Brief contents List of boxes xiv List of tables xv Preface xvi  1 Strategic management in perspective: a step in the professionalisation of management 2 2 Thinking about strategy and organisational change: the implicit assumptions distinguishing one theory from another 28 Part 1 Systemic ways of thinking about strategy and organisational dynamics 3 The origins of systems thinking in the Age of Reason 48 4 Thinking in terms of strategic choice: cybernetic systems, cognitivist and humanistic psychology 66 5 Thinking in terms of organisational learning and knowledge creation: systems dynamics, cognitivist, humanistic and constructivist psychology 100 6 Thinking in terms of organisational psychodynamics: open systems and psychoanalytic perspectives 128 7 Thinking about strategy process from a systemic perspective: using a process to control a process 150 8 A review of systemic ways of thinking about strategy and organisational dynamics: key challenges for alternative ways of thinking 176 9 Extending and challenging the dominant discourse on organisations: thinking about participation and practice 202 Part 2 The challenge of complexity to ways of thinking Part 3 Complex responsive processes as a way of thinking about 10 The complexity sciences: the sciences of uncertainty 238 11 Systemic applications of complexity sciences to organisations: restating the dominant discourse 266 strategy and organisational dynamics 12 Responsive processes thinking: the interplay of intentions 302 13 The emergence of organisational strategy in local communicative interaction: complex responsive processes of conversation 338 14 The link between the local communicative interaction of strategising and the population-wide patterns of strategy 362 15 The emergence of organisational strategy in local communicative interaction: complex responsive processes of ideology and power relating 388 16 Different modes of articulating patterns of interaction emerging across organisations: strategy narratives and strategy models 416 17 Complex responsive processes of strategising: acting locally on the basis of global goals, visions, expectations and intentions for the ‘whole’ organisation over the ‘long-term future’ 456 18 Complex responsive processes: implications for thinking about organisational dynamics and strategy 486 References 519 Index 545

Strategic Management and Organisational Dynamics remains unique amongst strategic management textbooks by taking a refreshingly alternative look at the subject. Drawing on the sciences of complexity as well as a broad range of social scientific literature, Stacey and Mowles challenge the conceptual orthodoxy of planned strategy, focusing instead on emergence and the predictable unpredictability of organisational life.   Ideal for advanced undergraduate and postgraduate study, this critically detailed account deals with current issues, raising the challenge of complexity within practice and theory.     New to this edition: The literature from past editions is refreshed and updated. More examples are given from contemporary organisational life and social life more generally. The canon of thinkers who inform complex responsive processes of relating is broadened and deepened. There is engagement with new developments in organisational theory such as process organisation studies and practice schools. There are updated sections on rhetoric, paradox and recognition. A focus on what strategic management might mean from the perspective of complex responsive processes. Ralph Stacey is Professor of Management at the Business School, University of Hertfordshire. He is a supervisor on the innovative Doctor of Management programme at the University of Hertfordshire and the author of a number of books and papers on complexity and organisation.   Chris Mowles is Professor of Complexity and Management at the Business School, University of Hertfordshire. He is director of, and supervisor on, the innovative Doctor of Management programme at the University of Hertfordshire and the author of two books and a number of papers on complexity and organisation.      

The literature from past editions is refreshed and updated. More examples are given from contemporary organisational life and social life more generally. The canon of thinkers who inform complex responsive processes of relating is broadened and deepened. There is engagement with new developments in organisational theory such as process organisation studies and practice schools. There are updated sections on rhetoric, paradox and recognition. A focus on what strategic management might mean from the perspective of complex responsive processes.