The Management of Innovation

by Tom Burns, G.M. Stalker

First published in 1961, The Management of Innovation is a business one of the most influential books about business organizations ever published. Challenging the received wisdom that there is "one best way" to manage, it sounded the death knell of classical management theory and provided something lasting in its a way of looking at organizations that allowed for different contexts, different markets, and different rates of technological change. The book's famous typology of organizations as mechanistic vs. organic has proved timeless, as relevant today as more than thirty years ago. This edition includes a new preface by Tom Burns that situates the work in its historical and current contexts and offers his reflections, years later, on the ideas that changed the way people thought about organizations.

Genres: Business, Leadership, Management, Economics, Buisness

Paperback

First published January 1, 1994

Reviews

[Caleb · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a classic that has continued to influence management research. While its main arguments have been qualified, arguably they remain plausible today. Subsequent research has largely focused on the first of three claims made by the authors, namely, that higher rates of technical and market changes leads firms to adopt an organic rather than mechanistic organzational structure. Whereas, organic structures are characterized by less hierarchy and role formalization, mechanistic organizations are centralized and highly formalized bureaucratic structures.

While this claim is interesting and important, arguably, management research has been less focused on a second claim made by the authors, that managers are less likely to adopt the organic form, when it is appropriate, to the extent that they are fixated on attaining and maintaining status and power. Burns and Stalker develop this claim at length, illustrating through data collected on a number of Scottish and English manufacturing and electronics companies that managers' lack of self-knowledge and desire to maintain control often lead to organizational problems and an inability to adopt the most fitting organizational structure.

While this second claim has been less influential within management research, as compared to the first, it has made a substantial impact on MacIntyre's theory of practices and institutions. It provides the context needed to understand MacIntyre's claims about the role of vices in corrupting cooperative social practices. For Burns and Stalker, like MacIntyre, organizations must be understood as combinations of both cooperative activities centered upon shared goals and characterized by functional modes of authority, and formal organizational structures characterized by hierarchical modes of authority, though different organzations may move closer to one pole rather than the other. Similarly, for MacIntyre, like the authors of this text, character flaws can distort the proper relationship between these two types of social structures. Appreciating this connection between MacIntyre, one of the most influential contemporary virtue ethicists, and Burns and Stalker, whose work has continued to frame research concerning organizational structures may open up new avenues of investigation.