Description
Book SynopsisThis book is essential for anyone who needs to understand how organizations work, evolve, and learn. In this new edition, Argyris discusses vital topics of current management research, such as tacit knowledge and management, so reflecting the evolving field of organizational learning.
Table of ContentsList of figures vii
List of tables viii
Acknowledgements ix
Preface xiii
Introduction: The Evolving Field of Organizational Learning 1
Part I Organizational Defenses
1 Making Sense of Limited Learning 19
2 Tacit Knowledge and Management 54
3 Why Individuals and Organizations have Difficulty in Double-loop Learning 67
4 Crafting a Theory of Practice: The Case of Organizational Paradoxes 92
5 Today’s Problems with Tomorrow’s Organizations 107
6 Teaching Smart People How to Learn 127
7 A Leadership Dilemma: Skilled Incompetence 139
Part II Inhibiting Organizational Learning and Effectiveness
8 Organizational Learning and Management Information Systems 151
9 Strategy Implementation: An Experiment in Learning 164
10 How Strategy Professionals Deal with Threat: Individual and Organizational 174
11 The Dilemma of Implementing Controls: The Case of Managerial Accounting 186
12 Human Problems with Budgets 196
13 Bridging Economics and Psychology: The Case of the Economic Theory of the Firm 214
Part III The Counterproductive Consequences of Organizational Development and Human Resource Activities
14 Good Communication that Blocks Learning 229
15 Reasoning, Action Strategies, and Defensive Routines: The Case of OD Practitioners 239
16 Inappropriate Defenses against the Monitoring of Organization Development Practice 267
17 Do Personal Growth Laboratories Represent an Alternative Culture? 281
Part IV The Inhibition of Valid and Usable Information from the Correct Use of Normal Science
18 Actionable Knowledge: Design Causality in the Service of Consequential Theory 297
19 Field Theory as a Basis for Scholarly Consulting 310
20 Unrecognized Defenses of Scholars: Impact on Theory and Research 323
21 Seeking Truth and Actionable Knowledge: How the Scientific Method Inhibits Both 335
22 Problems and New Directions for Industrial Psychology 343
23 The Incompleteness of Social-Psychological Theory: Examples from Small Group, Cognitive Consistency, and Attribution Research 375
24 Dangers in Applying Results from Experimental Social Psychology 395
25 Making Knowledge More Relevant to Practice: Maps for Action 415
26 Participatory Action Research and Action Science Compared 432
27 Some Unintended Consequences of Rigorous Research 440
Index 454
