1st Edition
The Management Thought of Louis R. Pondy Reclaiming the Enthinkment Path
Louis R. Pondy was a leading management and organizational studies scholar whose work on open systems helped launch and define the future of the field. This book offers an assessment of Pondy’s contribution, through critical reflection on what happened to the relationship between conflict theory and “beyond open systems.”
Exploring the ways in which Louis R. Pondy theorizes conflict and systems, and how he challenged the status quo paradigms, this book offers a historical analysis on Pondy’s work and the relation to contemporary management theory. The author develops a Triple Loop framework, building on Pondy’s theories as well as the work of Gregory Batesom, to demonstrate a beyond-open-systems approach and existing single- or double-loop systems.
Demonstrating the value and legacy of Louis R. Pondy, this book will have international appeal to researchers, academics and students across management disciplines and organizational studies, including systems thinking and conflict resolution.
FOREWORD: LOUIS RALPH PONDY’S "TEAR" IN MANAGEMENT THOUGHT
PREFACE: PONDY’S JOURNEY FROM "BOUNDED RATIONALITY" TOWARDS "ENTHINKMENT AND EXISTENTIALISM"
PART I - LOUIS RALPH PONDY’S MANAGEMENT THOUGHT 1966-1976
CHAPTER 1 LOUIS RALPH PONDY (1938-1987), A LATE MEMORIAL ADDRESS: GOING BEYOND BOUNDED RATIONALISMS
CHAPTER 2 1967, ASQ PUBLISHES THE WRONG PONDY CONFLICT MODEL, SOUNDLY REJECTED BY PONDY 1966
PART II – PONDY’S MANAGEMENT THOUGHT 1976-1980
CHAPTER 3 1976, BEYOND OPEN SYSTEMS THEORY
CHAPTER 4, 1977, THE SOUND OF THE OTHER HAND CLAPPING
CHAPTER 5 1977, PONDY’S LITTLE WOW MOMENT OF MENTORING CHANGED MY LIFE
CHAPTER 6 1978, LEADERSHIP AS A LANGUAGE GAME
CHAPTER 7 1980, BRINGING MIND BACK INTO MANAGEMENT THOUGHT
PART III- PONDY’S MANAGEMENT THOUGHT 1980-1986
CHAPTER 8 1983, UNION OF RATIONALITY AND INTUITION: AN EXISTENTIAL TURN
CHAPTER 9 PONDY AND HUFF’S 1986 PROCESS OF EMERGENT POLICY REFRAMING
CHAPTER 10 PONDY’S 1986 REFLECTIONS ON CONFLICT
CHAPTER 11 1987, SYMBOLS AND MYTHS IN MANAGEMENT THOUGHT
CHAPTER 12 EPILOGUE: WHAT IS PONDY’S CONTRIBUTION TO MANAGEMENT THOUGHT? ENTHINKMENT!
PART IV – AFTER PONDY: ON THE ROAD TO EXISTENTIALISM
CHAPTER 13 IMPLICATIONS OF ENTHINKMENT TO CONTEMPORARY MANAGEMENT THOUGHT
CHAPTER 14: BEYOND QUANTUM STORYTELLING LIMITS OF ENTHINKMENT AND ENACTMENT DUALITY
CHAPTER 15: FULL CIRCLE FROM RATIONALISM TO EXISTENTIALISM
References
Index
Biography
David M. Boje is Professor Emeritus in Management at New Mexico State University, and Professor at Aalborg University Business School, Denmark.
Rohny Saylors is Assistant Professor in entrepreneurship at Washington State University.
"Boje, a thought leader in the art and science of organizational storytelling, uses that very practice to deconstruct, analyze, and "sense-make" the telling of the stories of the evolution of Pondy’s contribution to management thought in light of the presence of management scholarship of Weick, among others. This read is the story of a thought leader capturing and carefully dissecting management theory of management thought leaders with whom he has engaged throughout his own journey of scholarship. This is a must read for any management philosopher!" — Professor Anton Shfutinsky, Cabrini University
"This book is a loving tribute to Louis R. Pondy as a scholar and as a mentor. It not only gives insight into the inspiration behind his thoughts and research, but it also provides an intellectual genealogy that shows how impactful his ideas remain today. This is a must read for anyone - including beginning scholars and seasoned academics." — Professor Duncan Pelly, McMurry University
"David Boje encompasses the multi-verse in his True Storytelling about thinking. He takes the opposite tack of those who would isolate, stabilize and focus on the many pieces that comprise the human experience. He goes fearlessly, joyfully and purposefully into the deep end of the pool and to swim bravely with sharks and dolphins. His delightful and often surprising word-play is ALWAYS challenging and shocks the reader/thinker/feeler into the present for this moment of simultaneous sensation-appreciation-application in the world. Boje is the embodiment of the Zen whack-in-the-head that re-integrates everything in a moment of illumination.
