This book seeks to contribute to the goal of reviving Organization Theory as a practical science of organizing and rehabilitating its core object - formal organization - through a re-examination and re-assessment of the outlook, comportment and attitude animating its classical antecedents.

• Introduction


• 1: The Idea of a 'Classical Stance' in Organization Theory


• 2: 'Outside Organization': the idea of a 'metaphysical stance' in Organization Theory


• 3: Metaphysical Speculation in Organizational Theorising: on the lost specification of 'Change'


• 4: Metaphysical Speculation in Organizational Theorising: on the expressivism of 'Exploration'


• 5: Task and Purpose as (continuing) core concerns


• 6: Authority and Authorisation


• Conclusion: Comportment and Character in Formal Organization and its Analysis

Paul du Gay has published extensively in sociology, cultural studies, public management and organization studies. He is the author inter alia of Consumption and Identity at Work and In Praise of Bureaucracy. His recent publications include New Spirits of Capitalism? Crises, Justifications and Dynamics (ed. with G. Morgan, OUP) and The Oxford Handbook of Sociology, Social Theory and Organization Studies: Contemporary Currents (with P. Adler, G. Morgan, and M. Reed eds., OUP). At CBS he is Academic Director of the School's Public Private Platform and leads the Velux Foundation project 'Office as a Vocation'.
Signe Vikkelsø's research focuses on organizational analysis and the organizing effects of tools and techniques in work practices and human relations. Drawing upon cases from healthcare, psychoanalysis, and industrial production she has published in sociology of science and technology, psychology, CSCW and organization studies. Her recent publications include a comprehensive Handbook in Classic and Modern Organization Theory (ed. with P. Kjær, Hans Reitzels Forlag). At CBS she is head of the Department of Organization, and member of the Research, Innovation and Organization Cluster.