Book Description

“In a richly textured way, Howard Aldrich gives the reader a distinctive feel for the subject and a way to think about and understand emergence and change in organizations. This book is informative and engaging. It is playful and rigorous. It is scholarly and quite practical. Aldrich writes with confidence and wisdom. His book makes a fine contribution to the evolving field of organization studies.”

-Peter J. Frost, University of British Columbia

“Organizations Evolving is a gem. . . .This book is an exceptional accomplishment and is compulsory reading for all organizational researchers.”

-Joel A. C. Baum, University of Toronto

“This book pulls together an extensive array of information that focuses on emerging, rather than established businesses. Professor Aldrich presents the unique dilemmas faced by entrepreneurs in the creation of human resource policies and systems in a coherent and useful fashion.”

-Candida Brush, Associate professor of Management at Boston University

“Organizations Evolving is masterful. Aldrich cogently consolidates state–of–the art thinking and research on organizational evolution, a domain of inquiry that he helped pioneer 20 years ago with his classic Organizations and Environments.”

-Joel A. C. Baum, CN Chair in Strategy and Organization, Rotman School of Management,

University of Toronto

Organizations Evolving is a definitive account of organization in contemporary society. The book explains how organizations mirror the contexts or environments in which they are established. In contemporary society this means they come in a bewildering variety of forms reflecting changing boundaries, markets and technologies. In his exhaustive analysis of the multi-level dynamics governing organizations and society Aldrich provides an authoritative exploration of the key variables that shape each. Students and researchers will find here a rich source that charts the development of organizational forms and assesses the impact on these of external innovations such as changing technology and globalization. New theories of knowledge and entrepreneurship are woven into the analysis, together with fresh interpretations of data.