Stewart R. Clegg

Toyohiro Kono

Experiences of Japanese Enterprises

Transformations of Corporate Culture

Arménio Rego

Miguel Pina e Cunha

Marco Berti

Why do great companies and other organizations fail, sometimes abruptly? Why do admired leaders fall from their organizational pedestals? Why do young and promising managers derail? Why do organizations create and reinforce rules that manifestly damage both them and those that they employ, serve and sustain? Leadership is a much-discussed but ill-defined idea in business and management circles. Analysing and understanding the skills and behaviours exhibited in leadership practice reveal that leaders exhibit paradoxical activities that challenge our understanding of organizations. In this text, the authors identify leadership behaviours that compete towards business equilibrium: selfish versus selfless, distance versus proximity, consistency versus individuality, enforcing professional standards versus flexibility and control versus autonomy. These paradoxical dilemmas require a reflexive and analytical approach to a subject that is tricky to define. The book explores the paradoxes of power and leadership not as a panacea for solving organizational problems but as a lens through which leadership and power are seen as an exercise in dynamic balance. Read this book as an invitation to the paradoxes of power and leadership that frame organizational life today. Be prepared to find surprises – and some counterintuitive arguments. Providing a thought-provoking guide to the traits and skills that will help readers to understand and navigate paradoxical leadership behaviour, this reflexive book will be a useful reading for students and scholars of business, management and psychology globally.

Paradoxes of Power and Leadership

Martin Harris

Harro Höpfl

Bureaucracy has long been a cornerstone of advanced industrial societies, and a defining feature of modernity. At the same time, many commentators from all quarters argue that it is on the wane in this post-this or that world; or that if it isn't, it should be dismantled to free up organizations, enterprise, and innovation. But do we live in a more or less bureaucratic world? Do contemporary forms and means of communication undermine or modify bureaucracy, or does technology create new 'iron cages' and forms of control? If bureaucratic models of organization are abandoned, do we run risks of organizational failure and inequity? Are there certain moral, professional, and social values associated with bureaucratic models? This book explores these issues in different organizational contexts - public administration, the National Health Service, the modern firm and corporation - and offers new insights into enduring questions. It will be an invaluable resource for academics, researchers, and students in organization studies, management, public administration, and sociology. The volume will also appeal to managers, planners, and policy makers who deal with these challenges.

Beyond Bureaucracy?

Managing Modernity

Torgeir Skyttermoen

Anne Live Vaagaasar

Project management is an essential life and workplace skill that everyone must develop. Following the popular style and format of other textbooks by Stewart Clegg, this brand new co-authored textbook on project management provides a much needed European perspective to the subject. Drawing on the latest research and practice, the authors guide students on an active learning journey through the project lifespan, promoting a critical and reflexive approach to studying project management, as well as one that creates value for all project stakeholders and emphasizes people and not just process. Case studies and examples discussed in the text cover a wide range of projects from large to smaller across different industries and sectors, both public and private, including: megaprojects (HS2); mega events (Olympics); political projects (Brexit); health-related project implementation (LEAN); tech-related projects (Google); building and restoration projects (housing/Sagrada Familia); and arts and cultural projects (European Capital of Culture). Incorporating a host of learning features both in chapters and via the supporting online resources, this textbook is essential reading for all students/managers completing a course unit in project management at either undergraduate or postgraduate level.

A Value Creation Approach

Project Management

New Approaches and New Issues

Organization Theory and Class Analysis

Luca Giustiniano

With organizational environments becoming more unstable, uncertain and equivocal, the concept of resilience has become increasingly significant for management studies. Resilience connotes organizational, team and individual capacities to absorb external shocks and to learn from them, while simultaneously preparing for and responding to external jolts. This book pinpoints the essential aspects of managerial and organizational resilience and offers insights that stimulate critical thinking. As the concept of resilience is essentially made up of contrasting forces, the volume presents some innovative synthetic interpretation that allows a deeper comprehension of the phenomenon and provides managers and policy-makers with a solid basis for taking their decisions.

Elgar Introduction to Theories of Organizational Resilience

Given the power of multinational organizations in developed and emerging economies, and their role in economic growth, their leaders face particular moral and business challenges in the contemporary global economy. This book draws on a range of different ideas and literatures to outline a framework of virtues that global leaders could adopt.

Contemporary Challenges for Global Managers

The Virtues of Leadership

Stewart R. Clegg

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