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Organizations today are poised on the edge
of chaos -- caught in the unpredictable, ambiguous postmodern
era, where the systems of the past no longer apply and the
rules of the future have not yet been made clear. Just as
postmodern art or architecture brings together old and new
elements to create an entirely new style, the postmodern
organization blends dimensions of the past and present to
create new forms and the need for new skills and attitudes.
The ways in which organizations operate have been forever
changed, and only those who understand these changes will
be prepared to succeed in the emerging postmodern world.
William Bergquist draws from the perspectives
of social historians, literary critics, and others in the
sciences, arts, and humanities to present a unique vision
of the postmodern organization -- a hybrid of the old and
the new -- explaining what it is and how it has evolved.
He takes an insightful comparative look at premodern modern,
and postmodern notions of five key dimensions of organizational
life -- size and complexity, mission and boundaries, leadership,
communication, and capital and worker values -- and details
four major models of postmodern organizations, examining
their implications for forming new strategies to manage
the changing nature of organizational life in the coming
years.
William Bergquist is president of The Professional
School of Psychology in San Francisco and in Sacramento,
California. He has written or coauthored more than a dozen
books on organizational cultures, life and career planning,
and professional development, including The Four Cultures
of the Academy (1992), and In Our Fifties (1993), both from
Jossey-Bass.
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