His appreciation and re-storying of his mentor's inspirational and aspirational vision for a more human and complete engagement with management thinking serves as a pathway fro all thinkers-and-doers to reintegrate thought with action in a world that should be more concerned with matter o=s of the heart and soul, and not just the short-term bottom line-oriented management mind. Nothing less than our entire future is at stake in a world that has MBA-engineered all the slack and protective wrappings out of our public and global enterprise. Like the Tin Man, Boje and his Heart are an essential member of our team and you can see it, hear it and feel it beating at the center of his integrating work with True Storytelling." — Dr Kenneth E Long, D.M, Associate Professor, US Army Command & General Staff College (CGSC) Lieutenant-Colonel, US Army (ret)"David Boje has done it again. He continues to challenge conventional narratives and received "wisdom," this time taking the reader on a journey into the work and stories of his mentor, Louis R. Pondy. This work extends David's recent thinking and offers deep insights far beyond its own subject matter, challenging the reader to always question the deep structures and underlying assumptions that shade our individual work as well as our collective understandings of our fields of study and action. Most important for me though is the underlying clarion call for an urgent and deep ethical engagement with each other, our organizations, our societies, and our world (including the non-human) that must be radically different than what has preceded it, as the many previous forms that "bounded rationalities" have taken repeatedly lead to remarkably similar outcomes: social, political and economic inequality, endemic and often bloody conflicts, and ecological degradation and devastation. As usual, Boje is brilliant, provocative, and challenging." – Todd L. Matthews, PhD, Professor and Chair, Department of Leadership and Organization Development and Change, Cabrini University, USA
"Boje is surely the greatest storytelling philosopher of our time. In this beautiful book to his mentor, he uses the concept of True Storytelling as a lens to bring the concepts of enthinkment, enactment, and quantum storytelling together as a creative and gentle way to confront and work with the challenges; ahead in organizations and societies." – Jens Larsen, Copenhagen, Denmark. Storytelling researcher, Co-author to "True Storytelling - Seven Principles for an Ethical and Sustainable Change-management" (Larsen, Boje, Bruun, Routledge 2021) and co-author to the first book in modern time on the ancient greek concept protreptic with philosopher and professor Ole Fogh Kirkeby
"David Boje does a deep dive into Pondy’s scholarship, he spelunks deeply into his personal memories of a scholar and a mentor. This journey into Pondy’s scholarship and bringing Pondy to life as a person brings to the fore the triumphs and works left undone that his earnest mentee wishes to bring forward in honor of a most cherished Friend" – Dr. Jillian Saylors, Visiting Assistant Professor of management, Washington State University
"David Boje traces the successive stages in Lou Pondy's thinking with a view that is both incisively analytical and deeply personal at the same time. Pondy's work not only gets elucidated, but is placed in a broader context of philosophy and management theory. Dr. Boje looks at the big picture - at connections and implications - thereby providing inspiration for what scholarship can be." – Sabine Trafimow, co-founder, of Enthinkment Circle.
"David Boje is the main authority of stortytelling paradigm – one of the most revolutionary postmodern approaches in organization theory of the millennium. I never prepare any narrative research setting without considering theoretical and empirical lenses from Boje´s perspective. This time he exposes his own storytelling theory foundation by developing the work of Louis R. Pondy´s – his own source of inspiration. "Finding paths of inquiry that could help organizations go beyond a pension for horrible and hateful deeds" means for me, as a researcher, to humble myself to rethink my own ontological leadership existence. If Boje, never stands still, why should I!" – Tommi P. Auvinen (PhD, Docent), Senior lecturer, Leading researcher, Chair of equality committee (University of Jyväskylä, Finland)
