Whitley - Böcker

In a rapidly changing and inter-disciplinary world it is important to understand the nature and generation of knowledge, and its social organization. Increasing attention is paid in the social sciences and management studies to the constitution and claims of different theories, perspectives, and 'paradigms'. This book is one of the most respected and robust analyses of these issues. For this new paperback edition Richard Whitley - a leading figure in European business education - has written a new introduction which addresses the particular epistemological issues presented by management and business studies. He approaches the sciences as differently organized systems for the production and validation of knowledge - systems which become established in particular contexts and which generate different sorts of knowledge. He identifies seven major types of scientific field and discusses the establishment and growth of these sciences, including the major consequences of the nineteenth-century expansion of employment opportunities for researchers; the competitive pursuit of public reputations; and the domination of intellectual work by employees. He also examines the divergences in the way research is organized and controlled both in different fields, and in the same field within different historical circumstances. This book will be of interest to all graduate students concerned with the social study of knowledge, science, technology, and the history and philosophy of science.

In contrast to the traditional view of multinational firms as cohesive rational actors maximizing the use of resources across national boundaries, the contributors to this volume argue that they are complex social arenas where competing groups draw on resources from their own socially embedded locations in developing new transnational social relationships. As firms seek to manage across national and institutional boundaries, they stretch their existing capacities and routines and develop new sets of transnational social relationships through different groups competing and cooperating. These processes occur at a number of levels which are explored in different empirical settings. Firstly, at the level of governance, multinational firms may develop conflicts between investors from different national contexts, e.g. between the arms-length orientation of Anglo-Saxon institutional investors and the more committed orientation of investors in certain European and Asian contexts. The tension between opening the firm up for foreign investors in order to have access to more and cheaper capital and the consequent effects on management strategy is explored in a number of chapters. Secondly, at the level of coordinating activities across different sites, multinationals may encourage competition between plants in different countries as well as seeking to transfer best practices. The result may be pressure on managers and employees in certain plants to give up traditional practices and employment rights. Thirdly, multinational firms operate in environments where other forms of coordinating international business activity may also occur, e.g. cartels or the creation of international regulatory activity. They therefore compete for the regulatory space in complex political environments that will enable them to prosper.