Book Description
Managing people and their behavior in organizations is one of the most challenging tasks anyone could face. Gibson's Organizations: Behavior, Structure, Processes, Twelfth Edition, presents theories, research results, and applications that focus on managing organizational behavior in small, large, and global organizations. It is organized and presented in a sequence based on behavior, structure, and processes. Each part is presented as a self-contained unit and can therefore be presented in whatever sequence instructors prefer. Organizations is easily adaptable to individual preferences. This edition emphasizes that the most successful managers in the global economy will be those who can anticipate, adapt, and manage change.
Customer Reviews:
Recycling outdated material and deceptive.......2007-05-07
I am using this as a textbook for an MBA course and it is not lightly that I give this strong opinion. After having read/studied nearly the complete book I find that in its 12th edition this book:
1. Recycles itself with nearly no update of the material and text. E.g. "Recent studies found...." and the reference is from 1995. MANY times the text states that something is brand new or latest or recent etc. and the reference is like the Fortune Magazine from 1990. This is unprofessional and deceptive and serves both, students and teaches, badly. The authors are just harvesting $$$ on merits that are pasted.
2. If you use Wikipedia once in a while you know that they label articles sometimes as containing "weasel words: are words or phrases that seemingly support statements without attributing opinions to verifiable sources, lending them the force of authority without letting the reader decide whether the source of the opinion is reliable." Example: "Scientists say...". "Managers often do ..." "It is common that..."
This textbook is peppered with such expressions.
3. The presentation and the writing style is utterly unimaginative and inadequate for this day and age. Those authors haven't thought anyone anything real in a long time. A book that expensive should be held accountable to current standards.
4. The author are incapable of synthesising the material in something the student can take with him/her. In fact they regularly complain themselves that all the theories and models they just wrote about are actually highly invalidated and critizised by other research that itself has trouble coming up with anything tangible. The result is a dead see of the unusable. If at least the presentation had something valuable but it is cumbersome and boring.
5. Some of the case studies are likely written by the Brother Grimm or Scott Adams. Often they relate insufficiently to the text or are so unreal or crippled that it is agonizing to have to even read them, let alone handle them in homework.
My recommendation is that if you have a choice, you better look around for something that will actually add value to your studies. I had no choice as
it is the textbook for this course, but I will urge my uni to move forward. This textbook is a backset.
Boring read.......2006-11-09
Maybe it was the professor and not the book. It could have been more concise and energenic.
Book Description
ORGANIZATIONS, 9/E, continues to cover both micro and macro topics, with approximately a 65/35 split. The Ninth Edition has 18 chapters, compared to the 21 chapters it has formerly had, and will thus be significantly more concise. (The stress and careers chapters have been integrated elsewhere in the text.) This edition of the text will be thoroughly revised and modernized, including more actual company examples and more attention to ethics, diversity, and global issues.
Customer Reviews:
Book delivery - Organization Behavior.......2005-07-06
Excellent turnaround! Shipped very quickly, would do business again with this seller!
Managing organizations?.......2000-09-04
This book is excellent to understand the behaivor of organizations, groups and their structures. If anyone who needs to manage a group (small or large, does not matter), must not skip these subjects. Every group, every project has different needs and a different management plan. They are different like individual person. That book shows and explains that perfectly.
Customer Reviews:
"Design is a key task of the leader.".......2000-04-26
"This book is about designing effective organizations. It emphasizes that design is a key task of the leader. It suggests that effective organizations are necessary for competitiveness and they are a growing source for competitive advantage. The focus of the book is therefore on equipping leaders with the understanding and the tools necessary to create organizations that are superior to those of their competitors."
In this context J. Galbraith :
* examines the forces (buyer power, variety, change, and speed) that are shaping organizations.
* presents the organizational design framework in the form of "the star model". In the star model, design policies fall into five categories :
(1) Strategy,
(2) Structure,
(3) Processes,
(4) Rewards,
(5) People.
* looks at policy areas/dimensions that determine the structure of an organization : specialization, shape, distribution of power, and departmentalization.
* discusses the lateral processes as a multidimentional aspects and the ability to be responsive to products, customers, functions, geographies, and work flow processes.
* focuses on three organizational design models : functional integrators, the distributed organization, and the front/back hybrid structure.
* examines virtual corporation as a network of independent companies.
