conflicting perspectives and delivers valuable insights into the research and practice of organizational change.
A new approach to addressing the contemporary world’s most difficult challenges, such as climate change and poverty. Conflicts over “the problem” and “the solution” plague the modern world and land problem solvers in what has been called “wicked problem territory”—a social space with high levels of conflict over problems and solutions. In Design Strategy, Nancy C. Roberts proposes design as a strategy of problem solving to close the gap between an existing state and a desired state. Utilizing this approach, designers and change agents are better able to minimize self-defeating conflicts over problems and solutions, break the logjam of opposition, and avoid the traps that lock...
Paradoxes, contrary propositions that are not contestable separately but that are inconsistent when conjoined, constitute a pervasive feature of contemporary organizational life. When contradictory elements are constituted as equally important in day-to-day work, organizational actors frequently experience acute tensions in engaging with these contradictions. This Element discusses the presence of paradoxes in the life of organizations, introduces the reader to the notion of paradox in theory and practice, and distinguishes paradox and adjacent conceptualizations such as trade-off, dilemma, dialectics, ambiguity, etc. This Element also covers what triggers paradoxes and how they come into being whereby the Element distinguishes latent and salient paradoxes and how salient paradoxes are managed. This Element discusses key methodological challenges and possibilities of studying, teaching, and applying paradoxes and concludes by considering some future research questions left unexplored in the field.
This innovative volume provides a comprehensive overview of improvisation as a pervasive organizational process, essential in ever-changing business environments. Exploring theories of organizational action as well as contemporary challenges, it highlights improvisation’s rich potential in theory building and practice. The value and relevance of improvisational capabilities and processes in organizations are more apparent than ever: the global pandemic has forced organizations to reinvent themselves and to adapt to dramatic change on a massive scale. This surge in improvised activity starkly illustrates how the capability to improvise is key to organizational resilience: organizations that are able to improvise effectively are better prepared to bounce back and even thrive. From the latest thinking on improvisation in organizations to future avenues for research, this volume demonstrates the rich potential for both theory building and practice and provides a valuable resource for researchers and advanced students in organizational strategy, entrepreneurship, product development, information systems, disaster management, and HRM.
This unique book provides a novel and challenging framework for understanding and influencing organizational change. It reimagines managing and leading change as the mindful mobilisation of maps, masks and mirrors.
This book provides a systematic, interdisciplinary analysis of the conflicts, issues, and tensions associated with today’s ecological transformation processes from an Environmental Humanities perspective. It explores the notion of ecological ambivalence, where conflicting reactions, beliefs, or feelings toward public policies or private practices for "saving planet Earth" threaten to produce a stalemate. Under the umbrella of the Environmental Humanities, the book brings together scholars from fields such as environmental history, ecological economics, human geography, and ecocriticism. Contributions investigate the dissonances, or ambivalences, wound up with processes of environmental tra...
This insightful Elgar Introduction comprises the first effort to provide a succinct overview of the field of organizational paradox theory, exploring contradictions and tensions in organizational settings. By conceptually mapping the field, it offers guidance through the literature on paradox, making space for new interpretations and applications of the concept.
This captivating book delves into the complex realm of management and organizational dynamics, focusing on the significance of paradoxes. From the intricate interplay between social obligations and business missions to the tension between stability and change, this textbook unveils the essence of these enduring contradictions. As organizations evolve, paradoxes become defining features, and illustrative cases of this are included throughout the textbook. Organizational Paradoxes equips students of organization management, organization change and strategy with an understanding of paradoxes, their philosophical underpinnings and their management in practice. Medhanie Gaim (PhD) is Associate Professor of Management at Umeå School of Business, Economics, and Statistics, Sweden. Stewart Clegg is Professor at the University of Sydney in the School of Project Management and the John Grill Institute for Project Leadership and a Distinguished Emeritus Professor of the University of Technology Sydney. Miguel Pina e Cunha is the Fundação Amélia de Mello chair professor at Nova School of Business and Economics, Nova University Lisbon, Portugal.
Interdisciplinary Dialogues on Organizational Paradox is an innovative two-part volume that enriches our understanding about paradox; both deepening the theory and offering greater insight to address grand challenges we face in the world today. Part A: Learning from Belief and Science explores the realms of beliefs and physicality.