organization studies

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Organization studies (also called organization science or organizational studies) is the academic field interested in a collective activity, and how it relates to organization, organizing, and management.Tsoukas, H., & Knudsen, C. (2005). The Oxford handbook of organization theory. Oxford Handbooks Online.Clegg, S. R., Hardy, C., Lawrence, T., & Nord, W. R. (Eds.). (2006). The Sage handbook of organization studies. Sage. It is "the examination of how individuals construct organizational structures, processes, and practices and how these, in turn, shape social relations and create institutions that ultimately influence people".Stewart Clegg, James Russell Bailey, International Encyclopedia of Organization Studies.. [http://www.sage-ereference.com/abstract/organization/d7.xml]{{dead link|date=December 2024|bot=medic}}{{cbignore|bot=medic}}, Sage Publications, 2008

Organizational studies comprise different areas that deal with the different aspects of the organizations, many of the approaches are functionalist but critical research also provide an alternative frame for understanding in the field. Fundamental to the study of management is organizational change.{{Cite journal|last1=Suddaby|first1=Roy|last2=Foster|first2=William M.|date=2017-01-01|title=History and Organizational Change|journal=Journal of Management|language=en|volume=43|issue=1|pages=19–38|doi=10.1177/0149206316675031|issn=0149-2063|doi-access=free}}

Historically, facilitating organizational change has proven to be a difficult subject, which is why different theoretical frameworks have evolved in an attempt to strategically streamline this process, such as utilizing external actors, or interim organizations, where it is important to define the expectations of the outcome of change before initiating it, so as to provide measurability.{{cite book |last1=Vriens |first1=Dirk |last2=Achterberg |first2=Jan |title=Organizational Development |chapter=Episodic interventions in organizational structures |date=2019 |publisher=Routledge |doi=10.4324/9781315695228-4 |isbn=9781315695228 |s2cid=197707922 |chapter-url=https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/mono/10.4324/9781315695228-4/episodic-interventions-organizational-structures-jan-achterbergh-dirk-vriens?context=ubx&refId=47415815-d203-433b-936d-3c99f34da199}}

History

It has followed numerous 'turns' since its emergence in the 1960s: linguistic turn, spatial turn, practice turn, process turn, materiality turn, communication turn... A turn is a collective direction of research, focused on some coherent sets of concepts, theories, and ideas, which represent a point of bifurcation for the field itself. Most turns in organization studies relate to broader ones in social sciences and humanities. Researchers studying organizations and/or organizing processes have a recurring concern that those who work in organizations do not find organizational research particularly relevant. There is therefore a growing interest in the impact of organization studies.{{Cite journal|last1=MacIntosh|first1=Robert|last2=Beech|first2=Nic|last3=Bartunek|first3=Jean|author3-link= Jean M. Bartunek |last4=Mason|first4=Katy|last5=Cooke|first5=Bill|last6=Denyer|first6=David|date=2017-01-01|title=Impact and Management Research: Exploring Relationships between Temporality, Dialogue, Reflexivity, and Praxis|journal=British Journal of Management|language=en|volume=28|issue=1|pages=3–13|doi=10.1111/1467-8551.12207|s2cid=152252273|issn=1467-8551|url=http://dspace.lib.cranfield.ac.uk/bitstream/1826/11448/3/Impact_and_Management_Research-2017.pdf}}

Public administrations also, around the world, are adopting massively new organizational models to increase their efficiency and improve public services. The Organization Studies field is becoming more popular also because the borders between a well-defined organization and customers, citizens, businesses, and professionals are more and more undefined. For example, social organization has been the subject of study in Spatio-temporal cohesiveness in human network theory.{{cite book |chapter-url=https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-540-68125-0_113?noAccess=true |publisher=springer.com| series=Lecture Notes in Computer Science | year=2008 | doi=10.1007/978-3-540-68125-0_113 | last1=Yoo | first1=Jin Soung | last2=Hwang | first2=Joengmin | title=Advances in Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining | chapter=A Framework for Discovering Spatio-temporal Cohesive Networks | volume=5012 | pages=1056–1061 | isbn=978-3-540-68124-3 }}{{Cite journal|last=Casalino|first=N.|date=2014|title=Learning to Connect: a Training Model for Public Sector on Advanced E-Government Services and Inter-Organizational Cooperation|journal=International Journal of Advanced Corporate Learning |language=en|volume=7|issue=1|pages=24–31|issn=1867-5565|doi=10.3991/ijac.v7i1.3577|doi-access=free}}

With the recent historical turn, there is growing interest in historical organization studies, promising a closer union between organizational and historical research whose validity derives from historical veracity and conceptual rigor, enhancing understanding of historical, contemporary and future-directed social realities.{{Cite journal|last1=Maclean|first1=Mairi|last2=Harvey|first2=Charles|last3=Clegg|first3=Stewart R.|date=2016-10-01|title=Conceptualizing Historical Organization Studies|url=http://amr.aom.org/content/41/4/609|journal=Academy of Management Review|language=en|volume=41|issue=4|pages=609–632|doi=10.5465/amr.2014.0133|issn=0363-7425|hdl=10453/41332|hdl-access=free}} Organizational studies as a discipline is also closely related to metathinking.{{cite book |last1=Shannon |first1=Nick |last2=Frischherz |first2=Bruno |title=Metathinking - The Art and Practice of Transformational Thinking |date=2020 |pages=175–176 |publisher=Springer Cham |doi=10.1007/978-3-030-41064-3 |isbn=978-3-030-41064-3 |s2cid=242428640 |url=https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-030-41064-3#about-book-content}}

Journals

Major academic journals of the field are, among others: Organization Science, Organization Studies, Organization Theory and Organization.

Conferences

Researchers interested in organizations and organizing meet in the context of numerous conferences and workshops: the Academy of Management Annual Conference (in particular the OMT division), the European Group for Organizational Studies (EGOS), the Asia Pacific conference on Research in Organization Studies (APROS), the American and European Conference on Organization Studies (LAEMOS), the Organization Studies Summer Workshop, the International Symposium on Process Organization Studies (PROS), the Standing Conference on Organizational Symbolism (SCOS), the International Research Network (puntOorg), the Organizations, Artifacts & Practices (OAP) workshop, Organization Science Winter Conference, etc.

Subfields

Critical Management Studies - Theoretically informed critiques of management and organisation, grounded in a critical theory perspective.
{{annotated link|Organizational behavior}}
{{annotated link|Organizational culture}}
{{annotated link|Organizational ecology}}
{{annotated link|Organizational learning}}
{{annotated link|Organizational psychology}}
{{annotated link|Organizational theory}}
{{annotated link|Orgology}}
{{annotated link|Management science}}
{{annotated link|Management cybernetics}}

References

Category:Organizational behavior

Category:Interdisciplinary subfields of sociology

Category:Management cybernetics

Category:Social systems