"In conclusion", J. Galbraith writes, "I wish to emphasize once again the role of leader. I see the leader as a decision shaper rather than a decision maker. The decision-shaping role is achieved through the organizational design. The star model provides the management-controlled policies that will influence how others make decisions."
I highly recommend.
See also :
* J. Galbraith - Designing the Global Corporation (2000)
* E. Lawler - From the Ground Up (2000)
* S. A. Mohrman et al - Tomorrow's Organization (1998)
a leading book from a leading authority !.......1998-08-25
A "must" reading for all executives managing living organizations and their human assets.
Book Description
The "knowledge revolution" is widely accepted, but strategic leaders now talk of the logical next step: the human capital revolution and the need to manage knowledgeable people in an entirely different way. The organization of the future must be not only nimble and flexible but also self-governing and values-driven. But what will this future organization look like? And how will it be led?
In this thoughtful book, organizational expert Brook Manville and Princeton classics professor Josiah Ober suggest that the model for building the future organization may lie deep in the past. The authors argue that ancient Athenian democracy was an ingenious solution to organizing human capital through the practice of citizenship. That ancient solution holds profound lessons for today's forward-thinking managers: They must reconceive today's "employees" as "citizens."
Through this provocative case study of innovation and excellence lasting two hundred years, Manville and Ober describe a surprising democratic organization that empowered tens of thousands of individuals to work together for both noble purpose and hard-edged performance. Their book offers timeless guiding principles for organizing and leading a self-governing enterprise.
A unique and compelling think piece, A Company of Citizens will change the way managers envision the leadership, values, and structure of tomorrow's people-centered organizations.
Customer Reviews:
Find new ways to learn and work together.......2003-04-25
History was never my favorite subject so I was a little leery of how much I might appreciate from a book about ancient Athens. How wonderful to find refreshing insights and practical teachings page after page! The authors use Athens as more of an illuminating example or clever case-study than a mantra for what modern managers should do now. They address both historical challenges and modern day dilemmas to get at the heart of how to build community while supporting individuality at the same time. Through stories that could almost seem ripped from today's headlines, they show refreshing ways of working together, learning from one another, and networking for the good of a geographic or business community. I was especially impressed with chapter 5, Practicing Citizenship, because it offered a series of Athenian practices that (as the authors said) "embody the combination of 'doing' and 'learning'--things that modern managers still tend to keep in separate jars." In my work, helping people and organizations discovery alternative ways to learn and work together, I'm sure to surprise people with some fresh approaches that are anything but new.
From the Financial Times--reprinted.......2003-04-18
Ancient Greeks bear gifts to management.
By RICHARD DONKIN.
1,073 words
27 February 2003
Financial Times
16
English
(c) 2003 Financial Times Limited. All Rights Reserved
The authors of a new book argue that the ordered society of Pericles' Athens offers transferable models of organisation for the modern company.
There is a memorable scene in the Monty Python film The Life of Brian, where a group of Jewish resistance fighters asks: "What did the Romans do for us?" before producing an ever-growing list of achievements. It is just as well that the Python team did not include the Greeks or the scene would have run and run.
Ancient Greece has so much to offer that it is perhaps surprising that the management book-publishing industry has taken its time to evaluate the Greek city state for ideas that may be applied in the modern company. It is not as if business publishers have been coy about historical studies. We need only look at the exhaustive examinations of the methods of Sun Tzu, the fourth-century BC Chinese general, and Niccolo` Machiavelli, the Florentine Renaissance politician.
The interest in both is understandable, since they had much to say about the dark arts of manipulation and strategy, perceived for so long to be instructive for bosses who wanted to be sure of their power base.
But what could the city state of ancient Athens with its democratic traditions have to offer the autocratically run company?
The authors of a new book* believe the time has come for greater democracy and citizenship in the workplace. They argue that the ordered society of ancient Athens - what they describe as the world's first "company of citizens" - offers transferable models of organisation for the modern company.
It is tempting to dismiss this collaboration between Josiah Ober, a classics professor at Princeton University, and Brook Manville, a chief learning officer in Saba Software, a human resources and management consultancy, as a flight into faddism. But their comparisons provide an intriguing reflection on the modern company.
They do not, for example, explicitly compare today's companies with another Greek model, Spartan society - but there do seem to be similarities. The Spartans were reared as warriors and trained in military systems from childhood. Society was controlled from the centre. What the authors describe as a "grim and joyless military camp" sounds like the pared-down efficiency expected of lean manufacturing or the no-frills office.
