ABSTRACT
The 1980s was a period when British organization studies developed a fuller appreciation of the amplitude of Max Weber’s work. Michael Reed (1985:1718) pointed out that treating Weber as interested in little else other than organizational rationality was a lazy reading, fitting Weber into a particular kind of functionalist interpretation which highlighted problems of technical control. His edited volume (with Larry Ray 1994) provides other possible points of entry into an alternative Weberian theory of organizations. For instance Clegg (1994) begins with culture and Eldridge with authority. Elsewhere, from the Netherlands Gangolf Peters (1988) advocates building a Weberian organizational sociology on the basis of his theory of the social relationship.
