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Strategic Management and Organisational Dynamics: The Challenge of Complexity to Ways of Thinking About Organisations
 
 
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Strategic Management and Organisational Dynamics: The Challenge of Complexity to Ways of Thinking About Organisations (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: 496 pages
  • Publisher: Financial Times/ Prentice Hall; 5 edition (5 Jan 2007)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0273708112
  • ISBN-13: 978-0273708117
  • Product Dimensions: 24.4 x 18.6 x 3 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 36,546 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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  • See Complete Table of Contents

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Product Description

Product Description

Strategic Management and Organisational Dynamics by Ralph D Stacey is renowned for its unconventional thinking and it continues to be a refreshing alternative for those teaching and studying strategic management who are looking for 'something different'. Stacey challenges the conceptual orthodoxy of planned strategy, focusing instead on the influence of more complex and unstable forces in the development of strategy. It remains unique in these respects amongst strategic management texts.



From the Back Cover

‘I would very much like to use the book in my classes.  The issues are spot on and reflect a refreshing and relevant new perspective on strategy and organisations.’

Carl Brønn, The Norwegian University of Life Sciences

 

 

‘Stacey's defining strength is his critical approach which challenges students to make sense of contested knowledge. His passionate interest in the subject is reflected in the dynamic and exciting development of the text and communicated through a remarkably clear writing style.’

Steve Hills, Sheffield Hallam University

 

Renowned for its unconventional thinking, Strategic Management and Organisational Dynamics continues to be a refreshing alternative for students and lecturers of strategic management specifically looking for ‘something different’.  Stacey challenges the conceptual orthodoxy of planned strategy, focusing instead on the influence of more complex and unstable forces in the development of strategy. 

 

Ideal for advanced undergraduate and postgraduate study, this critically detailed account deals with up-to-the minute issues, raising the challenge of complexity within practice and theory.  As such it remains unique amongst strategic management text books.

 

In this fifth edition, Stacey also covers contemporary issues including:

 

  • The links between micro and macro-level activities in the organisation
  • Focus on the gathering interest in ‘strategy-as-practice’
  • The treatment of ethics and values in strategic management
  • A reflective series of management narratives indicating how strategic thinking processes affect behaviour.

 

Ralph Stacey is Professor of Management at the Business School, University of Hertfordshire.  He is the director of the Complexity and Management Centre at the University of Hertfordshire and author of a number of books and papers on complexity and organisations. 

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18 of 18 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)   
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)   
I find the book very useful for both undergraduates & postgraduates doing
their dissertations.
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