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The theory of symbolic management suggests that there is a pervasive separation between appearances and reality in organizational behaviour and strategic management. This book develops symbolic management into a major theoretical perspective on governance to provide a compelling alternative to agency theory.
List of contents
- 1: Introduction to the Symbolic Management Perspective
- Section I: The Major Forms of Symbolic Management
- 2: Symbolic Management of Policy and Structure
- 3: Symbolic Management of Process
- 4: Symbolic Management Beyond the Firm Level
- Section II: The Social and Psychological Determinants of Symbolic Management
- 5: The Multi-stage Social Influence Process in CEO-Board Relationships
- 6: Social Network Ties and Symbolic Management
- 7: Social Influence Processes In Leader-Stakeholder Relations
- 8: Group-level Social and Psychological Processes that Support Symbolic Management
- 9: The Social Psychological Dynamics of Symbolic Management
- 10: Conclusions, Future Research Directions, and Policy Implications
About the author
James Westphal is the Harvey C. Fruehauf Professor of Business Administration at the Ross School of Business, University of Michigan. He conducts research in the areas of strategic management and organizational theory, with a focus on social and psychological processes in corporate governance and strategic decision making. He was elected to the Macro-Organizational Behavior Society in 2004, the Fellows of the Academy of Management in 2011, and the Fellows of the Strategic Management Society in 2019. He previously served as Division Chair of the Strategic Management Division of the Academy of Management. He was listed as the 3rd most productive management scholar in the world over the period 2005-2015, and his research has been referenced in Business Week, The Economist, Financial Times, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal, among others.
Sun Hyun Park is Associate Professor of Strategy and International Management at College of Business, Seoul National University. Prior to joining SNU, he served as Assistant Professor of Management and Organization at Marshall School of Business, University of Southern California. His research focuses on how corporate managers cope with a firm's external environment, which includes technological, institutional, and competitive dynamics. He served as a global representative for the Organization and Management Theory division of the Academy of Management (2017-2019), and he currently serves on the editorial review board for Strategic Management Journal and Strategic Organization (2019-2021).
Summary
The theory of symbolic management suggests that there is a pervasive separation between appearances and reality in organizational behaviour and strategic management. This book develops symbolic management into a major theoretical perspective on governance to provide a compelling alternative to agency theory.
Additional text
This book will be a resource for scholars of corporate governance who are trying to make sense of the voluminous research on symbolic management. Moreover, the book does a nice job of connecting otherwise disparate literatures from institutional theory to the social psychology of influence.
