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(2019) An anthropology of academic governance and institutional democracy, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan.
This chapter gives the major elements of the current theory and indicates where readers can find more extended discussions. The theory can be described as pragmatic social constructionism. It does not purport to say how "culture," 'society," or organizations control behavior. It explains how people create organizations in order to control each other. The theory describes the key elements in the process. They are groups of individuals, social idea systems describing reciprocal relations, technical idea systems describing technologies, social charters, symbolic instantiation, and rational thought. For institutions of higher education, the most distinctive and critical social idea system is the definition of a university as a community of scholars and students, but it is not the only one.
Publication details
DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-92588-2_2
Full citation:
Leaf, M. J. (2019). The theory of organizations, in An anthropology of academic governance and institutional democracy, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 21-34.
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