Miguel Pina e Cunha - Böcker

In a globalized world, where multinational companies have extensive power over a huge number of other organizations and millions of people, building positive organizational performance requires global leaders with virtues. Organizations, especially multinational ones, may be crucial engines of social and economic progress; global leaders' virtues and character strengths may be strong drivers of such an endeavour. One cannot demand of them that they be morally pure or that they assume responsibility for solving the most pressing public problems in the world. However, this book argues that they may be part of the solution, help in making the world a better place, and contribute to the realistic desiderata of a values-based capitalism.Drawing on the Positive Organizational Scholarship movement, this book aims to provide a holistic approach to the virtues of leaders. It explores how virtues and character strengths may be put at the service of positive organizational performance, stressing that virtues represent the 'golden mean' between the extremes of excess and deficiency, and discussing the perverse consequences of 'excessive virtuousness'. The book shares theoretical, anecdotal, and empirical evidence on the convergence between good virtues and good results, aiming to disseminate the idea that managers can be competent and competitive, whilst doing 'good things right'.

In a globalized world, where multinational companies have extensive power over a huge number of other organizations and millions of people, building positive organizational performance requires global leaders with virtues. Organizations, especially multinational ones, may be crucial engines of social and economic progress; global leaders' virtues and character strengths may be strong drivers of such an endeavour. One cannot demand of them that they be morally pure or that they assume responsibility for solving the most pressing public problems in the world. However, this book argues that they may be part of the solution, help in making the world a better place, and contribute to the realistic desiderata of a values-based capitalism. Drawing on the Positive Organizational Scholarship movement, this book aims to provide a holistic approach to the virtues of leaders. It explores how virtues and character strengths may be put at the service of positive organizational performance, stressing that virtues represent the 'golden mean' between the extremes of excess and deficiency, and discussing the perverse consequences of 'excessive virtuousness'. The book shares theoretical, anecdotal, and empirical evidence on the convergence between good virtues and good results, aiming to disseminate the idea that managers can be competent and competitive, whilst doing 'good things right'.

Social theorists speculate about large-scale social questions, asking of any phenomenon, how is it possible? This book addresses how various social theories contribute key insights into the nature of organizations and management.The cast of characters to be found in this book have had a transcendental impact, including on the practices of the management and organization disciplines. For students, however, engaging with social theory in a conversation that is much broader and potentially richer than those that may have been previously encountered is not at first easy. The question is where to begin: this book provides answers.Drawing on research from international contributors, this valuable textbook is an essential resource for students and introduces key social theories and theorists making them accessible to a management audience. The chapters include objectives and end-of-chapter reflective questions, as well as a glossary for readers grappling with new terms.

Organizational compassion provides a multitude of benefits at individual, team and organizational levels. These encompass heightened positive affect, trust, engagement, loyalty, performance, resilience, and recovery. This important book provides an accessible yet scholarly overview of key academic findings and theories on organizational compassion. It equips readers with tools for reflection, awakening and practical application of compassion within the workplace across dyadic, team and organizational contexts. Historically, compassion work has been largely unacknowledged in official organizational discourse. Yet, wherever there are human beings, there will be suffering; where there is human suffering, one can often find human responses infused with kindness and compassion. This observation holds true across industries, professions, and communities. The book explores the complexities of organizational compassion, analyzing the factors that enhance organizational compassion capabilities, as well as those that make compassion falter and fail. The primary aim of this book is to foster the cultivation of organizational compassion by providing a provocative, stimulating and engaging foray into the academic study of organizational compassion for readers, ranging from undergraduate to postgraduate and executive students, as well as reflective practitioners. In a world marked by suffering and challenges, a research-based understanding and fostering of compassion at work, offers a path towards a better future.

This innovative volume provides a comprehensive overview of improvisation as a pervasive organizational process, essential in ever-changing business environments.Exploring theories of organizational action as well as contemporary challenges, it highlights improvisation’s rich potential in theory building and practice. The value and relevance of improvisational capabilities and processes in organizations are more apparent than ever: the global pandemic has forced organizations to reinvent themselves and to adapt to dramatic change on a massive scale. This surge in improvised activity starkly illustrates how the capability to improvise is key to organizational resilience: organizations that are able to improvise effectively are better prepared to bounce back and even thrive.From the latest thinking on improvisation in organizations to future avenues for research, this volume demonstrates the rich potential for both theory building and practice and provides a valuable resource for researchers and advanced students in organizational strategy, entrepreneurship, product development, information systems, disaster management, and HRM.

