Books in the Routledge Library Editions: Organizations series

This is a comprehensive, systematic casebook which demonstrates the contribution of research to the formulation and resolution of organisational problems actually faced by managers. The cases are presented in clusters which centre on a particular aspect of organisational behaviour: motivation, groups, technology, leadership, structure, change and development. Each cluster is introduced by comments on the cases and references to the theoretical literature. The introduction reviews the case method and provides suggestions for using it.

This textbook provides first-hand, inside accounts of the process of doing research in organizations. It is intended both for students of research methods in sociology and social psychology, and for students of organization studies, organizational behaviour and management. The contributors tackle such problems as: gaining access to organizations, `getting on¿ in organizations, quantitative and qualitative styles of investigation, the use of historical materials, the effects of resources on the context of research, the part played by political factors in organizational research, the relevance of grounded theory and conducting research within a cross-cultural framework.

In this textbook Alan Bryman provides a detailed and critical examination of the literature on leadership in organizations, giving special recognition to the needs of students of organizational behaviour and the social psychology of organizations. After an examination of the complexity of the concept of leadership, the author describes the major approaches to the analysis of leadership in organizations, including: the idea that effective leaders have special traits; the various attempts to examine leader behaviour; normative approaches to the study of leadership; and the various theories which emphasize the importance of recognizing situational differences in understanding leadership effectiveness.

This collection highlights a number of directions in which organization theory could develop. It also argues the need for an historical analysis of the sociology of organizations. Other issues discussed are the ideological stance of contemporary organization theory and the limiting framework that tends to ignore the wider social context in which organizations exist.