Across the social sciences, scholars are increasingly showing how people 'work' to construct organizational life, including the rules and routines that shape and enable organizational activity, the identities of people who occupy organizations, and the societal norms and assumptions that provide the context for organizational action. The idea of work emphasizes the ways in which people and groups engage in purposeful, reflexive efforts rooted in an awareness of organizational life as constructed in human interaction and changeable through human effort. Studies of these efforts have identified new forms of work including emotion work, identity work, boundary work, strategy work, institutional work, and a host of others. Missing in these conversations, however, is a recognition that these forms of work are all part of a broader phenomenon driven by historical shifts that began with modernity and dramatically accelerated through the twentieth century. This book introduces the social-symbolic work perspective, which addresses this broader phenomenon. The social-symbolic work perspective integrates diverse streams of research to examine how people purposefully and reflexively work to construct organizational life, including the identities, technologies, boundaries, and strategies that constitute their organizations. In this book, the authors define social-symbolic work and introduce three forms - self work, organization work, and institutional work. Social-symbolic work highlights people's efforts to construct the social world, and focuses attention on the motivations, practices, resources, and effects of those efforts. This book explores eight distinct streams of social-symbolic work research, drawing on a broad range of examples from the worlds of business, politics, sports, social movements, and many others. It provides researchers, students, and practitioners with an integrative theoretical framework useful in understanding social-symbolic work, a survey of the main forms of social-symbolic work, a rich set of theoretical opportunities to inspire new studies, and practical methodological guidance for empirical research on social-symbolic work.

Organizational Change integrates major empirical, theoretical and conceptual approaches to implementing communication in organizational settings. Laurie Lewis ties together the disparate literatures in management, education, organizational sociology, and communication to explore how the practices and processes of communication work in real-world cases of change implementation. Gives a bold and comprehensive overview of communication research and ideas on change and those who bring it about Fills in an important piece of the applied communication puzzle as it relates to organizations Illustrated with student friendly, real life case studies from organizations, including organizational mergers, governmental or nonprofit policy or procedural implementation, or technological innovation Winner of the 2011 Organizational Communication NCA Division Book of the Year

Using stories and exercises from grassroots organizing experience ... [this book] walks you through the steps of starting a new group or strengthening an old one - to build a better world.-Back cover.

"A marvelous addition to the literature on both organizations and power. It is well-grounded in the research on these topics and especially the wide-range of relevant theorizing... The book is terrific at bringing together theory, research and the world of organizations."- George Ritzer, Distinguished University Professor, University of Maryland "This book tirelessly illuminates the nooks and crannies of the power literature...taking readers on an audacious tour of power′s multiple conceptualizations and expressions."- Hugh Willmott, Diageo Professor of Management Studies, University of Cambridge "Clegg and his associates expose the power dynamics that lie at the heart of all political and organizational arenas, and in so doing, they shed light on the underbelly along with the creative potentialities in organizational life."-Joyce Rothschild, Professor of Sociology, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University "Strange but true - most studies of organizational hierarchies downplay the issue of power or uncritically assume more is better, while ignoring its pernicious effects. Stewart Clegg, David Courpasson and Nelson Phillips set the record straight."- Joanne Martin, Merrill Professor of Organizational Behavior and, by courtesy, Sociology Stanford University Graduate School of Business, Stanford In this tour de force, Stewart Clegg, David Courpasson and Nelson Phillips provide a comprehensive account of power and organizations, unlocking power as the central relation of modern organizations and society. The authors present an excellent synthesis of organization, social and political theory to offer an overview of power and organizations that is historically informed, addresses current issues and is comprehensive in scope. Power and Organizations reviews the evolution of theories on power and organization, presenting not only the theorists who identify power as positive, but also dealing with the negativity of power and the real horror of which organizations are capable, which has thus far been underplayed in organization theory. At the core of organizational power projects are organizational elites, whose politics and projects are examined extensively in the book. The book concludes by examining the implications for organizations and their elites of the trends, tendencies, and theories considered in the course of the book. This book is required reading for graduate students and researchers in areas such as organizational, social and political theory.

Professor Joan Woodward, one of the founding figures of organization studies, died in 1971 at the age of 54 after a relatively brief but highly distinguished career as a management researcher and teacher, and just six years after the publication of her book "Industrial Organization".

The Oxford Handbook of Decision-Making comprehensively surveys theory and research on organizational decision-making, broadly conceived. Emphasizing psychological perspectives, while encompassing the insights of economics, political science, and sociology, it provides coverage at theindividual, group, organizational, and inter-organizational levels of analysis. In-depth case studies illustrate the practical implications of the work surveyed.Each chapter is authored by one or more leading scholars, thus ensuring that this Handbook is an authoritative reference work for academics, researchers, advanced students, and reflective practitioners concerned with decision-making in the areas of Management, Psychology, and HRM.Contributors: Eric Abrahamson, Julia Balogun, Michael L Barnett, Philippe Baumard, Nicole Bourque, Laure Cabantous, Prithviraj Chattopadhyay, Kevin Daniels, Jerker Denrell, Vinit M Desai, Giovanni Dosi, Roger L M Dunbar, Stephen M Fiore, Mark A Fuller, Michael Shayne Gary, Elizabeth George,Jean-Pascal Gond, Paul Goodwin, Terri L Griffith, Mark P Healey, Gerard P Hodgkinson, Gerry Johnson, Michael E Johnson-Cramer, Alfred Kieser, Ann Langley, Eleanor T Lewis, Dan Lovallo, Rebecca Lyons, Peter M Madsen, A. John Maule, John M Mezias, Nigel Nicholson, Gregory B Northcraft, David Oliver,Annie Pye, Karlene H Roberts, Jacques Rojot, Michael A Rosen, Isabelle Royer, Eugene Sadler-Smith, Eduardo Salas, Kristyn A Scott, Zur Shapira, Carolyne Smart, Gerald F Smith, Emma Soane, Paul R Sparrow, William H Starbuck, Matt Statler, Kathleen M Sutcliffe, Michal Tamuz , Teri JaneUrsacki-Bryant, Ilan Vertinsky, Benedicte Vidaillet, Jane Webster, Karl E Weick, Benjamin Wellstein, George Wright, Kuo Frank Yu, and David Zweig.

Revised edition of: Oxford handbook of positive psychology and work / edited by P. Alex Linley, Susan Harrington, Nicola Garcea. -- Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2010.