The Edge of Organization: Chaos and Complexity Theories of Formal Social Systems

Book Description
“What Newton’s Principia was to his natural science colleagues, Russ Marion’s The Edge of Organization is to today’s social scientists. This book clearly elucidates the arrival of the social sciences at the end of the alley of modernism but then presents us with the tools and ideas to climb out of a dead end, rise above old limitations, and take flight for new horizons bright with promise for advancing both theory and praxis. . . . For social scientists, it is both the most relevant and most easily apprehended treatment to date of the totality of chaos and complexity theory and technique.” --Raymond A. Eve, Editor, Chaos, Complexity, and Sociology The Edge of Organization offers a readable, comprehensive, and integrated overview of the new sciences of chaos and complexity. Author Russ Marion describes formal and social organizations from the perspective of chaos and complexity theories. His multidisciplinary approach will appeal to students and scholars across a wide range of social sciences. This book is generously illustrated and includes comprehensive references plus an annotated bibliography of useful books and articles. The Edge of Organization will appeal to students and professionals in sociology, management/ organization studies, management studies, marketing, political science, public administration, and psychology.


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Describes formal and social organizations from the perspective of the new sciences of chaos and complexity. The author argues that interacting entities--atoms, molecules, people organizations--tend to correlate with one another because of their interaction and to catalyze aggregation, i.e. that order emerges not because someone or some thing expends energy to create it, but rather from the natural, unpredictable consequences of interaction. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.


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