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Experiencing Organizations
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Experiencing Organizations


July 1996 | 200 pages | SAGE Publications Ltd
An ideal companion to more conventional case studies and textbooks, Experiencing Organizations brings together a fascinating collection of real-life stories about individual work experiences in industrialized societies at this turn of the millennium. Told through the fresh eyes of new organizational recruits, these sometimes comic, often traumatic, but always revealing accounts have much to say to new learners and older hands alike. Grouped in sections on images, winning and losing, and surviving, the narratives encompass a wide range of themes and issues, including power and politics in organizations, organizational cultures and change, gender and discrimination, and appearances and realities. The cold features of business are detailed in which processes such as restructuring, rationalization, and downsizing are increasingly complex. Full of the kind of detail that is often unreported, Experiencing Organizations is recounted with passion and authenticity. This volume is an outstanding resource for students of organizational behavior and theory, organizational and occupational psychology, and general management studies.

 
Introduction
 
PART ONE: IMAGES
 
Images and Mirages
 
Performances and Impressions
 
Red Tape
 
Functions and Ceremonies
 
The Gods
 
PART TWO: WINNING AND LOSING
 
Winners and Losers
 
Compliance and Resistance
 
Games
 
Who Gets the Blame?
 
Networks and Empires
 
PART THREE: SURVIVAL AND INJURIES
 
In at the Deep End
 
Behind Closed Doors
 
Injuries and Insults
 
Sexual Harassment
 
Surviving
 
Final Thoughts

`The success of the book, according to the authors, on whether the readers will find the material interesting, amusing, moving, alarming; "in short, whether it resonates with their own experiences and interests" (p. 188). On this count, it would be very odd if the book is not successful.... a stimulating and unpretentious additon to the literature on organizational behaviour' - Industrial Relations Journal

`Even though behavioural theories on organizations have been around for quite a while, live reality is different. Experiencing Organizations is a book that collects cases: cases narrated by newcomers to organizations and students on internships. They are, in the authors' words, "unusually frank expressions of real experience", and, I would add, very rewarding to read' - Organization Studies

`Some revealing insights into what really happens in organizations, seen through the eyes of new recruits' - Long Range Planning

`This book is a wonderful antidote to those dry and colorless tomes that pass as introductory texts of organizational behavior. Order it, read it, use it!' - Larry Hirschhorn, Center for Applied Research, Philadelphia

`Ingenious and original. Young people's vivid first-hand accounts of the daily dramas of business life, economically and intelligently balanced with sympathetic commentary, thought-provoking questions and scholarly reference' - Nigel Nicholson, London Business School

`The stories by students of observations and experiences from their first internships in organizations are rich and evocative. Coupled with cogent interpretations and thoughtful discussions by Fineman and Gabriel, Experiencing Organizations is a first-rate vehicle for teaching and learning about organizational life' - Peter Frost, University of British Columbia, Vancouver

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ISBN: 9781849207003

Hardcover
ISBN: 9780803978706
$210.00

Paperback
ISBN: 9780803978713
$79.00

This title is also available on SAGE Knowledge, the ultimate social sciences online library. If your library doesn’t have access, ask your librarian to start a trial.