Table of Contents

Part I
1: Introduction to Constructing Organizational Life
2: The Social-Symbolic Work Perspective
Part II
3: Self Work
4: Self Work in Management and Organizational Research
5: Organization Work
6: Organization Work in Management and Organizational Research
7: Institutional Work
8: Institutional Work in Management and Organizational Research
Part III
9: Theoretical Opportunities in the Study of Social-Symbolic Work
10: Methodological Challenges and Choices in the Study of Social-Symbolic Work
11: Conclusion: Understanding the Implications of a Social-Symbolic Work Perspective for Scholars, Change-Makers, and Citizens

About the Author

Thomas B. Lawrence is Professor of Strategy at Saïd Business School, University of Oxford. Previously he was the Van Dusen Professor in the Beedie School of Business at Simon Fraser University, Vancouver. His research focuses on the dynamics of agency, power, and institutions in organizations and organizational fields, and has appeared widely in academic and practitioner journals. Nelson Phillips is Vice Chair for Academic Affairs, Ph.D. Faculty Advisor, and
Distinguished Professor, Technology Management in the College of Engineering at the University of California Santa Barbara. Prior to joining UCSB, he was Professor of Innovation and Strategy at Imperial
College Business School in London, UK, and the Beckwith Professor of Management Studies at Judge Business School, University of Cambridge. His research interests cut across organization theory, innovation, and entrepreneurship, and he has published widely for both academics and practitioners. He is the Past Chair of the OMT Division of the Academy of Management and is the Co-Editor of Innovation: Management and Organization.

Reviews

Overall, this is a hugely impressive scholarly contribution. The authors cover all the bases: they build up their theory by proposing a clear integrative model, they elaborate and contextualize it in a fine-grained way through extensive reference to the literature and multiple examples. Finally, they enrich it theoretically, provide methodological tools for empirical research and offer practical applications. They do all this in a very accessible writing style, with multiple guideposts at the beginning and ends of chapters, and useful inserts and exhibits that summarize various aspects of the argument as they go along. Make sure your doctoral students read this, and recommend it to your colleagues!
*Ann Langley, Organization Studies*

This book is a marvelous treatise...It is a systematic, formal, methodical discussion of principles and evidence of the purposeful, reflexive efforts that make social constructions real. These efforts are built from discursive, relational, and material work that is done in and through social relationships. Evidence of these social-symbolic efforts is gathered from a large amount of management and organization research (the reference section is 36 pages long with roughly 750 citations) If we consider this book as an evocative treatise, then reflexive readers may discover that somewhere in their own thinking, they assume that portions of organizational life consist of social-symbolic work. The logic of this book may help readers articulate that assumption. This reviewer's own experience was one of pleasure at becoming immersed in a well-formed logic imposed on a field the reviewer thought he knew.
*Karl E. Weick, Administrative Science Quarterly*