1st Edition

A Complexity Perspective on Researching Organisations Taking Experience Seriously

Edited By Douglas Griffin, Ralph Stacey Copyright 2005
    224 Pages
    by Routledge

    218 Pages
    by Routledge

    Part of the Complexity as the Experience of Organizing series, this book applies complex responsiveness theory to real-life leadership experiences. It features contributions from and details the experience of organizational practitioners, leaders, consultants and managers from various organizations through narrative accounts. It addresses questions such as:

    • How do widespread or global patterns emerge and evolve in the local interactions between people?
    • What actually happens in global change programmes?
    • What does this imply about the relationship between the local and the global?

    Exploring the perspective of complex responsive processes, the book’s contributors examine how this assists them in making sense of their experience, and how this awareness then leads to their development.

    This book is a valuable study for academics, business school students and practitioners, as rather than offering mere descriptions of organizational life, it provides reflective accounts of real-life experiences of researching in organizations.

    Series preface 1 Introduction: researching organizations from a complexity perspective, 2 Experience and method: a complex responsive processes perspective on research in organizations, Editors’ introduction to Chapter 3, 3 Belief, truth and justification: issues of methodology, discourse and the validity of personal narratives Editors’ introduction to Chapter 4, 4 Emerging participative exploration: consultation as research Editors’ introduction to Chapter 5, 5 Letting go, keeping connected and change at the Phoenix Project, Editors’ introduction to Chapter 6, 6 To understand a practice of consulting, Editors’ introduction to Chapter 7, 7 Organizational development in the National Health Service

    Biography

    Ralph Stacey is Director of the Complexity and Management Centre at the Business School of the University of Hertfordshire and Director of the Doctor of Management programme run by the Centre. He is one of the editors of the Complexity and Emergence in Organizations series, and the editor of five books in this series. Professor Douglas Griffin is Associate Director of the Complexity and Management Centre at the Business School of the University of Hertfordshire and a supervisor on the Doctor of Management programme run by the Centre. He is also an independent consultant. He is one of the editors of the Complexity and Emergence in Organizations series, and the editor of three books in this series.