BIC SubjectsManagement & management techniques

Power Without Domination: Dialogism and the empowering property of communication

Edited by Eric Grillo

The volume provides a multidisciplinary approach of the discursive dimension of power. It challenges the usual conception of discourse and power that underlies most of the current theories in contemporary discourse analysis, and shows that it is unsatisfying in so far as it reduces power to… read more

[Discourse Approaches to Politics, Society and Culture, 12] 2005. xviii, 246 pp.

Action Research in Workplace Innovation and Regional Development

Edited by Werner Fricke and Peter Totterdill

The past is an increasingly unreliable guide to the future. European workplaces and the regions in which they are located face unprecedented pressures and challenges. Whereas in recent decades incremental adaptation has largely been sufficient to cope with external change, it is no longer… read more

[Dialogues on Work and Innovation, 15] 2004. x, 355 pp.

Getting Things Done at Work: The discourse of power in workplace interaction

Bernadette Vine

The linguistic study of workplace language is a new and exciting area of research. This book explores the expression of power in a New Zealand workplace through examination of 52 everyday interactions between four women and their colleagues. The main focus of this research is the expression of… read more

[Pragmatics & Beyond New Series, 124] 2004. x, 278 pp.

The Civilized Organization: Norbert Elias and the future of organization studies

Edited by Ad van Iterson, Willem Mastenbroek, Tim Newton and Dennis Smith

This book brings a major new resource to organization studies: the work of Norbert Elias. By applying his ideas in a critical but sympathetic way, the authors provide a new perspective on the never-ending stream of management fads and fashions. Standing back and taking a more detached perspective,… read more

[Advances in Organization Studies, 10] 2002. xxviii, 251 pp.

Management and Organization Paradoxes

Edited by Stewart R. Clegg

Paradox — the simultaneous existence of two inconsistent states — has become orthodox. The orthodox is now the paradox. The orthodox world of ordering, controlling and organizing is increasingly opposed to a normalizing world of disordering, disrupting and disorganizing. And organization studies… read more

[Advances in Organization Studies, 9] 2002. vii, 330 pp.

Researching Enterprise Development: Action Research on the cooperation between management and labour in Norway

Edited by Morten Levin

Researching Enterprise Development is written by the key researchers of a large Norwegian Action Research program on enterprise development (Enterprise Development 2000). This book tells the stories of how the seven participating modules were developed, created and sustained as Action Research… read more

[Dialogues on Work and Innovation, 14] 2002. viii, 267 pp.

Creating Connectedness: The role of social research in innovation policy

Bjørn Gustavsen, Håkon Finne and Bo Oscarsson

Using a workplace development program as source of experience the book deals with the development of innovation processes. Since innovation means to explore the unique and the special to bring forth what does not (yet) exist, each innovation process must in itself be an innovation. The study… read more

[Dialogues on Work and Innovation, 13] 2001. x, 281 pp.

Reading and Writing Public Documents

Edited by Daniël Janssen and Rob Neutelings

Governments communicate with the public through all kinds of documents: forms, brochures, letters, policy papers, and so on. These public documents have an important role in any democracy and their design very much affects the efficiency with which governments can perform their tasks.Document… read more

[Document Design Companion Series, 1] 2001. vi, 304 pp.

Critically Constituting Organization

Andrew Chan

In the past, contingency and neo-Marxist theorists of culture reduced culture to an effect of something other than itself and, as they made culture metaphorical, they constituted its object of inquiry — a somewhat impossible pretension. This book extends the debate considerably. It does so through… read more

[Advances in Organization Studies, 5] 2000. xvi, 149 pp.

Embedding Organizations: Societal analysis of actors, organizations and socio-economic context

Edited by Marc Maurice and Arndt Sorge

The widely discussed ‘globalization’ of economic activities has given rise to a renewed interest in the relations between such tendencies, the nature and demarcation of societies, and the nature and strategies of various actors and organizations within and cross-cutting societies. One approach to… read more

[Advances in Organization Studies, 4] 2000. x, 433 pp.

The End of the ‘Asian Model’?

Edited by Holger Henke and Ian Boxill

With the economic crisis in Asia, which unfolded in recent years, the development ‘model’ on which the phenomenal earlier success of several countries in the region was built requires increasing scrutiny. This anthology questions the validity of the notion promoted by some observers and… read more

[Advances in Organization Studies, 2] 2000. x, 217 pp.

European Union Discourses on Un/employment: An interdisciplinary approach to employment policy-making and organizational change

Peter Muntigl, Gilbert Weiss and Ruth Wodak

Employment is clearly one of those fields of political activity that reveal the manifold problems and difficulties accompanying the process of European integration and supranational institutionalization. In particular the conflict between supranationalists and intergovernmentalists and the degree… read more

[Dialogues on Work and Innovation, 12] 2000. viii, 234 pp.

Fashion and Utopia in Management Thinking

René ten Bos

Why is it that people in organizations seem to be so vulnerable to management fashion and guruism? And why is it that both phenomena are loathed in traditional academic thinking about management and organization?In this book, René ten Bos argues for a more philosophical rather than scientific… read more

[Advances in Organization Studies, 6] 2000. xvii, 224 pp.