There is a big difference, however, between tightly controlled Spartan society and the various degrees of semi-autonomous decision-making work teams in more progressive manufacturing businesses today. Some companies, flush with the ideas of empowerment, do appear to be heading towards more consensual models of organisation. But they have yet to achieve the devolution enjoyed some 2,400 years ago by the citizens of Athens.
As the authors point out, the decision to build the Parthenon, still one of the world's most potent symbols of democracy, emanated from accountable leaders who proposed it in an open forum and had the work plan approved by a citizens' assembly. "It did not spring from the head of an egotistical tyrant," they write. How many corporate decisions today can boast such participative involvement of employees?
The Parthenon remains, say the authors, "a product of tens of thousands of people working together to create something of lasting value and excellence, a reminder to us that similar excellence can be achieved today."
The achievement of such excellence was founded on a strong emphasis on the involvement of citizens in decision-making, the system of poletia that embodied a sense of civic duty, common purpose, learning, governance and community values. If the same spirit could be replicated in a company's workforce, say the authors, it could produce the same kind of sustained dynamic performance that characterised the success of Athenian society.
But, as they point out, the Athenian poletia was not socially engineered from above. "(It) did not start with a strategy, then devise a structure then finally plug the people into the framework. It began with the people themselves, and let values and structure and design emerge through the aligning practices of citizenship." But it relied on the direct involvement of citizens in the direction of society. "We do not say that a man who takes no interest in politics minds his own business; we say that he has no business here at all," said Pericles, the Athenian statesman.
There is a big difference between this view and that of the typical board-run company. It is one thing to communicate decisions to staff. It is quite another to involve those staff in the decision-making process. As the authors acknowledge, most experiments in workplace democracy to date have taken place in village-sized enterprises, such as the St Luke's advertising agency, the Oticon strategic management group and a jet engine plant run by General Electric in Durham, North Carolina.
They argue, however, that the Athenian model of organisation, consisting of "networks of networks" of citizens based primarily on neighbourhood groups called demes, could be scaled up to cover communities of tens of thousands of people.
The authors are not completely starry-eyed about the Athenian model. Ultimately, after 200 years, it was replaced by hierarchical rule after the city's conquest by Macedon. Athenian citizenship was never inclusive. It did not grant citizenship to women and it exploited the practice of slavery, although a small minority of slaves did manage to prosper and some even won their freedom.
But there is no doubting the power of involved citizens in democracy or that of involved employees in a genuinely democratic enterprise. Even so, can we really expect the chief executives of traditional businesses to become more accountable to employees? Recent developments in corporate governance are forcing boards to become more accountable to shareholders. Moreover, increasing numbers of organisations appear to be acquainting themselves with the stakeholder concept of the organisation. But this has yet to extend to any sophisticated understanding or practice of corporate citizenship.
Greek civilisation emerged in a turbulent world of warring nation states. Athens discovered that the organisational power unleashed by its system of governance endowed it with a real competitive advantage. That alone is enough to justify a more active experimentation in corporate citizenship today.
Can Athenian society be a model for workplace democracy?.......2003-03-09
A Company of Citizens is concerned with two themes. First, "workers in today's Knowledge Age," mindful of their contributions and responsibilities, increasingly expect to become full citizens of their organizations with rights to self-govern and to develop practices of cooperation. Secondly, the Greek city-state of Athens in the fourth and fifth century B.C. is presented as the most significant example of a large organization/society that operated as a thoroughgoing democracy, and, as such, is suggested by the authors as the best practical model for modern firms desirous of a transformation to democracy. But the connection between the democracy of Athens which existed primarily at the level of the state and participatory democracy in modern, private enterprises is hardly straightforward. The authors contend that reality for today's employees is one of being forced to "check their values and sense of purpose" at the door to their firms, much to the detriment of the firms.
A large portion of the book consists of a discussion and breakdown of what the authors term the core elements of the Athenian democratic system: "democratic values, governance structures, and participatory practices." The basis of the widespread participation by Athenian citizens in the affairs of state was an unprecedented freedom and equality. There was not a layer of elites that trumped the various citizen assemblies, and any leaders chosen remained accountable to those assemblies. There was frequent rotation of citizens among the various bodies performing legislative, executive, and judicial functions. The art and responsibility of governing was widely distributed among Athenian citizens.
