Talking about Organization Science

Book excerpt: Written by outstanding scholars, the themes of this book cover a wide range of issues at the heart of the study of organizations. These include debates over the role of economics in strategic management research and the now classic exchanges between Jeff Pfeffer and John Van Maanen over the direction of organization science studies; discourses that describe, analyze and critique ways to represent and understand organizations, including a re-appraisal of Gibson Burrell and Gareth Morgan's seminal work on sociological paradigms of organizational analysis and views on (organizational) culture expressed by several leading writers on the topic: It includes dialogues on some quite radical or unusual "takes" on organizational life: the role of the tempered radical, working inside the organization for fundamental change; the dilemmas facing individuals’ publishing qualitative research in mainstream journals; the implications of adopting a spiritual lens to the study of organizations; and a discussion of ways to better bridge the gap between academic thinking and business practice.