Complexity and Organizational Reality: Uncertainty and the Need to Rethink Management after the Collapse of Investment Capitalism

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ISBN: 9780415556477 | 0415556473
Cover: Nonspecific Binding
Copyright: 2/1/2010

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Complexity and Organizational Realities updates, revises and builds upon Ralph Stacey's classic writings offering an alternative way of thinking about management that is based on the ongoing management experience of uncertainty.

Preface	p. ix
Contradiction: experiencing the reality of uncertainty but still believing that executives choose an organization's 'direction'	p. 1
Uncertainty and the actions of organizational executives over the past few years	p. 3
The dominant management discourse of managers choosing	p. 10
The lack of a scientific evidence base for the prescriptions of the dominant discourse	p. 13
The difficulty of providing traditional scientific evidence in an uncertain world	p. 19
The spread of dominant thinking to the public sector despite the lack of evidence	p. 20
Conclusion	p. 22
How we came to believe that leaders and managers choose an organization's direction: professional identification with the sciences of certainty	p. 27
Etymology of 'leading' and 'managing' and the origins of the modern corporation	p. 27
Striving for a professional management identity on the basis of the reductionist sciences of certainty	p. 29
Sustaining a professional management identity on the basis of the systemic sciences of certainty	p. 37
The emergence of investment capitalism and the mathematics of certainty	p. 43
The problematic continuing role of the sciences of certainty and notions of systems	p. 46
Conclusion	p. 49
Complexity and the sciences of uncertainty: the importance of local interaction in the emergence of population-wide patterns of continuity and change	p. 53
Chance and adaptation: Darwin's evolutionary theory	p. 53
The complexity sciences	p. 56
Types of scientific model	p. 57
Equilibrium models: controllable futures	p. 58
Models of chaos: unfolding an enfolded future	p. 59
Models of dissipative structure: spontaneously moving from one given pattern to another	p. 61
Complex evolutionary models: constructing an unknowable future	p. 63
Models of complex adaptive systems: a life of their own	p. 64
Causality: certainty and uncertainty	p. 66
Conclusion	p. 66
Complexity and what writers on organizations do with it: obscuring local interaction and mostly re-presenting the dominant discourse	p. 73
The application of complexity science to industries: unpredictability and the importance of deviant behavior	p. 74
The application of complexity science to organizations: re-presenting the dominant management discourse in new jargon	p. 79
The complexity sciences as metaphor: justifying existing ideological positions	p. 84
More critical views	p. 89
Conclusion	p. 90
Understanding organizations as games we are pre-occupied in: finding ourselves immersed in local interaction and using abstract management tools at the same time	p. 96
From porous selves in an enchanted world to buffered selves in a disenchanted world	p. 97
Involved and detached thinking	p. 99
Taking an overview from the center	p. 102
Local resistance	p. 104
Pre-occupation in the game	p. 106
The activities of generalizing/idealizing and particularizing in local interaction	p. 108
Abstracting from the experience of local interaction	p. 111
Immersing in local interaction	p. 112
Local interaction and the production of abstractions	p. 113
Conclusion	p. 115
Understanding organizations as social processes: the interplay of abstracting and immersing producing outcomes no one chooses	p. 118
Second order systems thinking	p. 119
Different ways in which the term 'system' is used	p. 122
The spatial metaphor in systems thinking	p. 125
The notion of 'embodiment'	p. 127
Time	p. 128
Complex adaptive systems as source domain for analogies of human acting: the theory of complex responsive processes	p. 129
Hegel and the social process	p. 134
Conclusion	p. 136
Managers accomplish whatever they accomplish in processes of communication	p. 139
The civilizing process and the personality structure of modern human agents	p. 140
The emergence of social order	p. 142
Social processes and communicative interaction	p. 143
Communication as conversation of gestures	p. 144
The social attitude and the emergence of self	p. 147
Back to the complexity sciences as source domain for analogies	p. 148
The key features of communicative interaction and the narrative-like patterning of experience	p. 149
The thematic patterning of experience	p. 154
The conversation of gestures, the interplay of local communicative actions and the nature of organizational life	p. 156
Conclusion	p. 158
Turning the dominant management discourse on its head: organizational continuity and transformation emerging in local interaction rather than being chosen by managers	p. 160
Generalizing/idealizing and functionalizing: social objects and cult values	p. 162
The relationship between local interaction and global patterns	p. 165
An example: the National Health Service (NHS)	p. 169
Long-term social trends	p. 170
An example: the development of the internet	p. 171
A different understanding of social forces/structures	p. 172
Technology as social object	p. 173
An alternative way of taking account of the social: complex responsive processes and technology	p. 176
The relationship between people and technology: social objects and meaning	p. 177
Conclusion	p. 178
Local and population-wide patterns of power relations and ideology: the dynamics of inclusion and exclusion in organizations	p. 180
Understanding social processes through the metaphor of games	p. 181
Turn-taking, power and ideology	p. 183
The dynamics of inclusion-exclusion, gossip and identity	p. 185
The dynamics of inclusion and exclusion in organizational life	p. 188
Desires, values and norms	p. 190
Norms, values and ideology	p. 192
Complex responsive processes and spirituality	p. 194
Values and spirituality in organizational discourse	p. 197
Values and organizational practice	p. 199
Institutions and legitimate structures of authority	p. 200
Conclusion	p. 202
Implications of a theory of complex responsive processes for policy making, consultancy, leadership, management, organizational research and management education	p. 204
Policy making and public sector governance	p. 207
The roles of leaders and managers after the collapse of investment capitalism	p. 213
Organizational and management research	p. 221
Management education	p. 227
Management consultancy	p. 228
Conclusion	p. 229
References	p. 231
Author index	p. 242
Subject index	p. 246
Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved.

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Complexity and Organizational Reality: Uncertainty and the Need to Rethink Management after the Collapse of Investment Capitalism

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