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Good Novels, Better Management: Reading Organizational Realities in Fiction
Author(s): B. Czarniawska-Joerges (Editor), P. de Monthoux
- Publisher: Routledge
- Publication Date: September 21, 1994
- Edition: 1st
- Language: English
- Print length: 340 pages
- ISBN-10: 3718656469
- ISBN-13: 9783718656462
Book Description
This collection of essays demonstrates how novels are not only comparable, but often superior to the case histories used in business education. As many novelists have had personal experience of working in organizations, their work combines introspective insight with analytical skill.
Editorial Reviews
From the Back Cover
The collection of essays in Good Novels, Better Management demonstrates how novels are not only comparable, but often superior to the case histories used in business education. As many novelists have had personal experience of working in organizations, their work combines subjective insight with practical understanding and skill. Fiction overcomes the drawbacks of organizational theory and economics: it combines the subjective and the objective, the fate of individuals with that of institutions, and the micro events with the macro systems. Many parts of Europe are now in danger of splitting into societies that draw energy from dark sources obscured by a century of rationalist ideology. It is on this subject that the novels studied in this book, by authors as diverse as Zola, Conrad, Musil and Strindberg, make their greatest contribution. They describe the provenance and impact of modernity. The essays published in this volume relate novels to economics, business administration and public management. They range across different cultures and historical periods, focusing mainly on the realist novel. At the same time, they argue that many kinds of fictional literature are of help in understanding the complexity of today’s organizations.
About the Author
Barbara Czarbiawska-Joerges Lund University, Sweden
