Publisher's Synopsis
"Understanding Industrial Organizations" provides a critical review of the perspectives which have most influenced our understanding of industrial organizations in the period since 1945. Four main approaches are identified: "systems thinking" considers organisations as systems of inter-related parts; contingency theory emphasises the influence of an organisations context or environment on its structure and functioning; action approaches analyse organisations in terms of the orientations and actions of organizational members; labour process theories focus on the means whereby labour is controlled. Combining exegesis and critique, in each case a detailed account is given of the arguments and main contributors to the approach and an extensive critical literature is used to identify the main strengths and weaknesses. These debates are placed in their appropriate institutional, intellectual and socio-economic contexts, thereby also providing an overview of the development of industrial sociology in the post-war years.;This book should be of interest to undergraduates, postgraduates and academics in business studies and sociology.
