Peter Clark: Organizational Innovations - Book Review

The material is not easy to digest, and the structure of the book does not make the process of reading less difficult, given the bias towards theory which, by definition, makes for some heavy reading. There is a general flow from background theory to the more specific area of users and suppliers of innovations, but that flow is not smooth, for a number of reasons. First, the chapters finish abruptly without summary, conclusion, or lead into the next chapter. Second, areas of content seem to be discussed in more than one place without an obvious reason. For example, the chapter on 'Global contexts and national innovation design' is not followed by the chapter 'Global transfers and national specificities'--this follows after another four chapters. Also, these two chapters dealing with global issues are not perhaps as distinct as their rifles suggest. Third, the reader is sometimes faced with sentences which appear to contain insufficient information. Examples include: 'These are the social made durable' (p. 11), where the nature of 'these' is not too clear; 'The effects of modulation can be detected in the dress codes imposed by large accountancy firms' (p. 18), where the effects are not explained; and 'This path-breaking analysis of the multi-divisional form as organizational artefacts by Chandler (1962) was misunderstood' (p. 23) where there is no explanation of how it was misunderstood.

I end with the thought that this book is perhaps as much a review of organization theory as it is an analysis of organizational innovations. This makes for a challenging rather than accessible read. That said, the wide range of concepts and the juxtaposition of these concepts in such an intense format can intrigue and inform if the challenge is adopted with the spirit in which it is, I presume, meant to be confronted!

Jill Shepherd Graduate School of Business, University of Strathclyde, UK

COPYRIGHT 2003 Sage Publications, Inc.
COPYRIGHT 2004 Gale Group