This is the first definitive volume on organizational ethnography, an emerging field in which organizations are studied as human phenomena; unifying the volume is the thesis that organizing is a fundamental human enterprise that is social, symbolic and aesthetic as well as technological and utilitarian. Symbolic interactionism found in sociology, the notion of culture in anthropology, and stories and rituals of folklore and mythology are drawn upon; its adherents suggest that until organizing is understood as a symbolic activity, any theory of organization is incomplete. The contributors to Inside Organizations include both practitioners and scholars who discuss a variety of organizational settings in which they either participated or were participant observers. Using ethnographic techniques, they describe observed situations and behaviours in order to derive universal principles and applications of leadership, culture change and the social and psychological functions of symbolic behaviour.
C. R. Snyder, PhD (deceased), was the Wright Distinguished Professor of Clinical Psychology at the University of Kansas, Lawrence. Internationally known for his work at the interface of clinical, social, personality, and health psychology, his theories pertained to how people react to personal feedback, the human need for uniqueness, the ubiquitous drive to excuse transgressions, and, most recently, the hope motive. He received 31 research awards and 27 teaching awards at the university, state, and national levels. In 2005, he received an honorary doctorate from Indiana Wesleyan University. Snyder appeared many times on national American television shows, and he was a regular contributor to National Public Radio. His scholarly work on the human need for uniqueness received the rare recognition of being the subject matter of an entire Sunday cartoon sequence by Garry Trudeau. All of these accomplishments were packaged in a graying and self-effacing absent-minded professor who said of himself, “If you don’t laugh at yourself, you have missed the biggest joke of all!”