Organization: Contemporary Principles and Practice, 2nd Edition

PART I

The Broad Picture

Chapter 1 Organization and its Importance

Chapter 2 Perspectives on Organizational Design until Recent Times

Chapter 3 New Conditions, New Organization

Introduction to Part I – The Broad Picture

Part I provides some necessary background about organization. It looks at the broad picture rather than specifics. Chapter 1 introduces the nature of organization and the contributions it can make. Chapter 2 then outlines the main developments in organizational design over approximately the past hundred years. Its purpose is to provide an appreciation of what have become “conventional” ways of organizing, which continue to be widely found in practice and are engrained in the thinking of many administrators and managers who make decisions about organization. By contrast, Chapter 3 considers “new” organizational forms in the contexts that have encouraged them to be adopted. The chapter examines the relevance for organization of major developments in the business environment – globalization, new information and communications technologies, the rise of information-intensive and knowledge-based competition, the growing numbers of knowledge workers, and the increasing social expectations being placed on business. The overall message is that new developments in organization ...