Routledge Revivals: Towards a New Theory of Organizations (1994)

First published in 1994, the essays collected in this book explore the impact and current status of the ideas put forth in David Silverman’s The Theory of Organizations, and how they relate to future directions in organization theory. After opening with a chapter by Silverman himself, the subsequent chapters investigate key issues in the study of organizations, including structure and agency, the politics of organization theory, and the meanings of post-positivist organizational analysis. Contemporaneous debates on postmodernism, the emotions, gender and structuration are discussed in the context of the development of organizational theory in the preceding twenty-five years — providing insights into the continuities within organizational theory and provoking thought about future directions.

List of figures; List of contributors; Introduction Martin Parker and John Hassard 1 On throwing away ladders: re-writing the theory of organizations David Silverman 2 Power and institutions in the theory of organizations Stewart Clegg; Part I Agents and structures; 3 Sociological Pluralism, institutions and managerial agency Richard Whittington 4 Organizing and emotion: towards a social construction Stephen Fineman 5 Bringing agency (back) into organizational analysis: responding to the crisis of (post)modernity Hugh Willmott 6 Organization theory, consumption and the service sector David Knights and Glenn Morgan; Part II: Theory and politics; 7 Towards an anthropology of organizations Jean-François Chanlat 8 The liberal revolution and organization theory Lex Donaldson 9 Towards a managerially relevant but non-managerialist organization theory Tony Watson; Part III Theory and research; 10 Gender, power, organizations: an interruptive interpretation Barbara Czarniawska-Joerges 11 Organization, narrative and strategy John Law 12 Re-creating common ground: elements for post-paradigmatic organization studies Stephen Ackroyd; Bibliography; Index