Adopting the perspective of complex responsive processes Philip Streatfield
reflects on his own experience as a manager to explore the question - who, or
what is 'in control' in an organization.Business leaders are expected to be "in control" of the situation in which
their businesses find themselves. But how can organizational leaders and
managers control matters entirely out of their hands; such as the next action a
competitor takes, or the next law a government may pass? In this book, Philip
Streatfield reflects on his own experiences as a manager to explore the
question of who, or what is "in control" in an organization.; Adopting the perspective of complex responsive processes developed in the
first two volumes of this series, the author takes self-organization and
emergence as central themes in thinking about life in organizations. He focuses
on the tension between spontaneously forming patterns of conversation, and
intentional actions, arguing that the order of organizations emerges through a
combination of collective interaction and individual intentions. The argument
is developed by considering the day-to-day experiences of life in a large
pharmaceutical organization.
