The Imagined Organization

Organizing is made possible by sense-making. This book represents a narrative quest for a symbolic grounding to help leaders in times when stable social structures and institutions dissolve and disappear. Monika Kostera approaches this sense-making process through innovative and exciting research methods, collecting stories from participants and exploring plots and outcomes of an imagined meeting between two symbolic worlds: one of the internal and imaginative and the other of the external and corporate. Investigating the spatiality and temporality of these stories, the author offers critical implications for educational practice, arguing that teachers should engage and develop students' imaginations and creativity to question the hidden rules of social settings and interactions in organizational and business situations. Innovative and visionary in scope, this book will be critical for researchers of organization theory at all levels, particularly those looking for new research methods and applications. Students of business and organizational studies will also benefit from its unique insights into business-related settings, as well as leaders and practitioners searching for innovative directions in business environments.