The authors focus on the Athenian concerns for defense and the domination of neighboring city-states as evidence of the positive workings of the Athenian democracy. But the authors make little mention of the economy of Athens, which is surprising since this book attempts to address the relevance of the Athens model to modern private enterprises. They make the claim that redistribution of private assets was not part of Athenian policies. But the redistribution of power or economic goods in the name of fairness and the wellbeing of communities is invariably part of democracies. That is a fundamental principle of modern social-democratic states, and, one guesses, of the Athens city-state.
For both communities and organizations, issues of "who can be members" and "the permanency of membership" are primary. An oddity by today's standards, citizenship in the Athens city-state was limited to native-born males. Unfortunately, the authors seem to have been unduly swayed by that restriction by pondering whether levels of membership will need to be established in firms employing workers with varying degrees of importance to their firms' success. However, a caste system is a dubious proposition for a modern democratic community. As a further consideration, in most genuine communities, members are protected by the group and not cast aside in difficult times. Yet the authors see "downsizing" as a possible action by democratic communities, though perhaps distasteful. The damage to an organization's fabric is not discussed.
The oft-repeated, hollow slogan of modern companies, "the people are the company," certainly had validity in Athens. There can be no state without citizens. But modern companies have legal, independent standing and are generally owned by outside shareholders, not workers. The reality is that workers are more like "wage slaves," not citizens of their companies with long-term, essential standing, legal or otherwise. The authors briefly touch on the necessity of redefining and reprioritizing the concept of "stakeholder" in modern companies. Obviously, a company of citizens cannot be trumped by absentee owners and still be a democratic community.
Closely tied to the issue of ownership of a firm is the role of management. The difficulties in transforming a company being operated by a managerial elite backed by a board of directors to one governed by employee-citizens cannot be exaggerated. A company of citizens cannot simply be mandated with power being retained by some overriding authority, no matter how enlightened. The authors point out that a democracy evolves through experimentation and mistakes by citizens. It is difficult to envision a modern CEO permitting his authority to be eliminated, let alone diminished, or allowing himself to be rotated out of the job. In addition, a huge issue is whether modern workers can really embrace and accept the responsibilities of democracy.
The emphasis on the Athens city-state is instructive from the standpoint of describing a "strong" democracy, despite some of its shortcomings. But one could ask whether it is even necessary to turn to ancient history to shed light on employees trying to find empowerment within their workplaces. The labor movement has struggled since the beginnings of industrialization to gain a voice for workers within enterprises. The authors do not present in the main text any examples of companies where employees are full citizens. It would have been interesting for the authors to comment on the well known example of the Saturn Corporation as to its fit as a company of citizens. Or perhaps the works council systems found in Europe could have been mentioned.
The authors repeatedly make the point that a company of citizens must be concerned with a "steep performance challenge," but why the condition? One would think that those advocating for democracy would do so on the fundamental basis of citizens controlling their destiny and not on the existence of some unusual circumstance. The book is thought provoking. But far too much space is devoted to the Athens city-state and the attempt to capture its workings in a set of textbook-like generalizations. There is little in this book that leads one to believe that the U.S. will be establishing companies of citizens any time soon. Nor is the book much in the way of a blueprint of how to do so. In some respects this book can be added to a large list of management books that talk employee empowerment, but don't quite get it.
Must Read Must Do.......2003-02-02
This book goes beyond a must read to a must do. It provides clear, compelling guidance for growing stronger, better performing companies from within. It challenges organizations that compete in the knowledge economy to move beyond "people are our only assets" to "We, the people". But it is not mere smarmy and naive trash that extols empowerment without responsibility. If people are to seize the moment and become companies of citizens -- become contemporary equivalents of "Athenians" -- then they must take responsibility individually and together. They must risk their futures on learning from the distant past so well described in this excellent book.
A Terrific Think Piece.......2003-01-19
Whether you are looking for a model of a democratic yet decisive organization or for an example of the timeless lessons of ancient history, you will love A Company of Citizens. The authors, a businessman and a classics professor, deserve a victory wreath for this short, sparkling, and inspiring guide that takes us from the Acropolis to the organization of the future.
