Tom,
In light of your email: You must take a look at Mary Jo Hatch's
ORGANIZATION THEORY (Oxford, 1997). No book is perfect, as Mary Jo will
readily agree, but it is quite special. By the way, you will be able to hear
her speak about the book at an Academy of Management pre-conference session,
Saturday, August 7, at 1:00 p.m. (site still to be designated), as part of the
Critical Management Studies Workshop program. I have the privilege of chairing
that session on teaching from a critical management perspective. Hope to see
you there.
Leon
Madonna University
Thomas Osegowitsch wrote:
> David,
>
> I am a junior teacher and have only taught OT (at the MBA level) twice, but
> I would like to give you some very general recommendation for your OT text
> book.
>
> I scoured existing textbooks and, for my first year, settled on Daft. That
> choice was a hasty one and I regretted it later. I didn't like the textbook
> and the students didn't either. For my second year I did a bit more
> searching but didn't find anything that I really liked. In the end I
> settled for a reader which I put together myself containing few academic
> articles, two text book chapters, a good measure of semi-academic and
> popular articles (HBR, Fast Company...), as well as newspaper clippings.
> Overall, that was a much better offering I felt, although I didn't alwyas
> manage to link the materials as much as I would have liked (and provide the
> structure supplied by a textbook.)
>
> The problem I see with the existing OT textbooks that I have come across is
> that they haven't changed very much in a decade (except for updated cases,
> anecdotes, etc.). I feel that new theoretical (and practical) contributions
> are severely underrepresented. Very often they are tacked at the end of a
> chapter, in quasi-disclaimer fashion. For example, most OT textbooks have a
> chapter on technology. On some 30 pages they would describe seminal
> contributions of the 1960s and 1970s (Woodward; Perrow...). This would then
> be followed by 3-4 pages mentioning new developments such as flexible
> technology; modular product designs... and throw-away lines claiming that
> these trends have rendered prior theoretical contributions (in part)
> irrelevant and/or inaccurate.
>
> What I would love to see is a textbook that pays more attention to new
> theory (without neglecting the classics) and a much more critical
> perspective (e.g. what is still relevant of the classics; what is no longer
> as important given new developments...) and generally more of a synthesis
> of classics and more contemporary theory.
>
> Hope this is of help.
>
> Tom