Diagnosing Organizations

Methods, Models, and Processes

Michael I. Harrison

• Publisher: SAGE Publications, Inc
• Year: 2004
• Print ISBN: 9780761925729, 9780761925712
• eBook ISBN: 9781544302874
• Edition: 3
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Social Science Research & Methodology
• Index: Social Sciences

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Many managers and organizational leaders face shrinking budgets, growing competition, and changing organizational alliances and missions   A bewildering array of new technologies and management techniques offer help in handling these challenges. To respond effectively and avoid wasting resources, decision makers need to diagnose organizational conditions, plan changes carefully, and apply appropriate technologies and management techniques.

The Third Edition of the bestselling Diagnosing Organizations shows how consultants and applied researchers can help decision makers quickly and flexibly diagnose problems and challenges and decide how to deal with them.

Key Features

• Models for framing diagnostic problems, identifying underlying conditions, and providing feedback
• Methods for gathering and analyzing diagnostic data
• Processes for working on a diagnosis with clients and other members of an organization

This thoroughly revised edition can help practitioners of diagnosis directly address concerns that are critical to clients, rather than just provide feedback on current conditions and operations. In an authoritative, yet readable fashion author Michael I. Harrison presents updated treatments of the uses of diagnosis, evaluating organizational effectiveness, improving team performance, planning organization redesign projects, and assessing organization-environment relations and competitive strategy. Also treated are the politics of change management, professional dilemmas, and ethical issues confronting practitioners.

Professors of research methods across the social sciences will find Diagnosing Organizations, Third Edition an invaluable text for their courses. The second edition was widely adopted in departments of Management, Public Health, Nursing, Education, Public Administration, Psychology, Criminal Justice, and many others.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Publisher Note
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Acknowledgements
• Contents
• Preface
• 1 Diagnosis: Approaches and Methods
• 2 Open Systems Models
• 3 Assessing Individual and Group Behavior
• 4 System Fits and Organizational Politics
• 5 Environmental Relations
• 6 Challenges and Dilemmas of Diagnosis
• Appendix A General Orientation Interview
• Appendix B Instruments for Diagnosis and Assessment
• Appendix C A Guide to Diagnosing Behavior during Meetings
• Appendix D Resources for Developing Expertise in Diagnosis
• References
• Author Index
• About the Author