The concept of the 'learning organization' is one of the most popular management ideas of the last few decades. Since it was conceived as an idea in its own right, it has been given various definitions and meanings, such that we are still faced with the question as to whether any unified understanding of what the learning organization really is can be established. This Handbook offers extensive reviews of both new and traditional perspectives on the concept and provides suggestions for how the learning organization can best be defined, practiced, studied, and developed in future research. With contributions from long-standing scholars in the field as well as those new to the area, this book aims to bridge the gap between traditional and more critical perspectives, and in doing so find alternative features and angles to take the idea forward. In addition to elaborating on and developing older definitions of the learning organization and suggesting updated and even new definitions, the chapters also provide focused explorations on pertinent aspects of the learning organization such as ambidexterity, gender inclusivity, and systems thinking. They also survey organizations that have made efforts towards becoming learning organizations, how the learning organization can best be measured and studied, and the universality of the idea itself. Some of the questions raised in this book are answered, or at least given tentative answers, while other questions are left open. In this way, the book has the ambition to take the learning organization an important step further, whilst having no intentions to take any final step; instead, the intention is that others will endeavour to continue where this book stops.

Values, attitudes, and behaviors constitute an organization’s culture and employees both share and use them on a daily basis in their work. This book aims to briefly portray a new interpretation of organizational culture varying from the profusion of literature in the following ways: it attempts to include how cultures are created organically or through consistent planning and action in different organizations such as education, business, and health; focusing more on change, innovation, and learning opportunities. It also aims to provide leaders with experiences and reflections on how to initiate an organizational culture change. Finally, this book is expected to extend new perspectives and practices for both potential and actual managers of organizations contributing to the current debate on how to transform organizations into innovative and learning cultures.

Learning Organizations delves into why learning is an essential business operation; how modern learning is different from industrial-era training; how to discover learning sources and opportunities; how to design a learning environment and learning strategies that optimize the potential of every employee.

In a business world predominantly oriented toward the future, it has paradoxically become ever more common that companies turn towards their pasts. This book empirically explores the phenomenon of organizational remembrance from a holistic cultural perspective. Based on a twelve-month ethnographic case study conducted at the headquarters of the German automobile company, AUDI AG, this study dissects the relationships between memory, identity, and image in a corporate setting. The greater aim in doing so is twofold: First, this study examines exactly why and how a company officially manages its past in terms of ‘history’ and ‘tradition.’ And second, this study scrutinizes what effect organizational remembrance has on the workforce – how it impacts their collective identification with a corporate community and influences their understanding of their daily working life. By investigating the interplay between different stakeholder groups, as well as their practices, media, mental models, and other vehicles of remembrance, an integrated account is offered which makes sense of the complex cultural forces at work in the corporate handling of the past, the present, and the future.

As the level of globalization in business relationships rises, the importance of questions and problems pertaining to intercultural communication increases more and more. This gives rise to new tasks for the social sciences, which can only be successfully performed through interdisciplinary cooperation in the sense of area-studies. Between 1995 and 2002 for area, the Bavarian research network for area-studies, drew together numerous members of the scientific community who are specialized in the social sciences to pursue previously unresearched topics in areas of overlap of business and culture as exemplified in non-European regions. The most important results are collated here.

Management of organizational culture is a controversial topic. Pragmatists argue that it can be, should be and has been easily managed and they offer guidance how to do this, whilst purists find it ridiculous to talk about managing organizational culture: it cannot be managed, it evolves. Contributions to this fascinating book cover the following topics: * the relationship between leadership and organizational culture * the study of the role of organizational culture in four distinct cases * a change project of managerial culture * the FOCUS-instrument for measuring organizational culture * the main influences of organizational culture on its individual members * critical questions for future research. The editors do not intend to give final answers to this ongoing discussion, but to contribute to the debate and aid understanding. The contributions guide practitioners and researchers through the complex issues to avoid possible pitfalls.

This book presents a new approach to organizational culture based in the ontologies of process metaphysics, complexity theory, and social constructionism. The author shows that most existing definitions of organizational culture are inadequate and argues that organizational culture is socially constructed, building on Schein's idea that culture emerges as a dynamic response to problem solving by the organization’s members. Through several case studies, he demonstrates that neglecting an organization's culture is responsible for the failures of organizational change efforts and shows how using this new model will lead to improved results. This book will be a valuable resources to anyone interested in organizational studies.

Regarded as one of the most influential management books of all time, this fourth and completely updated edition of Edgar Schein's Organizational Culture and Leadership focuses on today's complex business realities and draws on a wide range of contemporary research to demonstrate the crucial role of leaders in applying the principles of culture to achieve their organizational goals. Edgar Schein explores how leadership and culture are fundamentally intertwined, and reveals key findings about leadership and culture including: Leaders are entrepreneurs and the main architects of culture Once cultures are formed they influence what kind of leadership is possible If elements of the culture become dysfunctional, it is the leader's responsibility to do something to speed up culture change. In addition, the book contains new information that reflects culture at different levels of analysis from national and ethnic macroculture to team-based microculture. Praise for Prior Editions of Organizational Culture and Leadership "Worth reading again and again and again."—Booklist "An organizational development pioneer uses an anthropological approach to address a leader's role in shaping group and organizational dynamics."—Knowledge Management "[Schein] is, to use an overworked word, a guru, the recognized expert in the field."—Inside Business

This handbook presents a major retrospective and prospective overview of the field of organization studies. The text moves from the general to the specific, from the past to the present and from the present to the future. Addressing the established traditions, it examines the questions that the fin de siecle poses for organizations, and for ourselves as organization members and researchers. Central to the enterprise has been a concern to reflect and honour the manifest diversity of the field - including recognition of the extent to which the very notion of a single field of organization studies is itself debated - while also directing attention to the points of intersection and potential dialogue across the numerous conversations that make up this area of study. before examining some of the most significant theoretical paradigms in the field, including organizational ecology, organization economics, institutional theory, and feminism and postmodernism. Part Two addresses a number of the most significant research topics emerging from these broad perspectives, including leadership, decision-making and innovation in organizations, alongside such themes as diversity, globalization and ecology. Part Three reflects on the relationships between theory, research and practice in organization studies.