ABSTRACT

Many organizations today operate across boundaries - both internal and external to the organization. Exploring concepts and theories about different organizational, inter-organizational and international contexts, this student reader aids understanding of the individual’s experience of working within and across such boundaries. The book adopts a critical approach to individual experience and highlights the complexities inherent in these different layers and levels of organizing.

Comprising a collection of key articles and extracts presented in a readable accessible way, this book also features an introductory chapter which provides an overall critique of the book. Each part features a brief introduction before analyzing the following key themes:

  • managing aims
  • power and politics
  • cultural diversity
  • international management perspectives
  • the darker side of collaborative arrangements

Some of the readings will specifically address collaboration ‘head on’ whilst others will provide an important context or highlight significant theoretical and practical issues that are considered relevant and interesting within the framework of the themes presented. As such, this book differs from existing titles as it sits bestride collaboration and organizational behaviour / theory in order to inform learning of exchange relationships on inter-personal, intra-organizational, and inter-organizational levels. The articles included are selected as critical in approach, straddling and addressing the central contexts described above, and highlighting the experience-centred nature of learning that can be derived from the content presented.

This comprehensive reference will be useful supplementary reading for organizational behaviour courses as well as core reading for those students undertaking research on collaboration.

part |6 pages

General Introduction

part I|55 pages

Managing aims

chapter 2|11 pages

Goal Setting

A five-step approach to behavior change

chapter 3|14 pages

Goals Gone Wild

The systematic side effects of overprescribing goal setting

chapter 4|14 pages

What Goals do Business Leaders Pursue?

A study in fifteen countries

part II|56 pages

Power and politics

chapter 6|9 pages

The Prince

chapter 7|12 pages

Management and Machiavelli

chapter 9|19 pages

The Dialectic of Social Exchange

Theorizing corporate-social enterprise collaboration

part III|46 pages

Cultural diversity

chapter 10|13 pages

Hofstede’s Model of National Cultural Differences and Their Consequences

A triumph of faith — a failure of analysis

chapter 11|9 pages

The Levels of Culture

chapter 12|11 pages

Working at the Rat

part IV|65 pages

International management perspectives

chapter 16|15 pages

The Importance of Social Capital to the Management of Multinational Enterprises

Relational networks among Asian and Western firms

chapter 17|17 pages

Virtual Team Collaboration

Building shared meaning, resolving breakdowns and creating translucence

part |32 pages

The darker side of collaborative arrangements

chapter 18|12 pages

History as Cause

Columbia and Challenger

chapter 19|4 pages

Whistleblowing and Its Quandaries

chapter 20|13 pages

The Emperor’s New Clothes

Why boards and managers find accountability relationships difficult