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Theory and Method in Organisation Studies

By Antonio Strati

*Publishers: Sage, Thousand Oaks

*Price: 17.99 (paper)

THE world is a massive network of countless organisations in various forms. Each member of society spends his/her life in some form of an organisation such as home, school, workplace, business enterprise, worship place, trade union, parliament, shop, res taurant, entertainment house, court, prison, club, transport system and so on.

Each kind of organisation has its own structural characteristics and functional peculiarities and nuances. Its theories and methods are complex and continuously changing in pace with the times and contexts, acquiring new insights. Therefore, studies in o rganisational phenomena are similar to the exploration of inexhaustible mines, which open up one after the other, supplying newer finds.

In the past, organisations were regarded as collectivities established to pursue specific goals or to accomplish certain functions in society. Their distinctive features were pragmatism, instrumental rationalisation, end-directedness and utilitarianism. In the 1960s, social analysis branched off from the main stream of organisation theories. Many social scientists -- who disagreed with the classical theory of organisations propounded in the early 20th-century by Frederick Taylor, Henri Fayol and their s uccessors -- began to conduct empirical research on the social context of organisations. They approached the subject using concepts derived from sociology, psychology, economics and mathematics. They spawned innumerable books which serve as guides for fu rther study.

The book under review is an introduction to advanced organisation research. It presents a comprehensive view of key theories and the methods of analysing and interpreting organisational life. The author, with his extensive experience, throws light on the external and internal contexts shaping organisations and analyses the many perspectives from which they can be studied. He explores latest concepts such as `the organisation as hypertext', `communities of practice', `tacit knowledge' and `organisational learning' as a means of understanding organisational phenomena. He covers a great deal of organisational topics and methods of research.

The book is divided into two parts. The first has five chapters titled `Society in a network of organisations'; `Organisations as social context'; `Weaving the organisation together'; `The ethos, logos and pathos of organisational life'; and `Thematic co ntinuities and new insights'. The author examines a variety of organisations, illustrates themes and their associated issues. He explores organisations as social context, going beyond sociological, anthropological and business management studies.

He uses the notion of `paradigm' to provide an overview of organisational literature and to construct road maps for `intellectual journeys in social theory'. He discusses the maps based on the concepts of `school', `model', `perspective', `emerging stran d', `issue', `metaphor', `methodology', and `research programme'.

Each concept has several approaches propounded by various scholars whose works are quoted in the book. The `school' concept has 11 kinds: scientific management, administrative, bureaucratic, structural-functionalist, group dynamics, human relations, deci sion, technological, historical, industrial relations and socio-technical systems school.

There are four `model' concepts: rational, interactionist, structural and compliance. The three `perspectives' discussed are rational system, natural system and open system. The `issue' concept has the industrial, bureaucratic and organisational approach es. The `metaphor' concept's main approaches are machine, organismic, brain, culture, political, psychic prison, flux and transformation, domination, conduit, lens, linkage, performance and symbol.

The `emerging strands' of organisational analysis are longitudinal analysis, inter-organisational analysis, organisational economics, cultural approach, decision theory and logic of organisational action. The principal `methodologies' discussed are: orga nisational learning methodology, interpretative interactionism, life history and longitudinal analysis, cultural approaches and organisational symbolism, cognitive map, semiotic, and dramaturgical approach.

The popular `research programmes' undertaken are organisational adaptation, organisational order, organisational control, organisational reality and organisational assembly.

Even the `paradigms' are many, such as radical humanist, radical structuralist, interpretative and functionalist. Several such emerging themes and concepts and their approaches have been appropriately discussed in the first part of the book. The author a ttempts to bring out the complexity and density of organisational thought of the 20th century, the aspects examined by organisational researchers, and the plethora of literature generated through research in the second half of the century.

The second part of the book, devoted to research methods, contains three chapters titled `The methods of empirical organisational research', `Pervasiveness of methods' and `Qualitative methods and the computer'. The author delves deeper into the study of organisations as social context, describes the main methods of empirical research and provides examples.

The first chapter deals with the kinds of research design relevant to organisational life; observation of organisational phenomena, along with its structured and participatory methods and the various classifications; interviews and conversations and thei r different forms; questionnaire for collecting data; simulations of organisational life to generate data; archive materials or the method of analysing documentary materials on an organisation; and beliefs, labels and habits in methodological controversi es.

Beliefs, labels and habits are the features of collective negotiation and social construction of knowledge. The author has devoted the second chapter to paradoxes of measurement, measures of strong relations among organisational variables and measuring t he thoughts of organisational actors. Measurement in the study of organisations as social context aims at giving operationality to concepts and using them as variables.

The last chapter discusses the use of computer software for qualitative social research, using analytical induction and grounded theory, producing text, and interpretation as decision-making.

While approaching the body of knowledge transmitted by sociology of organisations, organisation theory and management studies, the author rightly accords priority to the exploratory nature of the study of organisations as social context. As a sociologist of organisations, he looks beyond the confines of sociology of developments in anthropology, psychology, linguistics, economics and other disciplines. He seeks to describe a knowlege-gathering process that sets the study of organisations as social conte xt within the broader context of social sciences.

The book is indeed a valuable guide for researchers on organisation theories and methods. However, a volume crammed with so much information could have been embellished with diagrams, tables, boxes and chapter-end summaries, to enhance its readability.

P.K. Joy