Organizing beyond Organizations for the Common Good: Confronting Societal Challenges through Process Studies: 12 (Perspectives on Process Organization Studies) - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0198956649 ISBN 13: 9780198956648

Publisher: OUP Oxford, 2025

Synopsis

Understanding the societal consequences of organizations is a perennial, if sometimes neglected, concern within the field of organization studies. Recently, such concerns have been given renewed emphasis, with one vibrant stream of research focusing on 'grand challenges', particularly those with a strong societal component, directed at a common good beyond that of business organizations themselves. This might include issues such as sustainable development, natural disasters and pandemics, poverty, community regeneration, and climate change.

This volume builds on the current interest in grand challenges by taking seriously the problem of 'organizing beyond organizations', and by engaging with the unique methodological and theoretical toolkits afforded by a process studies perspective to address these issues. Societal challenges are inherently inter-organizational, necessitating theoretical approaches that not only examine organizational action but also frame that action in terms of its wider relational dynamics with other stakeholders. Although some of these considerations are not new, their implications for addressing societal issues such as grand challenges and sustainable development goals has scarcely been considered, let alone how traditional and non-traditional modes of organizing might jointly work towards achieving such outcomes. The chapters embrace the power of a process worldview in order to understand the dynamic nature of any particular grand challenge or societal issue as it evolves within the relationality of actions and practices within and between organizational actors.

About this title

About the Author

Joel Gehman is the Lindner-Gambal Professor in the Department of Strategic Management and Public Policy at the George Washington University School of Business. His research investigates how organizations can contribute to tackling grand challenges related to sustainable development through strategic practices, technological innovation, and institutional change. He is the author of more than 50 peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters and more than a dozen business school teaching cases.

Paula Jarzabkowski is Professor of Strategic Management at the University of Queensland and City St George's, University of London. Her research takes a qualitative, practice theory lens to understanding how people in organizations address the complex problems or 'grand challenges' affecting society. She has published this work in over 100 peer-reviewed articles and book chapters, three research monographs, and several edited books and journals. Paula is a Fellow of both the Academy of Management and the British Academy.

Ann Langley is Emerita Professor at HEC Montréal and Distinguished Research Environment Professor at the University of Warwick. Her research deals with strategic processes and practices in complex organizations with an emphasis on qualitative research methods. She has published over 100 articles and 14 books. She is currently Deputy Editor for qualitative research at the Academy of Management Journal, and co-editor, with Haridimos Tsoukas, of the OUP book series 'Perspectives on Process Organization Studies'.

Haridimos Tsoukas is the Columbia Ship Management Professor of Strategic Management at the University of Cyprus and a Distinguished Research Environment Professor of Organizational Behaviour at Warwick Business School. His research interests include organizational knowledge, organizational becoming, practical reason in management studies, and philosophy and organization studies. With Ann Langley, he is co-editor of the OUP book series 'Perspectives on Process Organization Studies', and is author of several books including Philosophical Organization Theory (OUP, 2019).

Edition details

• Publisher: OUP Oxford
• Publication date: 2025
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0198956649
• ISBN 13: 9780198956648
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 272
• Editor: Gehman Joel, Jarzabkowski Paula, Langley Ann, Tsoukas Haridimos