This is a comprehensive analysis of the present state of organization theory. The author traces the evolution and particularly the more recent history of the field, and its scope and content. He then considers the relevant literature organized by major issues and concepts. Jeffrey Pfeffer makes the point that the world of organizations the book surveys has changed in four important ways: the increasing externalization of the employment relation and the development of the "new employment contract;" the change in the size distribution of organizations, with a comparative growth in the proportion of smaller organizations; the increasing influence of external capital markets on organizational governance and decision making; and the increasing salary inequality within organizations in the U.S. compared both to the past and to other industrialized nations. These changes make it especially important to understand the organizations themselves. The author is a major scholar in the field of organizations and his perspective should be of considerable interest to scholars and students in the field.

Jeffrey Pfeffer's book is a real contribution to the field. It is a masterful blend of rigorous literature review and synthesis along with provocative ideas and challenges for scholars of organizations. Pfeffer manages to not only span multiple literatures and levels of analysis, but he also steps back to inject his own critical opinions on where the field of organizations has been and, even more importantly, directions in which it should proceed. This book deserves to be required reading for any individual seriously interested in understanding how and why organizations work the way they do. * Michael Tushman, Graduate School of Business, Columbia University *

Jeffrey Pfeffer is Thomas D. Dee II Professor of Organizational Behavior at the Graduate School of Business at Stanford. He is the author of six books, 90 articles and book chapters and has won numerous academic awards and honors for his research.