Organization Theories in the Making aims to demonstrate how, over the last 25 years, the field of organization theories (OTs) has been providing stimulating, thoughtful, and innovative perspectives. The book offers a selective immersion in organizational institutionalism, convention analysis, network analysis, knowledge studies, discourse studies, and practice studies. For each of these perspectives, the book explores its different research streams and zooms in the research communities that give rise to them. In addition, it highlights how these perspectives all intersect with each other to form a mosaic of ideas that define today's organizations.

Rouleau also invites graduate students and early career researchers to learn how recent theories view and portray the organization and, more specifically, to understand current research questions, conceptual resources, and methods. A deep knowledge of recent OTs is key when building a compelling literature review and making meaningful theoretical contributions. This book offers readers with the opportunity to develop their theory-building skills and more by taking a deep dive in the complexities and controversies of OTs. The main arguments of each perspective are illustrated by specific exemplars from academic journals. Each chapter contains a synoptic table summarizing the main scholarly components within each perspective and its research substreams.

Linda Rouleau's profile page

Linda Rouleau is professor of management at HEC Montreal where she is teaching strategic management and organization theories. She is a member of The Royal Society of Canada. Her research work focuses on strategic sensemaking, middle managers' processes and practices of strategizing, and on extreme contexts. She has co-edited the Cambridge Handbook of Strategy as Practice. In recent years she has published in peer reviewed journals such as Academy of Management Review, Organization Science, Accounting, Organization and Society, Journal of Management Studies, Human Relations, Academy of Management Annals, etc. She is senior editor at Organization Studies.