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The book presents and reviews the ideas of Max Boisot, one of the most original thinkers in organization theory over the last 30 years. It includes Boisot's seminal works on knowledge, information, and organization, as well as commentaries and reflections by his collaborators.
List of contents
- I. Setting the stage
- 1: Martin Ihrig and John Child: Max Boisot and the Dynamic Evolution of Knowledge
- II. Analyses of the Chinese System
- 2: Max Boisot and John Child: From Fiefs to Clans and Network Capitalism: Explaining China's Emerging Economic Order
- 3: John Child: Analysis of the Chinese System
- III. Organizational Complexity
- 4: Max Boisot and Bill McKelvey: Extreme Outcomes, Connectivity, and Power Laws: Towards an Econophysics of Organization
- 5: Bill McKelvey: Reflecting on Max Boisot s Ashby Space Applied to Complexity Management
- IV. The Strategic Management of Knowledge
- 6: Max Boisot: The Creation and Sharing of Knowledge
- 7: Martin Ihrig and Ian MacMillan: The Strategic Management of Knowledge
- V. Knowledge in Big Science
- 8: Max Boisot: Generating Knowledge in a Connected World: The Case of the ATLAS Experiment at CERN
- 9: Agustí Canals: Knowledge in Big Science
- VI. Innovations in Education
- 10: Max Boisot and Michel Fiol: Chinese Boxes and Learning Cubes: Action Learning in a Cross Cultural Context
- 11: Dana Kaminstein and John Child: Innovations in Education
- VII. Concluding Reflections
- 12: Gordon Redding: The I-Space as a Key to History and to Culture
- 13: JC Spender: The Three Phases of Max s Theorizing
- 14: Marshall Meyer: Writing with Max Boisot
- 15: Ron Sanchez: Remembering Max Boisot: Recollections of a Gifted Intellect at Work
- 16: Markus Nordberg: I-Space and the Value of Basic Research
- 17: Marzio Nessi: Boisot and the God Particle
- 18: John Child and Martin Ihrig: Conclusion and Outlook
About the author
John Child is Emeritus Professor of Commerce at the University of Birmingham, UK. He is a Fellow of the Academy of Management, the Academy of International Business, and the British Academy of Management. In 2006, he was elected a Fellow of the prestigious British Academy [FBA]. He has published 21 books and approximately 150 articles and book chapters. He has been editor-in-chief of Organization Studies and Senior Editor of Management and Organization Review. His current interests are in organizational design and how smaller firms internationalize.
Martin Ihrig is President of I-Space Institute, LLC (USA) and an Adjunct Assistant Professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania (USA). He is interested in the strategic and entrepreneurial management of knowledge and heads a research initiative that explores this topic at Wharton's Snider Entrepreneurial Research Center. In developing strategy tools for corporate and public-sector decision makers, he has worked with organizations such as BAE Systems (USA), The Boeing Company (USA), and Vale (Brazil). His research projects have been funded by The Economic & Social Research Council (UK), The ATLAS Collaboration at CERN (CH), and Tekes (Finland).
Summary
Max Boisot was one of the most original thinkers in management and organization studies. An independent scholar with an independent, enquiring, and innovative mind, his work ranged over a number of different areas from early attempts to understand contemporary developments in China to the role of information in organizations, and later the management of Big Science.
Yet, as this book shows, there was a central strand that ran through these apparently diverse areas, which was the attempt to understand the relationship between knowledge and information, and its organization -- in firms, organizations, and societies -- by means of the model Boisot developed, the 'I-Space'. Knowledge, Organization, and Management brings together key examples of Max Boisot's work into a single volume, setting these alongside original, extended commentaries and reflections by his academic collaborators. Structured under five core sections, it covers the main areas in which he forged new understandings: analyses of the Chinese system; organizational complexity; the strategic management of knowledge; knowledge in Big Science; and innovations in education. A further section includes six reflective essays by Boisot's collaborators.
The book will be invaluable to organization and management scholars, students, and intellectually curious practitioners.
Additional text
For those of us who had the pleasure of knowing Max, he was one of the most creative and original of people. He had an extraordinary ability to understand how things were actually working and to create an image of how they could be changed. He not only had a powerful imagination but also was deeply grounded in pragmatism. This book is a splendid tribute to a remarkable man. A real visionary.