This innovative volume provides a comprehensive overview of improvisation as a pervasive organizational process, essential in ever-changing business environments.Exploring theories of organizational action as well as contemporary challenges, it highlights improvisation’s rich potential in theory building and practice. The value and relevance of improvisational capabilities and processes in organizations are more apparent than ever: the global pandemic has forced organizations to reinvent themselves and to adapt to dramatic change on a massive scale. This surge in improvised activity starkly illustrates how the capability to improvise is key to organizational resilience: organizations that are able to improvise effectively are better prepared to bounce back and even thrive.From the latest thinking on improvisation in organizations to future avenues for research, this volume demonstrates the rich potential for both theory building and practice and provides a valuable resource for researchers and advanced students in organizational strategy, entrepreneurship, product development, information systems, disaster management, and HRM.

The relatively new field of organizational improvisation is concerned with the pressures on organizations to react continually to today's ever-changing environment. Organizational improvisation has important implications for such subjects as product innovation, teamworking and organizational renewal, and this new book brings together some of the best and most thought-provoking papers published in recent years. This area is now emerging as one of the most important in organizational science, and this book provides a comprehensive collection suitable for students, researchers and practitioners alike.

The relatively new field of organizational improvisation is concerned with the pressures on organizations to react continually to today's ever-changing environment. Organizational improvisation has important implications for such subjects as product innovation, teamworking and organizational renewal, and this new book brings together some of the best and most thought-provoking papers published in recent years. This area is now emerging as one of the most important in organizational science, and this book provides a comprehensive collection suitable for students, researchers and practitioners alike.

Social theorists speculate about large-scale social questions, asking of any phenomenon, how is it possible? This book addresses how various social theories contribute key insights into the nature of organizations and management.The cast of characters to be found in this book have had a transcendental impact, including on the practices of the management and organization disciplines. For students, however, engaging with social theory in a conversation that is much broader and potentially richer than those that may have been previously encountered is not at first easy. The question is where to begin: this book provides answers.Drawing on research from international contributors, this valuable textbook is an essential resource for students and introduces key social theories and theorists making them accessible to a management audience. The chapters include objectives and end-of-chapter reflective questions, as well as a glossary for readers grappling with new terms.

Paradoxes, contrary propositions that are not contestable separately but that are inconsistent when conjoined, constitute a pervasive feature of contemporary organizational life. When contradictory elements are constituted as equally important in day-to-day work, organizational actors frequently experience acute tensions in engaging with these contradictions. This Element discusses the presence of paradoxes in the life of organizations, introduces the reader to the notion of paradox in theory and practice, and distinguishes paradox and adjacent conceptualizations such as trade-off, dilemma, dialectics, ambiguity, etc. This Element also covers what triggers paradoxes and how they come into being whereby the Element distinguishes latent and salient paradoxes and how salient paradoxes are managed. This Element discusses key methodological challenges and possibilities of studying, teaching, and applying paradoxes and concludes by considering some future research questions left unexplored in the field.

Organizational compassion provides a multitude of benefits at individual, team and organizational levels. These encompass heightened positive affect, trust, engagement, loyalty, performance, resilience, and recovery. This important book provides an accessible yet scholarly overview of key academic findings and theories on organizational compassion. It equips readers with tools for reflection, awakening and practical application of compassion within the workplace across dyadic, team and organizational contexts. Historically, compassion work has been largely unacknowledged in official organizational discourse. Yet, wherever there are human beings, there will be suffering; where there is human suffering, one can often find human responses infused with kindness and compassion. This observation holds true across industries, professions, and communities. The book explores the complexities of organizational compassion, analyzing the factors that enhance organizational compassion capabilities, as well as those that make compassion falter and fail. The primary aim of this book is to foster the cultivation of organizational compassion by providing a provocative, stimulating and engaging foray into the academic study of organizational compassion for readers, ranging from undergraduate to postgraduate and executive students, as well as reflective practitioners. In a world marked by suffering and challenges, a research-based understanding and fostering of compassion at work, offers a path towards a better future.

