The Emerging Thesis Draft

You may have noticed that my blogging has been rather light of late. This is because I've been in heavy thesis writing mode. But fear not! If you would like to read along as I am writing, you're in luck! I have created a Valence Theory wiki site on which I am posting the thesis chapters as I write them (in raw, draft form). You can either read online, or download PDFs of the full chapters.

The first chapter (plus its accompanying "Conversation with Nishida") is now up and available. It is "A Brief, 3,000-year History of Organization" and tells the story of organization in Ancient Greece, through the Middle Ages, and into modernity, with the two parallel organizational discourses of the 20th century. It sets up what the thesis is all about:

If history provides any guidance whatsoever, it is likely that in retrospect, these two stories will be cast in the context of yet a third story that speaks to organization in a way that both is consistent with the UCaPP world into which the 21st century is transforming, and makes sense of the parallel discourses. This thesis aspires to be at least the first telling of that third story, and seeks to discover two things: First, the 20th century literature enumerated throughout this chapter describes various external attributes, behaviours, and characteristics – the ABCs, if you will – of two organization types: those that can be characterized as predominantly BAH, and those that Kraus (1980), and Heckscher and Adler (2006) call collaborative (that may well possess many more distinguishing characteristics, of which collaboration is but one), which I call UCaPP organizations. This thesis will describe some of the key differentiating aspects of the internal dynamics between these two organizational types.

Second, as a seminal version of that third story, this thesis will propose a theory that unifies both forms of organizational behaviour, BAH and UCaPP, and offers a model of praxis that will help those in either type of organization create a better understanding of contemporary organizational dynamics for more effective decision making, and organizational transformation and change that is consistent with the UCaPP world.

If you would like to be added to the notification list when new chapters are added, let me know.

Unlike most of my stuff, the wiki is copyright, and not yet available under a Creative Commons license, since the content is still in flux. If you might want to use any part of it before I release the final version in about six to eight months' time, please write to me. And, if you are able to provide any comments, thoughts, insights, or useful critiques, I certainly would appreciate hearing from you.

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