2010. Claudia Bird Schnoonhoven and Frank Dobbin, editors. Stanford's Organization Theory Renaissance, 1970-2000. Bingley, UK: Emerald.

Synopsis

Stanford University hosted a renaissance in organizational theory in the years between 1970 and 2000, when four of today’s five leading macro organizational paradigms were being fleshed out there – institutional theory, population ecology, resource dependence, ad organizational culture theory.  Important breakthroughs occurred in theory development, and several generations of doctoral and post-doctoral students received enhanced training and an extraordinary opportunity to build collegial networks.  Students of organizations have long asked, What was it about that place and era that gave rise to this proliferation of new ideas?

This volume contains contributions by over thirty scholars who taught and trained at Stanford in the period. The goal is, first, to sketch some of the key contributions to theory that emerged from Stanford during those years and, second, to explore why this remarkable renaissance in organizational theory emerged then and there.  After an introductory chapter by Schoonhoven and Dobbins setting the stage, eight chapters by some of the key contributors to these paradigms, who studied at Stanford between 1970 and 2000, chart the key contributions that emerged.

Eight contributions from Stanford faculty, ranging from James March to Ezra Zuckerman, reveal their sociologically informed understandings of Stanford’s contributions.  Fourteen original contributions from former Stanford doctoral students and post-docs who published leading articles directly with the faculty reveal an array of theories of Stanford’s success, many of them drawing insights offered by the organizational theories being developed at Stanford.  Former faculty and doctoral students alike turn their sociological insights on the Stanford renaissance, playing the role of ethnographer and participant observer to try to understand the phenomenon.  

These contributions show the breadth of thinking that was transpiring, and offer a wide range of analyses of what causes intellectual dynamism to develop in interdisciplinary communities.  A conclusion by leading organizational scholar, W. Richard (Dick) Scott, draw together the insights from the various chapters.  Edited by Claudia Bird Schoonhoven, Professor of Organization and Strategy, Merage School of Business, University of California, Irvine, and Frank Dobbin, Professor of Sociology, Harvard University.

This book was featured in a 5-page article in Stanford Business, Spring 2011, V. 79, N. 2:  18-36, the Stanford University Graduate School of Business Alumni Magazine. The article can be found here.