Book Description
Based upon classical and contemporary theory and empirical research, this book forms a sociological analysis of organizations, focusing on the impacts that organizations have upon individuals and society. It has been rewritten to be more accessible to readers and to update coverage while retaining the features that have brought it widespread acclaim. Unifying framework of organizational effectiveness is integrated throughout, offering readers insight into organizational structure, effectiveness, and leadership. Critical analyses of contemporary developments are provided. For administrators.
Customer Reviews:
incomprehensible.......2003-05-11
This book is poorly written. It quotes from a variety of primary sources and tries and fails to coherently bring together all of the ideologies. Recommended instead: Sociology of Organizations by Michael J. Handel
No worse book on the face of the planet.......2002-12-09
Do not get this book! It is confusing and boring. I had to buy this tiny book for [money] for a class taught, you guessed it, by Dr. Hall himself. It was painful and unclear (both the class and the book). Get James Q. Wilson's Bureaucracy or Jeffery Pfeffer's Managing With Power instead, you'll thank me.
Average customer rating:
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Cases in organizations: Behavior, structure, processes
Manufacturer: Business Publications
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding
 Management & Leadership
| Business & Investing
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| Business Ethics
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| Systems & Planning
| Systems Analysis
| Teams
| Total Quality Management
| Training
ASIN: 0256016968 |
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Governing the White House: From Hoover Through Lbj (Studies in Government and Public Policy)
Charles E. Walcott , and
Karen M. Hult
Manufacturer: University Press of Kansas
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
General
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ASIN: 0700606890 |
Book Description
Charles Walcott and Karen Hult maintain that the organization of the White House influences presidential performance much more than commonly thought and that organization theory is an essential tool for understanding that influence. Their book offers the first systematic application of organizational governance theory to the structures and operations of the White House Office.
Using organizational theory to analyze what at times has been a rather ad hoc and disorganized office might seem quixotic. After all, the White House Office exists within a turbulent political environment that encourages expedient decision-making. And every four to eight years it must be "reinvented" by presidents who have their own theories and preferences about how to organize a staff to serve their policy needs.
But Walcott and Hult argue that White House staffs are not simply puppets of presidential preference and style. Yes, staff structures evolve primarily from presidents' strategic responses to external demands. But those structures in turn significantly influence how the executive branch perceives and responds to further demands.
The first part of their book lays out the theoretical argument. The second examines White House "outreach": congressional liaison, press relations, personnel selection, executive branch oversight, and interest group and intergovernmental liaison. The third focuses on White House handling of policy development and implementation. The fourth analyzes staff structures that facilitate the operation of the presidency itself: presidential writing and scheduling, staff management, and cabinet coordination. The book concludes by identifying general patterns in the emergency, nature, and stability of governance structures in the White House.
Original and instructive, Governing the White House provides a much-needed primer on the inner workings of the White House staff and will be an essential volume for anyone studying the presidency.
This book is part of the Studies in Government and Public Policy series.
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The Institutional Construction of Organizations: International and Longitudinal Studies
Manufacturer: Sage Publications, Inc
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
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General
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| Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007
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ASIN: 0803970714 |
Book Description
Institutional theory is on the rise. During the past three decades, the field of organization studies has witnessed a succession of theoretical perspectives--including contingency theory, resource dependency, and population ecology--that focus attention on one or another aspect of organizations. Only institutional theory highlights the importance of the wider social and cultural environment as the "ground" in which organizations are rooted. The original work in The Institutional Construction of Organizations sheds new light on the study of organizations. The editors bring together work from two different research traditions--the United States and Europe. The collection also layers in several important perspectives of institutional theory, including empirical observations, longitudinal analyses, market-based organizational forms, and attention to the concepts of agency and strategy. The result is a finely textured, fully developed work for scholars and advanced students of organizational theory and behavior.
Books:
- Payback: Reaping the Rewards of Innovation
- Professional Real Estate Development 2nd Edition
- Progress, Poverty and Exclusion: An Economic History of Latin America in the Twentieth Century (Inter-American Development Bank)
- Public Policy Analysis: A Political Economy Approach
- Quantitative Models in Marketing Research
- Reading Financial Reports For Dummies
- Real Estate Market Analysis: A Case Study Approach
- Refuse to Choose!: Use All of Your Interests, Passions, and Hobbies to Create the Life and Career of Your Dreams
- Research Design: Qualitative, Quantitative, and Mixed Methods Approaches (2nd Edition)
- Reverse Mergers: Taking a Company Public Without an IPO
Books Index
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