An Analysis on 3 Seminal Books in Organizational Theory

Perhaps the most helpful part of the entire book is between pages 10 and 23 where they provide a historic time line of the varying theories and their impact on social development.

Of course, since the time line runs from Socrates to 1990, there are 12 critical years of organizational development and theory which are left out, most particularly all of the changes connected with the Internet and other aspects of computer connectivity. A second level of value could be found in the way that the authors choose to organize the work. In the first section, "Classical Organization Theory" they cite works by Socrates, Adam Smith, Babbage, Towne, Fayol and others.

The authors cited here all dealt with the human cost of work and organization, and treated labor as value added. This section is followed by the "Human Resources" section where the value added nature of human capital is considered. Agreeing or disagreeing with the author's choices is instructive only insofar as it provides us with a method of understanding how the authors view the history of organizational behavior studies.

Complex Organizations: A Critical Essay

(Perrow, C.,1986, New York: McGraw-Hill Higher Education)

In a very great sense, this book is also a survey look at organizational theory with one major exception. Where Shafritz and Ott's work went inside the minds of numerous theorists, with Perrow's work, we always stay withi

Morgan credits previous scholars who conceived "open systems theory," a system of beliefs that was, in itself, a metaphorical leap between biological organizations and human organizations and came up with this simple conclusion. "The notion of a system may be seen as simply a more self-conscious and generic term for the dynamic interrelatedness of components" (Henkoff, 1995, 85). Morgan follows systems theory traditions when he says that he will explore the "organismic" metaphor by considering:

Etzioni, A. (1975), A Comparative analysis of complex organizations: on power, involvement, and their correlates, New York: Free Press.

All three of these books assume the point of view that managing in an environment of uncertainty is yet another situation of management of diversity. Today, authors and theorists, when they discuss their projected visions for the future, must deal with one inescapable paradigm: how the changes in the diversity of the workplace will impact the corporation of the future, particularly on the role of the organizational structure.

This is the Age of Paradox . . .organizational members and stakeholders and contemporary workers [are] routinely faced with paradoxes at work, at home, and with society's basic values. Paradoxes are no stranger to total quality management (TQM) as well. The pursuit of total quality requires leaders and followers to think and act in ways that are very different from their prior modes of operation and, in some cases, that seem to be based on contradictory principles--a paradox (Etzioni, 1975, 81).

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