Jeffrey Pfeffer of the present day York: Oxford University Press.

Jeffrey Pfeffer of the present day York: Oxford University Press, 1997 264 pp $3800

At the March 1999 annual meeting of the Western Academy of Management, Philip Selznick was the featured speaker. After a brilliant presentation forward institutional theory and the nature of scholarship, there was a brief question and answer period. single of the first questions asked of Selznick was, "What do you think of the paradigm wars?" Because the individual who asked the question was fine spoken, and because there was noise outside the place Selznick had trouble hearing the question. Seeking clarification, he said, "Are you asking me what do I think of 'Paradise Lost'?" To mishear "paradigm wars" as "paradise lost" is to lead into each other the agony of a field with the agony of man's fall while searching for godlike knowledge, depicted in John Milton's (1667) epic metrical composition "Paradise Lost." The juxtaposition is brilliant. And jarring.

Whether he make choice ofs the role or not, Pfeffer is seen as a tonic player in the so-called paradigm wars, and this main division which he intends as an overview for "new entrants as it was as graduate students and scholars from adjacent disciplines," will inevitably be skimmed for its relevance to that debate. In reviewing the work I want to comment the two as if that debate had at no time occurred and as if it had, to create differing words immediately preceding [i]or[/i] followings to think through the issues raised. This main division is constructed around fundamental questions about for what reason to understand organizations. Pfeffer describes it as his third attempt at an overview of organizational studies (p 5) the first in 1982 built around of the same heights of analysis, the second in 1985 built around perspectives onward action, and this one, built around universals and controversies. Pfeffer summarizes his view of the focus of organizational studies as follows:

[The field of organizational studies] comprises an interdisciplinary focus forward (a) the effect of social organizations forward the behavior and attitudes of individuals within them, (b) the purports of individual characteristics and action upon organizations, with a particular emphasis forward the efficacy and, indeed, the possibility of powerful individual influence (e.g., through leadership)in organizational classifications (c) the performance, success, and survival of organizations, (d) the mutual results of environments, including resource and task, political, and cultural environments forward organizations and vice versa, and (e) make uneasys with both the epistemology and methodology that undergird research forward each of these topics. (p 4)

What is noteworthy is the repeated assertion that each moot point has causal arrows running in the two directions.

Translated into the language of the chapters of this work the field is about understanding the causes of behavior (chap. 2) moulds of behavior, the effects of composition, mechanisms of social superintend the exercise of power and influence, organizational performance, a critical expect at managerialism, and new directions. Alternatively, it could be argued that the field is about the five gauges of behavior discussed in chapter 3: economic, social, retrospective rational, moral, and interpretive. Whatever the make easy of the field, existing studies in it have not addressed what Pfeffer regards as four elucidation changes in organizations: externalization of the profession relation, an increased number of small organizations, increasing influence of capital markets forward corporate governance, and increasing salary inequality. He states his belong to this way: "If people are working in different arrangements than in the past, if managerial discretion is now more constrained by dint of financial markets, if pay is becoming more unequal, and if large organizational size now have the appearances to be more of a freight and less of a benefit, then organization theory should have something to say about wherefore these changes have occurred" (p 18) It doesn't.

If there were no "paradigm wars" and the connection of this book were defined instead by means of other overviews of organizational studies, of the like kind as those written by Scott (1998) Perrow (1986) or Morgan (1986) several things would stand gone out Pfeffer's rhetoric is cooler than Perrow's or Morgan's; his inclusions are almost as encyclopedic as Scott's; Pfeffer is more multidisciplinary than any of the three; and he integrates the fragments les than any of the three meaning the work is more list-like, with fewer stories than Perrow or Morgan. Reading Pfeffer is a bit like reading a book-length Annual Review of Sociology chapter upon organizations. These comparisons are meant to be descriptive, not evaluative. The work is an even-handed, eclectic, at times critical discussion of approximately 975 regards organized into clusters that are meaningful to one as well as the other practitioners and researchers. That is what Pfeffer intended to do, and he does it well. It is not clear wherefore the overview is titled "New Directions," however, since there aren't many. And if the vexed question is paradigm proliferation, new directions would present the appearance to be the last thing Pfeffer would want, unles that recently made known direction consists of consolidation and cumulation.