| Summary: | Stanford University hosted a renaissance in organizational theory in the years between 1970 and 2000, when four of today's five leading macro organizational paradigms were being fleshed out there û institutional theory, population ecology, organizational culture theory, and resource dependence. Important breakthroughs occurred in theory development, and several generations of doctoral and post-doctoral students received enhanced training and an extraordinary opportunity to build collegial networks. Students of organizations have long asked, What was it about that place and era that spawned this proliferation of new ideas?
This volume contains contributions from over thirty scholars who taught and trained at Stanford in the period. The goal is, first, to sketch some of the key contributions to theory that emerged from Stanford during those years and, second, to explore why this remarkable renaissance in organizational theory emerged then and there. After an introductory chapter by Dobbin and Schoonhoven setting the stage, eight chapters by some of the key contributors to these paradigms, who studied at Stanford between 1970 and 2000, chart the key contributions that emerged.
Eight contributions from Stanford faculty, ranging from James March to Ezra Zuckerman, outline their sociologically informed understandings of Stanford's contribution. Fourteen contributions from former Stanford doctoral students and post-docs outline an array of theories of Stanford's success, many of them drawing from insights offered by the organizational theories that were being developed at Stanford. Former faculty and students alike turn their sociological insights on the Stanford renaissance, playing the role of ethnographer and participant observer to try to understand the phenomenon.
These contributions show the breadth of thinking that was going on, and offer a wide range of analyses of what causes intellectual dynamism to develop in interdisciplinary communities. A conclusion by leading organizational scholar, and the centerpiece of Stanford's organizational community, Dick Scott, draws together the insights from the various chapters. --Book Jacket.
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