Organization and Management in the Embrace of Government

Jone L. Pearce

University of California, Irvine

   Organization and Management in the Embrace of Government is an original exploration of  how governments affect the ways people organize themselves, manage those organizations, and respond to the organizations thus created.  It is a grounded theory of how governments that are weak, erratic or hostile undermine complex organization, trust, meritocracy, commitment, and other implicit expectations about how organizations operate.   Scholars, students and all those interested in a better understanding of how governments affect our cultural expectations of one another, our organizations, and the economies based upon them will find this ground-breaking volume to be a rich resource. 

   Jone Pearce distills original comparative data drawn from China, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Lithuania and the United States to paint a coherent theory of the organizational effects of governments.  The book has been written primarily to introduce organizational and governmental scholars to the ways that governments can influence organization and management.  However, it also is written with an eye to readers with practical interests in international management or governments.  This pioneering work will be discussed and analyzed for decades to come.

Contents:

1. Government's Embrace; 

2. Organizing in Spite of Government: Non-facilitative Government

Effects of Governments on Independent Organizations,

Modernism and Governmental Facilitation

Neo-traditionalism and Government Facilitation, Governmental Characteristics Facilitating Independent Organization

3. Organizing by Personal Relationships: Understanding Trust

Organizing by Personal Relationships or Trust?

China Studies

Understanding Guanxi

Non-facilitative Governments and the Need for Personal Relationships

Evidence of Reliance on Personal Relationships under Non-facilitative Governments

4. Organizing by Personal Relationships: Meritocracy and Employee Empowerment

Effects on Organizational Form

Weber’s Rational-legal Bureaucracy

Personal Relationships and Bureaucracy

Pseudo-bureaucracies

Effects on Human Resources Management Practices

Personal Relationships Are Inimical to Impersonal Bureaucracy

Bureaucracies Empower Employees

Bureaucratic Means without Bureaucratic Aims

5. Engendering Participant Dissatisfaction, Fear and Cheating

Perceptions of Workplace Justice

Dominance of Personal Relationships and Reward Allocations

Obsequious Subordinates

Distrust, Fear and Wariness

Cheating and Rule Breaking

Low Organizational Commitment

Exploitation

Dissatisfaction and Alienation

Dysfunctional Organizational Behavior

6. Unpacking Culture

Institutionalized Adaptations to Dependence on Personal Relationships

Relationships Dominated by Bargaining

Harmony in Interpersonal Relationships

Upward Gift Giving

Supervisor-subordinate Relations

Cultural Adaptations to Non-facilitative Governments

7. Implications for Theory and Organizational Change

Bringing Governments into our Understanding of Organization and Management

Better Practice: Organizational Change

Conclusions

ISBN: 0-8058-3769-8    2001; cloth $39.95.