The Communitarian Organization: Preserving Cultural Integrity in the Transnational Economy

Emerging from profound political change in Eastern Europe, Latin America and Africa, and coupled with a proliferation of market economies and commercial interpenetrations of hitherto closed societies, the international system has become a global village, where the rules of conduct of economic enterprise entail intricacies and sensitivities heretofore largely incongruous to mainstream organization theory. This study argues that the fissiparous tendencies of globalization may be mitigated through a reconsideration of the organic tradition of society. In particular, the book seeks to demonstrate how the communitarian approach to organization theory may serve as an exemplar for resolving the problem areas in the individualist and the organic model of organizations. The book draws from a variety of disciplines as it scrutinizes and questions both the cultural backdrop and the ontological assumptions of contemporary political and organization theory, arguing that the implications of economic enterprise can neither be confined within the organization, nor ignored as an agent of change in larger society. The study contrasts the individualism of American organizations and the collectivism of Japanese society to present the communitarian model as a new more dynamic paradigm to deal with the complexities inherent in the interaction of diverse cultures.