The Oxford Handbook Of Process Philosophy And Organization Studies

This Handbook presents key ideas of philosophers and social theorists whose ideas inform process approaches to organization studies. Each chapter addresses the background and context of this thinker, their work (with a focus on the processual elements), and the potential contribution to organization and management research.

Process approaches to organization studies focus on flow, activities, and evolution, understanding organizations and organizing as processes in the making. They stand in contrast to positivist approaches that see organizations and phenomena as fixed, static, and measurable. Process approaches draw on a range of ideas and philosophies. The handbook examines 34 philosophers and social theorists, both those commonly linked to process thinking, such as Whitehead, Bergson and James, and those that are not as often addressed from a process perspective such as Dilthey and Tarde. Each chapter addresses the background and context of this thinker, their work (with a focus on the processual elements), and the potential contribution to organization and management research.

Process approaches to organization studies focus on flow, activities, and evolution, understanding organizations and organizing as processes in the making. They stand in contrast to positivist approaches that see organizations and phenomena as fixed, static, and measurable. Process approaches draw on a range of ideas and philosophies. The Handbook examines 34 philosophers and social theorists, both those commonly linked to process thinking, such as Whitehead, Bergson and James, and those that are not as often addressed from a process perspective such as Dilthey and Tarde. Each chapter addresses the background and context of this thinker, their work (with a focus on the processual elements), and the potential contribution to organization and management research. For students and scholars in the field of Organization Studies this book is an entry point into the work of philosophical thinkers and social theorists for whom the world is far from being a solid place.

The SAGE Handbook of Process Organization Studies provides a comprehensive and timely overview of the field. This volume offers a compendium of perspectives on process thinking, process organizational theory, process research methodology and empirical applications. The emphasis is on a combination of pedagogical contributions and in-depth reviews of current thinking and research in each of the selected areas, combined with the development of agendas for future research. The Handbook is divided into five sections: Part One: Process Philosophy Part Two: Process Theory Part Three: Process Methodology Part Four: Process Applications Part Five: Process Perspectives

This book presents a novel and comprehensive process theory of organization applicable to 'a world on the move', where connectedness prevails over size, flow prevails over stability, and temporality prevails over spatiality.The framework developed in the book draws upon process thinking in a number of areas, including process philosophy, pragmatism, phenomenology, and science and technology studies. Salient ideas from these schools are carefully woven into a process theory of organization, which makes the book not only a thought provoking theoretical contribution, but also a much-needed glimpse into the challenges of organizing in a complex and moving world. Taking a distinctly temporal view of organizational life the author shows how actors continually carve out their temporal existence from being in the flow of time. This on-going work, in which technologies, concepts, and social actors take part, is crucial for the making of any type of organizational formation. A key construct of the book is that of events, which provide force, movement, and historicity to organizational life. The book is suitable for scholars and advanced level students in organization studies, management studies, technology studies, and sociology. It contains a number of practical examples to illustrate the theoretical framework.

The notion of paradox dates back to ancient philosophy, yet only recently have scholars started to explore this idea in organizational phenomena. Two decades ago, a handful of provocative theorists urged researchers to take seriously the study of paradox, and thereby deepen our understanding of plurality, tensions, and contradictions in organizational life. Studies of organizational paradox have grown exponentially over the past two decades, canvassing varied phenomena, methods, and levels of analysis. These studies have explored such tensions as today and tomorrow, global integration and local distinctions, collaboration and competition, self and others, mission and markets. Yet even with both the depth and breadth of interest in organizational paradoxes, key issues around definitions and application remain. This handbook seeks to aid, engage, and fuel the expanding interest in organizational paradox. Contributions to this volume depict how paradox studies inform, and are informed, by other theoretical perspectives, while creating a resource that enables scholars to learn about and apply this lens across varied organizational phenomena. The increasing complexity, volatility, and ambiguity in our world continually surfaces paradoxical dynamics. Thus, this handbook offers insights to scholars across organizational theory.

Aims to bring together, present, and discuss what is known about work and organizations and their connection to broader economic change in Europe and America. This volume contains a range of theoretically informed essays, which give comprehensive coverage of changes in work, occupations, and organizations.

Phenomenological approaches to Management and Organization Studies offer a means to problematize 'appearances' in the field, allowing us to 'see' things in a different light and uncover what is hidden from our consideration by our theoretical or ideological assumptions. This handbook aims at showing the unexpected richness and diversity of phenomenological and post-phenomenological thinkers such as Husserl, Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, Arendt, or Scheler, as well as others belonging to the French new phenomenology (Marion, Henry) or the German neo-phenomenology (Schmitz). It also details the contributions of thinkers like Bachelard, Deleuze, or Foucault whose inscription and departures from phenomenology are illuminated. In this process, phenomenologies are historically, critically, and openly discussed by leading scholars while highlighting the interweaving between phenomenologies and other streams such as process studies or critical perspectives. Beyond a theoretical description, the chapters also show how phenomenologies and post-phenomenologies can help management and organization scholars and students to understand a huge variety of contemporary phenomena such as distributed collective activity, artificial intelligence, digitalization of organizational processes, remote work, financial markets and financial instruments, entrepreneurial events, cinematographic organizing of social media, issues of place and emplacement, commons and communalization processes and questions of embodiment and disembodiment at work.

Our most basic relationship with the world is one of technological mediation. Nowadays our available tools are digital, and increasingly what counts in economic, social, and cultural life is what can be digitally stored, distributed, replayed, augmented, and switched. Yet the digital remains very much materially configured, and though it now permeates nearly all human life it has not eclipsed all older technologies. This Handbook is grounded in an understanding that our technologically mediated condition is a condition of organization. It maps and theorizes the largely unchartered territory of media, technology, and organization studies. Written by scholars of organization and theorists of media and technology, the chapters focus on specific, and specifically mediating, objects that shape the practices, processes, and effects of organization. It is in this spirit that each chapter focuses on a specific technological object, such as the Battery, Clock, High Heels, Container, or Smartphone, asking the question, how does this object or process organize? In staying with the object the chapters remain committed to the everyday, empirical world, rather than being confined to established disciplinary concerns and theoretical developments. As the first sustained and systematic interrogation of the relation between technologies, media, and organization, this Handbook consolidates, deepens, and further develops the empirics and concepts required to make sense of the material forces of organization.

Phenomenological approaches to Management and Organization Studies offer a means to problematize 'appearances' in the field, allowing us to 'see' things in a different light and uncover what is hidden from our consideration by our theoretical or ideological assumptions. This handbook aims at showing the unexpected richness and diversity of phenomenological and post-phenomenological thinkers such as Husserl, Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, Arendt, or Scheler, as well as others belonging to the French new phenomenology (Marion, Henry) or the German neo-phenomenology (Schmitz). It also details the contributions of thinkers like Bachelard, Deleuze, or Foucault whose inscription and departures from phenomenology are illuminated. In this process, phenomenologies are historically, critically, and openly discussed by leading scholars while highlighting the interweaving between phenomenologies and other streams such as process studies or critical perspectives. Beyond a theoretical description, the chapters also show how phenomenologies and post-phenomenologies can help management and organization scholars and students to understand a huge variety of contemporary phenomena such as distributed collective activity, artificial intelligence, digitalization of organizational processes, remote work, financial markets and financial instruments, entrepreneurial events, cinematographic organizing of social media, issues of place and emplacement, commons and communalization processes and questions of embodiment and disembodiment at work.