Strategic Management and Organisational Dynamics remains unique amongst strategic management textbooks by taking a refreshingly alternative look at the subject. Drawing on the sciences of complexity as well as a broad range of social scientific literature, Stacey and Mowles challenge the conceptual orthodoxy of planned strategy, focusing instead on emergence and the predictable unpredictability of organisational life.
Ideal for advanced undergraduate and postgraduate study, this critically detailed account deals with current issues, raising the challenge of complexity within practice and theory.
This is a textbook of ways of thinking about organisations and their management, particularly strategic management. It calls into question what leaders and managers spend their time doing, often following the prescriptions to be found in what we term the ‘dominant discourse’ on management. We claim in this book that the orthodox discourse takes for granted the assumption that change to the ‘whole’ organisation is possible, in the way we have highlighted in the paragraphs above on culture change. These prescriptions trade mostly in abstractions and perpetuate the idea that senior executives can control at a distance, increasingly, it seems, in highly authoritarian ways. As an alternative, this textbook questions some of these taken-for-granted assumptions as a prompt to think differently about what we are doing when we try to co-operate with others to get things done. The intention is not to offer new prescriptions for managing but to provoke deeper insight into the traditions of Western thought which are reflected in dominant ways of understanding leadership and management.
New to this edition:
Ralph Stacey is Professor of Management at the Business School, University of Hertfordshire. He is a supervisor on the innovative Doctor of Management programme at the University of Hertfordshire and the author of a number of books and papers on complexity and organisation.
Chris Mowles is Professor of Complexity and Management at the Business School, University of Hertfordshire. He is director of, and supervisor on, the innovative Doctor of Management programme at the University of Hertfordshire and the author of two books and a number of papers on complexity and organisation.
Play
They say you can’t judge a book by its cover. It’s the same with your students. Meet each one right where they are with an engaging, interactive, personalized learning experience that goes beyond the textbook to fit any schedule, any budget, and any lifestyle.
Extend your professional development and meet your students where they are with free weekly Digital Learning NOW webinars. Attend live, watch on-demand, or listen at your leisure to expand your teaching strategies. Earn digital professional development badges for attending a live session.