Social life is a collective process, virtually all shaped in contemporary industrial nations by formal organizations and recognized social institutions. Understanding Organizations takes a fresh look at the sociology of organizations, blending classic theories with contemporary studies and debates.

Understanding Organizations: Theories and Images introduces students to the key principles of understanding, designing, and managing organizations in an accessible and practical way. The book provides a conceptual toolkit containing the essential models, theories and concepts needed for working in, managing and evaluating organizations. Key Features: Insightful anecdotes discuss how for- and not-for profit organizations fit within our current society from a social and economic perspective. Theoretical framework and multi-perspective approach focuses on economics, institutionalism and evolution theory highlighting the relationship between organizations, employees and the broader society. Research-focused approach analyses organizational phenomena in light of recent studies. This textbook is ideal for undergraduates and postgraduates studying general management, organizational theory, organizational design, and organizational sociology.

Charles Handy's revolutionary 1989 bestseller The Age of Unreason catapulted him into the ranks of the top management consultants. Now, in this new edition of his acclaimed study Understanding Organizations, he solidifies his reputation as a seminal business thinker, offering a brilliantly insightful, wide-ranging look at business organizations.Long a bestseller in the United Kingdom, this classic text offers an illuminating discussion of key concepts of concern to all managers: culture, motivation, leadership, power, role-playing and working in groups. Ever mindful of actual business practice, Handy directly addresses how managers can translate the six main concepts into invaluable tools for effective management. He discusses how all organizations need to select, develop and reward their people; to structure and design their work; to resolve political conflicts; to lay down guidelines for their managers; and to plan for the future. In each case, the approaches and techniques described here are invaluable.Equally important, Handy excels at presenting his ideas in colorful, immediately accessible ways, filling the book with illuminating examples and inventive metaphors that range from Tolstoy's ideas on the concept of self, to the many meanings of "good morning," to the conversations that occur in a stopped elevator, to the proper size for a vineyard or an elephant. He shows, for instance, how an optical illusion experiment sheds light on interdepartmental relations, and how the way schoolchildren are typecast by their peers helps explain corporate hierarchies. And along with case studies, graphs, charts, and questionnaires, Understanding Organizations is peppered with boxed sections that offer advice and stimulate thought, brimming with provocative quotations from business wizards such as Peter Drucker, Tom Peters, Warren Bennis, Alvin Toffler, and Rosabeth Moss Kanter, as well as from Aristotle, Shakespeare, Gilbert and Sullivan, Gail Sheehy, and Joseph Heller.What the successful manager knows intuitively, Charles Handy puts into words. His powerful interpretive schemes will help managers grasp the underlying dynamics of their company, make sense of its past, and assess--and shape--its future.

An understanding of identity is fundamental to a complete understanding of organizational life. While conventional management textbooks nod to in-groups, cohesion and discrimination, this text offers instead a deeper, more nuanced understanding of why people, groups and organizations behave the way they do. With conceptions of identity perhaps less stable than they have ever been, the authors make complex theoretical issues accessible to the reader through the use of lively examples from popular culture. The authors present an overview of the key issues, as well as an examination of cutting-edge research and topical forces currently re-defining identity, such as globalisation, the fair trade movement and online identities. This text is a succinct, relevant and exciting overview of the field of identity studies as it relates to business and management and applied social sciences, an is an invaluable resource to undergraduate and postgraduate students of management on any course that has an identity component.

Understanding Sport Organizations provides a strong foundation in organizational theory and organizational behavior and addresses how that theory is applied in a real-world context. It engages readers by providing opportunities to discover the theory in practice.

′An excellent and much needed contribution to the management literature′ - Gareth Morgan ′Trough accurate examples and instructive accounts of what constitutes understanding at work, the Author leads us to the core link between understanding and managerial practicing. It is deeply informative, often witty and always elegant!′ - Silvia Gherardi Research Unit on Communication, Organizational Learning, and Aesthetics dipartimento di sociologia e ricerca sociale ′The book provides an interesting, accessible and important contribution to the interpretive understanding of management and leadership and clearly shows its relevance also for practitioners′ - Mats Alvesson Bringing a fresh perspective to the evaluation of management problems, this book draws upon interpretative research and builds upon existing interpretative studies to scrutinise the influence managers have on employees′ understanding. It considers how managers use ideas and visions to frame their employees′ internalised understanding of the external rules and instructions that govern their work. The book brings an interpretative perspective to the question of individual and group competence and look at how this is linked with understanding. Throughout Managing Understanding in Organizations refers to international case studies and considers the cross-cultural impact on management and understanding at work.

This text offers an extended dictionary of the key concepts, and shows how this can help us find new solutions to familiar problems, describing approaches and techniques.