The course draws upon and interconnects the discussions contained in three books to explore the theory and practice of organizing.

Jaffee's Organization Theory is the core course text. This provides a concise and accessible overview to major themes and threads of organization theory. It is rather US-oriented and is limited in its coverage of theory but comparatively good in terms of relevance for contemporary issues and challenges facing managers. It avoids the usual blandness and obsessive comprehensiveness of organization theory texts.

Knights and Willmott's Management Lives presents an analytical framework comprising the concepts of identity, insecurity, power and inequality for interrogating work in organizations and for problematising dominant theories of organizing and managing. It uses the vehicle of narratives of everyday life, drawn from contemporary novels, to illustrate its analytical insights. Four key concepts diagram (Powerpoint slide can be viewed only if your machine has Powerpoint 95 of higher)

Thompson and McHugh's Work Organizations (3rd edition) combines a wide-ranging discussion of contemporary forms and theories of organization (Jaffee territory) with a critical perspective (somewhat indebted to Knights and Willmott) on dominant conceptualizations and representations of workplaces.

By drawing upon these three texts, in conjunction with other books, collections and readings that develop or pose alternatives to the positions presented within them, the intention of the course is to extend and enrich ways of making sense of organizations, organizing and managing. The aim of the course is not to provide a comprehensive survey of theories of organization but, rather, to articulate, challenge and develop existing, commonsense ways of making sense of work, managing and organizing. The learning objective is to deploy these texts as a means of articulating and clarifying existing understandings, placing these under critical scurity and developing ways of refining them and integrating them within the frames of reference routinely enacted by ourselves as we participate in the mundane social (re)construction of our lives. In short, there is an expectation that learning will be embodied and recurrently relevant for everyday practice, not cognitive and valued merely for the one-off purpose of passing examinations.

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This page was constructed by Hugh Willmott (h.willmott@jims.cam.ac.uk) and last updated on 23/12/03