Strategic management and organisational dynamics - Ralph D. Stacey

Strategic Management and Organisational Dynamics remains unique amongst strategic management textbooks by taking a refreshingly alternative look at the subject. Drawing on the sciences of complexity as well as a broad range of social scientific literature, Stacey and Mowles challenge the conceptual orthodoxy of planned strategy, focusing instead on emergence and the predictable unpredictability of organisational life.

Ideal for advanced undergraduate and postgraduate study, this critically detailed accountdeals withcurrent issues, raising the challenge of complexity within practice and theory.

New to this edition:

• The literature from past editions is refreshed and updated.


• More examples are given from contemporary organisational life and social life more generally.


• The canon of thinkers who inform complex responsive processes of relating is broadened and deepened.


• There is engagement with new developments in organisational theory such as process organisation studies and practice schools.


• There are updated sections on rhetoric, paradox and recognition.


• A focus on what strategic management might mean from the perspective of complex responsive processes.

Ralph Stacey is Professor of Management at the Business School, University of Hertfordshire. He is a supervisor on the innovative Doctor of Management programme at the University of Hertfordshire and the author of a number of books and papers on complexity and organisation.

Chris Mowles is Professor of Complexity and Management at the Business School, University of Hertfordshire. He is director of, and supervisor on, the innovative Doctor of Management programme at the University of Hertfordshire and the author of two books and a number of papers on complexity and organisation.