The Management of Meaning in Organizations

Abstract

Historical translations and underground transfers of knowledge and values between cultural domains merit more attention. This book discusses the past, present and future of meaning. It shows how management of meaning in organizations fuels sociocultural evolution in complex societies, changing semantic fields of possible meanings ahead.

This book examines patterns of sense making processes underlying cultural diversity. Is there a future for critical management studies? Many claim that 'the MBA is dead'. But are academic communities self-reflexively alive and critically kicking?

Table of Contents

Introduction: Can Values and Meanings be Outsourced and if so to whom?

The Past of Meaning (Lost and Gained in Historical Translations)

The Present Tense of Meaning (Underground Passages, The Cunning of Reason and the Return of Virtues)

The Future of Meaning (Cultural Revolutions, Social Transformations and the Struggle Between Truths and Democracies

Instead of Conclusions: Managerial Philosophies and Mirrors of Organizational Cultures