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Appraises existing management information for primary care prescribing within the NHS. Examines the two most important management problems facing primary care prescribing: budegtary control and quality assurance. Reviews management information needs and evaluates existing prescribing information systems. Identifies the four main factors contributing to current problems: professional pressures, payment imperatives, reactive administration, managerial deadlock. Discusses future prospects for management information in primary care prescribing reaching the conclusion that budgetary control is close to being achieved, while quality assurance is still subject to a managerial deadlock.

To explore a musical metaphor in making organizational change a potentially pleasurable experience to participants.

The paper begins by challenging ideological assumptions behind classical change metaphors. To build an alternative, the paper employs musical semiotics to understand the core dimensions in a musical experience.

The paper discusses the dynamics of tension and resolution in the different dimensions of musical experience.

The discussion regarding the dynamics of tension and resolution in musical experience helps the reader to make sense of how an individual organizational member can understand, structure and control the experience of organizational change.

The paradigmatic separation of the strategy and identity literatures constitutes an ongoing problem for the extension of either into more global contexts. The theorization proposed in this chapter presents rhetoric as the means by which the ‘strategy work’ of reimagining future options and the ‘identity work’ of reformulating the meaning of past actions may be integrated in the present moment. By locating both strategy work and identity work within the continuity of experience, we suggest that scholars will be better able to develop theoretically integrated, empirically grounded and globally relevant studies of strategy.

This paper aims to investigate how sports science was institutionalised and rapidly deinstitutionalised within a Premier League football club. Institutional theory has been critiqued for its lack of responsiveness to change, but recent developments within institutional theory such as the focus on deinstitutionalisation as an explanation of change, the role of institutional entrepreneurs and the increasing interest in institutional work facilitate exploration of change within institutions.

The authors deploy a longitudinal case study which ran from 2003-2011. Data was collected via observations, semi-structured interviews and through extensive literature reviews.

Via this longitudinal case study, the authors illustrate that the antecedents of deinstitution can lie in the ways by which an institution is established. In doing so, they highlight the paradoxical role potentially played by institutional entrepreneurs in that they can (unwittingly) operate as agents of institutionalisation and deinstitutionalisation. Their study suggests that the higher the performance imperative within a field, the more likely the institution as a generic concept will be deinstitutionalised and the more likely to be appropriated and customised in order to gain inimitability and thus competitive advantage. Finally, the authors make an additional contribution by integrating the affective aspects of institutional work to their analyses; stressing the role played by emotions.

As with many case studies, the ability to generalise from one case, however detailed, is limited. However, it provides evidence as to the paradoxical role that can be played by institutional entrepreneurs – especially in highly competitive environments.

The study suggests that the HR function has a potential role to play with regards to institutional continuity through a focus on leader and institutional entrepreneur succession planning.

The paper makes an original contribution by highlighting both institutional and deinstitutional work within a single case. It highlights the paradoxical nature of institutional entrepreneurs in highly competitive environments and illustrates the importance of emotion to institutional maintenance and deinstitution.

Within hierarchical relationships, subordinates are expected to obey the existing order and to function well. Their deviance or organisational misbehaviour is usually regarded negatively and as a threat to the system. However, there seems to be a paradox: Subordinates' deviance and (occasional) misbehaviour does not threaten organisational hierarchy but often re-establishes or even strengthens hierarchical order even though it challenges it. In itself, this phenomenon is quite self-evident. What is less clear is when exactly subordinates' deviance might contribute to the (further) stabilisation, continuation and persistence of the hierarchical social order and when it might be indeed system threatening. For interrogating the specific conditions and consequences of subordinates' deviance within organisational settings, the concept of crossing of boundaries will be introduced and differentiated into weak, medium and strong crossings. The concept will then be applied to subordinates' deviance in the realms of social action, interests, identity and norms and values.

The ability to act in a purposeful and effective way amid institutional tensions and paradoxes is, right now, a highly prized quality in public leadership. The purpose of this chapter is to qualify moderately brave acts as a learning format that combines the analytical and performative skills implied in this kind of agency.

The chapter explores the engagement with paradoxes as a narrative praxis. From existing literature, it sums up an understanding of agency as a social process of mediating paradoxes in order to make action possible. Drawing on Northrop Frye’s theory of modes, the chapter explains this praxis as a narrative endeavour balancing the dynamics of tragedy (disintegration) and comedy (integration). Moderately brave acts are formed as a kind of low-mimetic synthesis – very much akin to comedy and realistic fiction. The narrative dynamics of low-mimetic synthesis are pursued in the case story of Christian, a Master of Public Administration (MPA) student from Copenhagen.

Moderately brave acts appear as a learning format that can inspire a less idealised, but not entirely ironic approach to the paradoxes of management. In this way, they can foster a nuanced and pragmatic agency that combines analytical reflexivity with the ability to take practical action in problematic situations.

The chapter may inspire teachers to use narrative techniques to allow students to deal with real problems of daily praxis in a way that embraces the tension between idealisation and deconstructive irony.

Hierarchy and bureaucracy have been more or less welcomed companions of human civilisation from the very beginning. In almost every culture and epoch, ruling elites and followers, superiors and subordinates can be identified. Hierarchy and bureaucracy are quite flexible, adaptable and they are fairly persistent – but why could, or even should we see this as a problem?

This introduction will first provide a brief history of no change, followed by the second section where the advantages and disadvantages and the contested terrain of hierarchy are elaborated in some length. The discussion focuses on three areas: the functional, social and ethical qualities of hierarchy. In the final section, the chapters of this volume will be briefly introduced. The chapters are grouped into three sections: (I) Fundamentals and historical accounts of bureaucracy, (II) Organisational, cultural and socio-psychological aspects of hierarchy and (III) Alternative views on, and alternatives to hierarchy.

In an age where organizational transformation is becoming more important to both the theory and practice of strategic management, the aim of this paper is to provide a model through which organizational transformation and strategic change can be understood in an holistic manner.

In developing a model to explain organizational transformation, the paper draws on two different theoretical traditions. First, the paper draws on theories of political revolutions and, second, the paper draws on interpretative theories, in particular, speech act theory.

The paper argues that in order to provide a realistic understanding of how and why an organization has attempted a transformational strategy it is important to consider four issues: the event which triggered the transformation, the program and process through which transformation was attempted, the outcome of the transformational strategy, and the myths which have been built up around the transformation.

The paper takes a novel approach by drawing on non‐management theories to develop an understanding of management phenomena. In doing this the paper generates an original model useful for the post rational explanation of transformational strategies.