Management: Books

"This work is designed to serve as a core reference for anyone interested in the essentials of contemporary management theory. Drawing together a team of international scholars, it examines the global landscape of the key theories and the theorists behind them, presenting them in the context needed to understand their strengths and weaknesses to apply them. In addition to interpretations of long-established theories, it also offers essays on cutting-edge research and provides concise definitions of key concepts, ideas, schools, and figures."

"While new ventures offer those who initiate them a high degree of independence, excitement, and potential for great reward, they also bring high risk, stress and greater potential for failure. Thus, it takes a special set of skills, techniques, and temperament to succeed. These skills, along with the potential risks and rewards and environmental settings and characteristics, are explored here."

"Containing more than 250 entries, this unique and ambitious work traces the development of management thinking and major business culture in North America. Entries range from 600 words to 2500 words and contain concise biographical detail, a critical analysis of the thinkers' doctrines and ideas and a bibliography including the subject's major works and a helpful listing of minor works."

"Full-length entries, equivalent to any secondary critical work or journal paper, serve as excellent introductions to the debates and literature of a given topic or concept. Each entry is fully cross-referenced and a further reading section is carefully annotated to indicate the level and importance of the work cited which proves especially useful for the student to take their research further."

Critical Management Studies (CMS) has emerged as a movement that questions the authority and relevance of mainstream thinking and practice. Critical of established social practices and institutional arrangements, it challenges prevailing systems of domination and promotes the development of alternatives to them. CMS draws upon diverse critical traditions. Of particular importance for its initial articulation was the thinking of members of the Frankfurt School of Critical Theory. From these foundations, CMS has grown into a pluralistic and inclusive movement incorporating a diverse range of perspectives - ranging from labour process theory to radical feminism. In recent times, a set of ideas broadly labelled 'poststructuralist' have been developed to complement and challenge the insights of Critical Theory, giving new impetus for scholars seeking to challenge the status quo and articulate a more inclusive and humane future for management practice. The Oxford Handbook of Critical Management Studies provides an overview of theoretical approaches, key topics, issues, and subject specialisms in management studies, as well as a set of reflections on the progress and prospects of CMS. Contributors are all specialists in the respective fields and share a concern to interrogate and challenge received wisdom about management theory and practice. Given the rapid growth of the CMS movement, its ever increasing theoretical and geographical diversity and its outreach into the public sphere, The Oxford Handbook of Critical Management Studies is a timely publication. In addition to UK contributors, where CMS has developed most rapidly, there is strong representation from North American contributors as well as from areas where CMS has taken hold more recently, such as Australasia.

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This handbook looks to provide academics and students with a comprehensive and holistic understanding of the phenomenon of innovation.Innovation spans a number of fields within the social sciences and humanities: Management, Economics, Geography, Sociology, Politics, Psychology, and History. Consequently, the rapidly increasing body of literature on innovation is characterized by a multitude of perspectives based on, or cutting across, existing disciplines and specializations. Scholars of innovation can come from such diverse starting points that much of this literature can be missed, and so constructive dialogues missed. The editors of The Oxford Handbook of Innovation have carefully selected and designed twenty-one contributions from leading academic experts within their particular field, each focusing on a specific aspect of innovation. These have been organized into four main sections, the first of which looks at the creation of innovations, with particular focus on firms and networks. Section Two provides an account of the wider systematic setting influencing innovation and the role of institutions and organizations in this context. Section Three explores some of the diversity in the working of innovation over time and across different sectors of the economy, and Section Four focuses on the consequences of innovation with respect to economic growth, international competitiveness, and employment. An introductory overview, concluding remarks, and guide to further reading for each chapter, make this handbook a key introduction and vital reference work for researchers, academics, and advanced students of innovation.

Business Groups - large, diversified, often family-controlled organizations, such as the Japanese keiretsu and the Korean chaebol - have played a significant role in national economic growth, especially in emerging economies. Earlier variants can also be found in the trading companies, often set up in Britain, which operated in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Business Groups are often criticized as premodern forms of economic organization, and occasionally as symptomatic of corrupt 'crony capitalism', but many have shown remarkable resilience, navigating and adjusting to economic and political turbulence, international competition, and technological change. This Handbook provides a comprehensive analysis of business groups around the world. It focuses on the adaptive and competitive capabilities of Business Groups, and their evolutionary dynamics. 16 individual country chapters deal with Business Groups from Asia to Africa, the Middle East to Latin America, while overarching chapters consider the historical and theoretical context of business groups. With contributions from leading regional experts, The Oxford Handbook of Business Groups provides a comprehensive, empirically and theoretically rich guide for scholars and policy-makers.

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The last twenty-five years of the twentieth century was a period of extraordinary change in organizations and the economies of the developed world. This continues today. Such has been the scale and momentum of events that, for some analysts, the only comparable periods are the early part of the twentieth century in which the shift to mass production and large-scale organization was accomplished, or the industrial revolution itself a hundred years earlier. Researchers in Europe and the USA in particular have been studying change in work and organizations, but there has been little attempt to systematize and draw together the results of their work. So far, the emphasis amongst writers on organizations considering the problem of contemporary change has been on ways of conceptualizing events, rather than also considering evidence. But what has actually happened? How much of the flux of events is real change, and how much mere change in emphasis in which apparent change is overlaying organizational continuity? How far are changes in particular events and sectors connected, and is an overall understanding of complex processes possible?The Oxford Handbook of Work and Organization aims to bring together, present and discuss what is currently known about work and organizations and their connection to broader economic change in Europe and America. Issues of conceptualization are not neglected but, in contrast to other comparable volumes, the emphasis is firmly on what is known what and has been observed by researchers. The volume contains a range of theoretically informed essays, written by leading authorities in their respective fields, giving comprehensive coverage of changes in work, occupations, and organizations. It constitutes an invaluable overview of the accumulated understanding of research into work, occupations and organizations in recent decades. It shows that in almost every aspect of economic institutions, change has been considerable. The subject area of work, occupations and organizations is considered in four major sections of the volume: I, Work, Technology, and the Division of Labor; II, Managerial Regimes and Employee Actions; III, Occupations and Organizations; and IV, Organizing and Organizations. In this way the contemporary situation in work and organizations is considered extensively in its different dimensions and interconnections. The contributors have been selected for their expertise and include many leading authors in organizational analysis and substantive research. The handbook is thus an authoritative statement, and offers a valuable account of organizations at this time.