Positive Organizational Behaviour: A Reflective Approach introduces the most recent theoretical and empirical insights on positive organizational practices, addressing emerging topics such as resilience, job crafting, responsible leadership and mindfulness. Other books on positive approaches tend to gloss over the limitations of the positive agenda, but this textbook is unique in taking a reflective approach, focussing on the positive while also accommodating critical perspectives relating to power and control. Positive Organizational Behaviour provides an integrated conceptual framework, evidence-based findings and practical tools to gain an understanding of the potential of positive organizational practices. This innovative new textbook will provide advanced management and psychology students with a grounding in the area, and help them develop strategies for building effective and responsible organizations.

Positive Organizational Behaviour: A Reflective Approach introduces the most recent theoretical and empirical insights on positive organizational practices, addressing emerging topics such as resilience, job crafting, responsible leadership and mindfulness. Other books on positive approaches tend to gloss over the limitations of the positive agenda, but this textbook is unique in taking a reflective approach, focussing on the positive while also accommodating critical perspectives relating to power and control. Positive Organizational Behaviour provides an integrated conceptual framework, evidence-based findings and practical tools to gain an understanding of the potential of positive organizational practices. This innovative new textbook will provide advanced management and psychology students with a grounding in the area, and help them develop strategies for building effective and responsible organizations.

Why do great companies and other organizations fail, sometimes abruptly? Why do admired leaders fall from their organizational pedestals? Why do young and promising managers derail? Why do organizations create and reinforce rules that manifestly damage both them and those that they employ, serve and sustain? Leadership is a much-discussed but ill-defined idea in business and management circles. Analysing and understanding the skills and behaviours exhibited in leadership practice reveal that leaders exhibit paradoxical activities that challenge our understanding of organizations.In this text, the authors identify leadership behaviours that compete towards business equilibrium: selfish versus selfless, distance versus proximity, consistency versus individuality, enforcing professional standards versus flexibility and control versus autonomy. These paradoxical dilemmas require a reflexive and analytical approach to a subject that is tricky to define. The book explores the paradoxes of power and leadership not as a panacea for solving organizational problems but as a lens through which leadership and power are seen as an exercise in dynamic balance. Read this book as an invitation to the paradoxes of power and leadership that frame organizational life today. Be prepared to find surprises – and some counterintuitive arguments.Providing a thought-provoking guide to the traits and skills that will help readers to understand and navigate paradoxical leadership behaviour, this reflexive book will be a useful reading for students and scholars of business, management and psychology globally.

Why do great companies and other organizations fail, sometimes abruptly? Why do admired leaders fall from their organizational pedestals? Why do young and promising managers derail? Why do organizations create and reinforce rules that manifestly damage both them and those that they employ, serve and sustain? Leadership is a much-discussed but ill-defined idea in business and management circles. Analysing and understanding the skills and behaviours exhibited in leadership practice reveal that leaders exhibit paradoxical activities that challenge our understanding of organizations.In this text, the authors identify leadership behaviours that compete towards business equilibrium: selfish versus selfless, distance versus proximity, consistency versus individuality, enforcing professional standards versus flexibility and control versus autonomy. These paradoxical dilemmas require a reflexive and analytical approach to a subject that is tricky to define. The book explores the paradoxes of power and leadership not as a panacea for solving organizational problems but as a lens through which leadership and power are seen as an exercise in dynamic balance. Read this book as an invitation to the paradoxes of power and leadership that frame organizational life today. Be prepared to find surprises – and some counterintuitive arguments.Providing a thought-provoking guide to the traits and skills that will help readers to understand and navigate paradoxical leadership behaviour, this reflexive book will be a useful reading for students and scholars of business, management and psychology globally.

This captivating book delves into the complex realm of management and organizational dynamics, focusing on the significance of paradoxes.

From the intricate interplay between social obligations and business missions to the tension between stability and change, this textbook unveils the essence of these enduring contradictions. As organizations evolve, paradoxes become defining features, and illustrative cases of this are included throughout the textbook.

