Managing for the Future: Organizational Behavior and Processes

Managing for the Future is an innovative approach to teaching organizational behavior based on the course at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The text first presents the new organization, examining it through strategic, political, and cultural lenses. Then the role and impact of teams and central issues facing the organization itself are explored. The last section of the text focuses on skills--the goal being not only to present the new organization but also illustrate how students can become better actors within it. Each of the 14 modules provides many instructional options through cases, readings, exercises and projects. Managing for the Future's modular format allows for even greater flexibility, allowing instructors to select only the topics they need to suit their course needs. Managing for the Future's flexible design and its' experiential-based approach make the text and appealing choice for experienced learners.

D. Eleanor Westney is the Sloan Fellows Professor of strategy and international management at the Sloan School of Management at MIT. She received her undergraduate education at the University of Toronto and her Ph.D. in sociology from Princeton University. She has focused much of her research on Japanese organizations and is the author of Imitation and Innovation: The Transfer of Western Organizational Forms to Meiji Japan (Harvard University Press, 1987). Since joining the Sloan faculty in 1982, she has worked extensively on cross-border management issues and is the editor (with Sumantra Ghoshal) of Organization Theory and the Multinational Corporation (Macmillan, 1993). Her current research focuses on the future evolution of the Japanese business system and on the internationalization of R&D.

Deborah Ancona is the Seley Distinguished Professor of Management at the Sloan School of Management at MIT. She received bachelor's and master's degrees in psychology from the University of Pennsylvania and a Ph.D. in organizational behavior from Columbia University. Prior to joining MIT, she was on the faculty of the Amos Tuck School at Dartmouth College. Professor Ancona's major research interests include group processes, team performance, boundary management, and time and timing in organizations. She has published articles in these areas in Administrative Science Quarterly, Academy of Management Journal, Organization Science, and Group and Organization Studies.

Thomas A. Kochan is the George M. Bunker Professor of Management at the Sloan School of Management at MIT. He received his bachelor's, master's, and Ph.D. degrees in industrial relations from the University of Wisconsin. Prior to joining MIT, he was on the faculty of the School of Industrial and Labor Relations at Cornell University. Professor Kochan's major research interests include industrial relations theory and public policy, human resource strategy and organizational governance, negotiations and conflict-resolution processes, and organizational change and transformation. His recent books include The Mutual Gains Enterprise (1994), Transforming Organizations (1992), and The Transformation of American Industrial Relations (1986). He has also published in Administrative Science Quarterly, the Academy of Management Journal, Industrial and Labor Relations Review, Industrial Relations,the Quarterly Journal of Economics, and other journals. He is a past president of the International Industrial Relations Association.

John Van Maanen is the Erwin Schell Professor of Organization Studies at the Sloan School of Management at MIT. He has been a visiting professor at Yale University, University of Surrey (UK), and INSEAD (France). Professor Van Maanen works in the general area of occupational and organizational sociology. Cultural descriptions figure prominently in his work. He is the author of numerous articles and books including Essays in Interpersonal Relations, Organizational Careers, Tales of the Field, and most recently, Representation in Ethnography. He currently serves on the editorial boards of Administrative Science Quarterly, Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, and Qualitative Sociology, and he is a member of the American Sociological Association and the Society for Applied Anthropology.

Maureen A. Scully is Professor of Management at the Center for Gender in Organizations, SIMMONS Graduate School of Management in Boston. She also serves as Research Associate for the Initiative for Social Innovation through Business at the Aspen Institute, where she is creating a clearinghouse of cases on the synergies between addressing social issues and running effective businesses. Before coming to CGO, she was on the faculty at the MIT Sloan School of Management and a Fellow in the Program on Ethics and the Professions at Harvard University. She received her bachelor's degree in social studies from Harvard-Radcliffe and her master's degree in sociology and Ph.D. in organizational behavior from Stanford University. Professor Scully's research focuses on injustice and social change in organizations. She has studied how inequality is both legitimated and contested in organizations, how employees perceive merit-based reward systems, how reward systems change during transitions to teamwork, how ethics programs in organizations ramify in unexpected ways, how employee groups use grassroots activism to redress inequalities, and how alternatives to individualistic, merit-based rewards should be created.