Macroeconomic research on human capital - the stock of human capabilities and knowledge - has been extensively published but to date the literature has lacked a comprehensive analysis of human capital within the organization. The Oxford Handbook of Human Capital has been designed to fill that gap, providing an authoritative, inter-disciplinary, and up to date survey of relevant concepts, research areas, and applications. Specially commissioned contributions from over 40 authors reveal the importance of human capital for contemporary organizations, exploring its conceptual underpinnings, relevance to theories of the firm, implications for organizational effectiveness, interdependencies with other resources, and role in the future economy. Unlike neoclassical macroeconomic concepts of human capital, human capital in organizations is shown to be dynamic and heterogeneous, requiring new theories and management frameworks. The systemic role of human capital is explored, revealing it as the lynchpin of social, structural and other forms of intangible and tangible capital. Connections between human capital and organizational performance are investigated from HR management, procurement, alignment, value appropriation, and accounting perspectives. Links between micro and macro perspectives are provided through analyses of inter firm human capital mobility, national and regional human capital formation regimes and industry employment relations practices. This Handbook is designed for scholars and graduate students of organization and management theory, strategy, entrepreneurship, knowledge and intellectual capital, accounting, IT, HR, IR, economic sociology and cultural studies. For policy makers and practitioners it should provide an up to date guide to the nature and role of human capital in contemporary organizations and the roles that government, industry and other extra firm institutions can play in facilitating its development.

Employee participation encompasses the range of mechanisms used to involve the workforce in decisions at all levels of the organization - whether direct or indirect - conducted with employees or through their representatives. In its various guises, the topic of employee participation has been a recurring theme in industrial relations and human resource management. One of the problems in trying to develop any analysis of participation is that there is potentially limited overlap between these different disciplinary traditions, and scholars from diverse traditions may know relatively little of the research that has been done elsewhere. Accordingly in this book, a number of the more significant disciplinary areas are analysed in greater depth in order to ensure that readers gain a better appreciation of what participation means from these quite different contextual perspectives. Not only is there a range of different traditions contributing to the research and literature on the subject, there is also an extremely diverse sets of practices that congregate under the banner of participation. The handbook discusses various arguments and schools of thought about employee participation, analyzes the range of forms that participation can take in practice, and examines the way in which it meets objectives that are set for it, either by employers, trade unions, individual workers, or, indeed, the state. In doing so, the Handbook brings together leading scholars from around the world who present and discuss fundamental theories and approaches to participation in organization as well as their connection to broader political forces. These selections address the changing contexts of employee participation, different cultural/ institutional models, old/'new' economy models, shifting social and political patterns, and the correspondence between industrial and political democracy and participation.

In today's changing business environment, the financial health of an organization is increasingly dependent on the extent to which it and its members are able to transform and adapt to these changing internal and external circumstances more effectively than their competitors. Health has been identified as a key driver of socio-economic progress internationally, emphasizing the link between the health of individual workers and the overall performance of an organization. Equally, decades of research has highlighted the major role that work plays in determining physical health and psychological well being.This handbook focuses on organizational well being in its widest sense, and is concerned with reviewing the factors which are associated with ill health, as well as those which promote positive health and well being. In it, leading international scholars focus on the key issues:* Absenteeism and presenteeism* Health and safety,* Models, measures, and methodologies for measuring well being,* Individual factors associated with well being such as leadership, emotion, stress, and risk and rewards,* Organizational factors associated with well being such as working hours, emotional labour, technology, and job insecurity,* Organizational strategies for improving individual well being.The handbook ends with two chapters setting out new perspectives - the link between well being and geography and climate, and the importance of corporate social responsibility in creating a sustainable and healthy work environment.

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HRM is central to management teaching and research, and has emerged in the last decade as a significant field from its earlier roots in Personnel Management, Industrial Relations, and Industrial Psychology. People Management and High Performance teams have become key functions and goals for manager at all levels in organizations.The Oxford Handbook brings together leading scholars from around the world - and from a range of disciplines - to provide an authoritative account of current trends and developments. The Handbook is divided into four parts:* Foundations and Frameworks,* Core Processes and Functions,* Patterns and Dynamics,* Measurement and Outcomes.Overall it will provide an essential resource for anybody who wants to get to grips with current thinking, research, and development on HRM.

The field of Personnel Psychology is broadly concerned with the study of individual differences and their consequences for the organization. As human resource costs continue, for most organizations, to be the single largest operating cost (50-80% of annual expenditure), achieving optimal performance from individual employees is of paramount importance to the sustained development and financial performance of any organization. The Oxford Handbook of Personnel Psychology brings together contributions from leading international scholars within the field to present state-of-the-art reviews on topical and emergent issues, constructs, and research in personnel psychology. The book is divided into six sections:· Individual Difference and Work Performance -- Personnel Selection -- Methodological Issues -- Training and Development -- Policies and Practices -- Future Challenges. While the Handbook is primarily a review of current academic thinking and research in the area, the contributors keep a strong focus on the lessons for HR practitioners, and what lessons they can take from the cutting-edge work presented.