Organizational Paradoxes equips students of organization management, organization change and strategy with an understanding of paradoxes, their philosophical underpinnings and their management in practice.

Medhanie Gaim (PhD) is Associate Professor of Management at Umeå School of Business, Economics, and Statistics, Sweden.

Stewart Clegg is Professor at the University of Sydney in the School of Project Management and the John Grill Institute for Project Leadership and a Distinguished Emeritus Professor of the University of Technology Sydney. 

Miguel Pina e Cunha is the Fundação Amélia de Mello chair professor at Nova School of Business and Economics, Nova University Lisbon, Portugal.

This captivating book delves into the complex realm of management and organizational dynamics, focusing on the significance of paradoxes.

From the intricate interplay between social obligations and business missions to the tension between stability and change, this textbook unveils the essence of these enduring contradictions. As organizations evolve, paradoxes become defining features, and illustrative cases of this are included throughout the textbook.

Organizational Paradoxes equips students of organization management, organization change and strategy with an understanding of paradoxes, their philosophical underpinnings and their management in practice.

Medhanie Gaim (PhD) is Associate Professor of Management at Umeå School of Business, Economics, and Statistics, Sweden.

Stewart Clegg is Professor at the University of Sydney in the School of Project Management and the John Grill Institute for Project Leadership and a Distinguished Emeritus Professor of the University of Technology Sydney. 

Miguel Pina e Cunha is the Fundação Amélia de Mello chair professor at Nova School of Business and Economics, Nova University Lisbon, Portugal.

Interdisciplinary Dialogues on Organizational Paradox is an innovative two-part volume that enriches our understanding about paradox; both deepening the theory and offering greater insight to address the grand challenges we face in the world today. Authors demonstrate how paradox theory benefits from interdisciplinary theorizing by reaching out to disciplines beyond organizational theory and exploring best practice in undertaking such research.The 13 chapters in this double volume draw from four disciplinary realms: beliefs, physicality, expression, and social structure. Unique commentaries from thought leaders expand and assess the focal pieces of each volume.Part A: Learning from Belief and Science, explores the realms of beliefs - from Ubuntu, Ying-Yang, Christian and Islamic philosophies - and physicality - from quantum mechanics, technology, to ecology - with reflective commentaries from Jean M. Bartunek and Mary Frohlich, and Andrew Van de Ven.

Interdisciplinary Dialogues on Organizational Paradox is a two-part volume exploring how paradox theory benefits from interdisciplinary theorizing and how we might go about undertaking such research.The chapters draw from four disciplinary realms: beliefs, physicality, expression, and social structure. Unique commentaries from thought leaders expand and assess the focal pieces of each volume.Part B: Investigating Social Structures and Human Expression continues the exploration of the why, how and where of interdisciplinary research within paradox theory by looking specifically at the realms of social structure - from logic and Luhmann, to historical analysis - and expression - from linguistics, to the maths and poetry of Spencer-Brown, to jazz. The chapters are complemented with reflective commentaries from Charles Hampden-Turner and Ann Langley. The collection ends with an examination of where the interdisciplinary foundations for organizational paradox theory arose via conversations with seminal paradox scholars.

A satisfactory and healthy integration of work with other life domains is one of the key challenges of modern society. Work-life balance and work-life integration have become focal points of today’s human resource management practice and theory. Professionals who have been described as “extreme workers” regarding their work hours and engagement are under particular pressure to balance work and ”the rest of life”.This collection maps the increasingly extensive discussion of work-life issues for professionals and discusses key aspects in depth. What is work-life integration? What are the specific challenges for professionals? How do they manage their blurred work-life boundaries? How can companies intervene? Internationally leading authors discuss antecedents and individual and organizational outcomes of work-life integration, gender-specific perspectives and challenges as well as the use and usefulness of corporate work-life balance initiatives. In five sections distinguished researchers from across the world present experiences and research findings to provide a compendium of academic and applied research on the work-life integration of professionals. Cutting-edge research and novel theoretical perspectives make this collection a source of knowledge and inspiration for academic and business audiences interested in work-life integration issues in general and in the case of professionals in particular.