The Quality Movement and Organization Theory

The Quality Movement and Organization Theory is the first comprehensive study of quality management to be linked with the principles of organizational behavior and analysis. The contributors are at the forefront of assessing new quality approaches, how they work, and the conditions under which they are effective. The book bridges the world of theory and practice, making academics aware of recent developments to improve organizational performance and exploring ways in which these efforts both contribute to and challenge current theories.

W. Richard (Dick) Scott (Ph.D., University of Chicago) is a Professor Emeritus in the Department of Sociology with courtesy appointments in the Graduate School of Business, School of Education, and School of Medicine, Stanford University. He has spent his entire professional career at Stanford and served as the founding director of the Stanford Center for Organizations Research. He is the author of many articles and more than a dozen scholarly books, including two widely used texts in the area of organizations: an early book, Formal Organizations (1962), coauthored with Peter M Blau, and the more recent volume, Organizations: Rational, Natural and Open Systems (1981/1987/1992/1998), now in its 4th edition. Scott is a past fellow of the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, and was the recipient in 1988 of the Distinguished Scholar Award from the Management and Organization Theory Division of the Academy of Management. In 1996, he received the Richard D. Irwin Award for Scholarly Contributions to Management from the Academy of Management.