Practice Theory, Work, and Organization: An Introduction

What is practice theory? Where do practice theories come from? What do they say? Do they really offer something new to the study of work and organization? In setting out to answer these questions, this book provides a rigorous yet accessible introduction to contemporary theories of practice, discussing their distinctive contribution to work and organization studies. Practice theories are a set of conceptual tools and methodologies for investigating, analysing, and representing everyday practice through written text, language, images, and behaviour. Drawing on a variety of theoretical traditions, they have explored the idea that phenomena such as knowledge, meaning, science, power, organized activity, sociality, and institutions are rooted in practice. The book first examines the origins of the idea of practice. Recognizing that a unified theory of practice does not exist, the central chapters of the book then discuss the theory and concepts of the main scholarly traditions that have, collectively, contributed to the 'practice turn' in social and organization studies. Each of the central chapters concludes with a fully worked example of the theory in application. Practice theories have become of increasing interest for management and organizational scholars in recent years, and this book is an advanced introduction to the complexities of the area for academics, researchers, and graduate students in organization studies, management, and across the social sciences.

Politics & Social Sciences

Nicolini, Davide

Anthropology

Oxford University Press

Business & Money

Processes & Infrastructure

Although human lives towards the second half of the twentieth century became increasingly mediated by objects and artifacts and have depended heavily on the functioning of technical systems, materiality in a broad sense became relatively marginalized as a topic of research interest. This volume contributes to redressing the balance by drawing together the work of scholars involved in exploring the sociomaterial dimensions of organizational life. It will look at the way material objects and artifacts are conceived in organizations, and how they function in interaction with human agents. The book offers a new conceptual repertoire and vocabulary that allows deeper thought and discussion about the inherent entanglement of the social and material. Like the preceding volumes in the Perspectives on Process Organization Studies series, the book displays the richness that characterizes process thinking, and combines philosophical reflections with novel conceptual perspectives and insightful empirical analyses.

How Matter Matters: Objects, Artifacts, and Materiality in Organization Studies (Perspectives on Process Organization Studies)

Langley, Ann

Tsoukas, Haridimos

Carlile, Paul R.

Knowing in Organizations: A Practice-Based Approach

This work explores the relationship among knowing, learning, and practice in the development of organizational knowledge. It explores the implications for intervention growing out of the notion that organizational knowledge cannot be conceived as a mental process residing in members' heads.

Knowing in Organizations: A Practice-Based Approach: A Practice-Based Approach

Management & Leadership

Routledge

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Nicolini, Davide. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Nicolini, Davide