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Strategic Management and Organisational Dynamics: The Challenge of Complexity
 
 
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Strategic Management and Organisational Dynamics: The Challenge of Complexity (Paperback)

by Ralph.D. Stacey (Author)
4.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)

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Product details

  • Paperback: 486 pages
  • Publisher: Financial Times/ Prentice Hall; 4 edition (20 Nov 2002)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0273658980
  • ISBN-13: 978-0273658986
  • Product Dimensions: 24.8 x 19 x 2.5 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 412,748 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Product Description

Review

'Explores a radically different approach to strategic management. Argues against the rational models in favour of narrative, conversation and learning from one's own experiences the central means by which we gain understanding and knowledge of strategy in organizations. Fascinating and thought provoking. Essential reading for anyone concerned with keeping up with the latest thinking in strategy.'

Dr Bruce Lloyd, Review Editor for LRP



Product Description
In the fourth edition of this successful text, Ralph Stacey continues to question the view that organisations operate and succeed in relatively stable environments. He argues that in order to succeed in uncertainty and continual change, organisations need to create new perspectives and learn from the chaos within which they operate.

This edition continues to focus on this radically different approach to strategic management. The central tenets of this approach have to do with unpredictability and the limitations of control, and therefore it argues against the rational models of planning and control covered in other strategy textbooks. This is done by emphasising the importance of narrative, conversation and learning from one's own experience as the central means by which we can gain understanding and knowledge of strategy in organisations.



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17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars An inteligent and radical discussion of business/complexity, 20 Mar 2000
By A Customer
This review is from: Strategic Management and Organisational Dynamics, 3rd Ed. (Paperback)
There are a multitude of books that have been written recently that attempt to apply 'insights' from Complexity Theory, Self-organised Criticality, Game Theory (and so on) to the world of Business and Organisation. While many tell an interesting story and have some insights that the reader can take away and experiment with, on the whole they miss the radical challenge to the current management paradigm that Complexity provides.

In this book, the third edition, the author starts out with an exploration of the largely unconsious assumptions included in our current management paradigm. These assumptions are based upon adopted concepts from cybernetics and individual psycologies. Authors in this area regularly fall short of the 'radical' interpretation and fall into the trap re-working complexity within the current management paradigm - Ralph himself admits that he did in the previous editions of this book. By 'naming the secret' about the assumptions in the current paradigm, the author opens up the possibiliity to of doing something different.

The latter half of the book applies some of the insight from Complexity Theory to Business, not in the way most of the buiness/complexity books do, but by holding the radical line. The result is a serious challenge to the way we have run organisations since at least Taylor's day.

I've read a lot of the literature on organisations and complexity and this is the first book for some time that has given me something really new to think about; something satisfying to chew upon. I'd recommend this tour to all explorers in this part of the world of organisation.

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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars A truly distinctive application of the complexity sciences to organizational leadership and change, 4 Jun 2008
By C. Rodgers (UK) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
This review is from: Strategic Management and Organisational Dynamics: The Challenge of Complexity to Ways of Thinking About Organisations (Paperback)
Ralph Stacey has a well-won reputation for challenging conventional thinking and practice in relation to the leadership and dynamics of organizations. This latest edition of his textbook on the subject continues that tradition. His forensic examination of the established 'body of knowledge' exposes its hidden assumptions and points to some of the flawed thinking and practice that these foster. This is facilitated by a richness of thinking that draws on a range of academic disciplines, not just those conventionally associated with organizational management.

Subtitled The Challenge of Complexity, the book continues to showcase Stacey's radical thinking on how insights from complexity science and other writing might usefully inform our understanding of organizational dynamics. In particular, it includes a comprehensive and up-to-date account of his thinking on organizations as complex responsive processes. This provides a distinctive perspective on organizational dynamics that Stacey and his colleagues have developed over the past ten years or so.

As demanded by a textbook, Stacey's coverage of the subject extends well beyond this complex responsive processes view. Here again though, his treatment of the material differs greatly from that found in other books that purport to cover the same territory. As he states in the preface, "This book ... seeks to challenge thinking rather than describe the current state of thinking about strategy and organisational dynamics." And, as in its persuasive explanation of the importance of viewing organizations as complex responsive processes, it does not disappoint on this score.

Most particularly, in true Stacey style, it does not shy away from challenging what most organizational theorists and practitioners have come to regard as self-evident; that is, that organizations are multi-layered systems of individuals, teams, departments and so on. And this critical evaluation of systems thinking is applied as forcefully and insightfully to those theories that view organizations as complex adaptive systems (based on the 'mainstream' interpretation of the complexity sciences) as it is to those that emanate from the more conventional schools of strategic management. The latter include the theories of strategic choice and the learning organization, as well as open systems and psychoanalytic perspectives.

No doubt Stacey and his colleagues will continue to develop further their thinking around organizations as complex responsive processes. Nevertheless, this fifth edition of Strategic Management and Organisational Dynamics is a landmark academic text. As well as continuing to offer a well-argued critique of conventional management wisdom, it provides a unique and authoritative treatise on what is a truly distinctive application of the complexity sciences to organizational leadership and change.
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4.0 out of 5 stars VERY USEFUL BOOK, 1 April 2009
By A. OMAR "Abro" (London, UK) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
This review is from: Strategic Management and Organisational Dynamics: The Challenge of Complexity to Ways of Thinking About Organisations (Paperback)
I find the book very useful for both undergraduates & postgraduates doing
their dissertations.
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