National Capitalisms, Global Competition, and Economic Performance

Edited by Sigrid Quack, Glenn Morgan and Richard Whitley

Why are some firms successful on global markets whilst others are not? In this collection of papers, a group of distinguished international researchers examine the inter-relationship between national context, firm performance and global competitiveness. In a series of empirical studies covering… read more

[Advances in Organization Studies, 3] 2000. xii, 322 pp.

Using the Lamp instead of Looking into the Mirror: Women and men in discussion about the relationship between men and women in the work place

Ingrid Ljungberg van Beinum

This book focuses on the enigmatic relationship between men and women, and in particular on the subordination of women by men in the work place. The main points of departure are that subordination is a relational phenomenon and should therefore be approached in a relational context and that the… read more

[Dialogues on Work and Innovation, 11] 2000. xviii, 186 pp.

Action Research: From practice to writing in an international action research development program

Edited by Davydd J. Greenwood

Supported bilaterally by Sweden and Norway, the Scandinavian Action Research Development Program (ACRES — Action Research in Scandinavia) emphasized conceptualizing research questions and self-conscious writing processes for experienced action researchers. Participants came from Norway, Sweden,… read more

[Dialogues on Work and Innovation, 8] 1999. ix, 282 pp.

Changing Work Relationships in Industrialized Economies

Edited by Işik Urla Zeytinoğlu

This book examines changing work relationships in industrialized economies within the context of economic restructuring and demographic variables. The goal of this book is to examine experiences of industrialized economies in dealing with changing work relationships and discuss policy implications… read more

[Advances in Organization Studies, 1] 1999. xx, 256 pp.

The End of Organization Theory?: Language as a tool in action research and organizational development

Øyvind Pålshaugen

Organizational theorists talk a lot about organizational development. Although they can express themselves eloquently, too often the practitioner is not convinced by their talk. The authors of The End of Organization Theory? are in favor of the ‘doers’ doing most of the talking themselves. Thus, in… read more

[Dialogues on Work and Innovation, 5] 1999. vi, 149 pp.

Resources for Renewal: A participatory approach to the modernization of municipal organizations in Finland

Edited by Satu Kalliola and Risto Nakari

In the 1990s, the public sector has experienced the same kind of productivity pressures as has the private sector in most of the western countries. In Finland, the state and the local government organs have pursued to meet these demands by cutting down their personnel costs and by applying various… read more

[Dialogues on Work and Innovation, 10] 1999. iv, 177 pp.

Searching: The theory and practice of making cultural change

Merrelyn Emery

Searching explains how to make the fundamental cultural change required for a desirable sustainable future. It describes the ‘two-stage model’ of open-systems social science in action and covers two major methods: the Search Conference for strategic planning and community development; and the… read more

[Dialogues on Work and Innovation, 4] 1999. xxiv, 258 pp.

Work Organization and Europe as a Development Coalition

Richard Ennals and Bjørn Gustavsen

Work Organization has achieved recent prominence in European policy, as new employment guidelines are embodied in the policies of all European Member States. New forms of Work Organization, properly understood, offer collaborative competitive advantage to European enterprises. This book, based on… read more

[Dialogues on Work and Innovation, 7] 1999. viii, 209 pp.

Development Coalitions in Working Life: The ‘Enterprise Development 2000’ Program in Norway

Edited by Bjørn Gustavsen, Tom Colbjørnsen and Øyvind Pålshaugen

While the need to utilise knowledge from social research in processes of development in working life is growing, there is also a growing recognition of the problems posed by this utilisation. As the belief in universal reason and general theory about topics like work organization and leadership has… read more

[Dialogues on Work and Innovation, 6] 1998. xi, 153 pp.

Beyond Theory: Changing organizations through participation

Edited by Stephen Toulmin and Bjørn Gustavsen

Action Research is one of the most practical and down-to-earth ways of doing research into working life. Beyond Theory draws on examples and actual cases to discuss action research within the framework of the modern, and postmodern, theory of science debate. While action research has been much… read more

[Dialogues on Work and Innovation, 2] 1996. viii, 233 pp.

Concept-Driven Development and the Organization of the Process of Change: An evaluation of the Swedish Working Life Fund

Bjørn Gustavsen, Bernd Hofmaier, Marianne Ekman Philips and Anders Wikman

The Swedish Working Life Fund — a temporary organization functioning from 1990 to 1995 — distributed 10 billion Swedish crowns for workplace development and initiated 25,000 projects. About half of the total labor market was affected. This evaluation study, which is built on case studies as well as… read more

[Dialogues on Work and Innovation, 3] 1996. ix, 198 pp.

Public Sector Transformation: Rethinking markets and hierarchies in government

Frieder Naschold † and Casten von Otter

State administration in modern industrialized countries is facing major challenges to its basic institutional premises. The changing conditions of the global economy mean that the public sector needs to develop far-reaching strategies for innovation. A fundamental reform of the public sector is… read more

[Dialogues on Work and Innovation, 1] 1996. vi, 178 pp.