Organizations
Subtitle: a systems approach
By: Stefan Kühl ; translated by Philip Schmitz
Publisher: Gower
Published: 2013
Language: eng
Number of pages: 195
ISBN-13: 9781472413413
Subjects: Organizational sociology; Organization
Description: From businesses, public administrations, universities and schools, to hospitals, prisons, political parties, or the military, peoples' lives are inextricably bound up with organizations from cradle to grave. Yet we receive little training in how - as members, customers, voters, or patients - to deal with them.In Organizations Stefan Kuhl asks and answers many questions. What are these entities that wield such strong influence in our society? What makes them tick? What are our options for intervening, either from within or without? This book explains how organizations function by examining their three central features: their purposes or goals, their hierarchies, and their memberships. The author presents the three aspects of organizations - the display, formal, and informal aspects, explaining them in metaphorical terms as facades, machines, and games. Acknowledging that the seminal systems theory developed by sociologist Niklas Luhmann is not easily accessible, Professor Kuhl presents Luhmann's organizational concept in a succinct and user-friendly form that will be readily grasped by a practitioner audience and provides new insights in this ambitious theory.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: 1.; title: Organizations: What Are They, Actually? -- -- 2.; title: Membership, Goals, and Hierarchies -- -- 3.; title: Machines, Games, and Facades: The Three Aspects of an Organization -- -- 4.; title: Beyond the Iceberg Metaphor: The Possibilities and Limitations of Communicating about Organizations.