Includes bibliographical references (p. [143]-150) and index.

Machine generated contents note: 1 Introduction 1 -- The central question for organizations: who is "in control"? 3 -- Real life management: making it up as we go along 6 -- Outline of the book 9 -- 2 Controlling quality? 13 -- Getting the feel of it in practice: Contac 400 13 -- Turning for guidance to the literature on quality control 15 -- Local communicative interaction in the living present 20 -- 3 The emergence of new products: the story of SmithKline -- Beckman and its merger with Beecham 26 -- Passing judgment on SKB management 27 -- New product development is supposed to be planned 36 -- In fact new products and strategic directions emerge: -- drawing analogies from the complexity sciences 44 -- 4 Managing in a post-merger situation 53 -- What the literature has to say on mergers 54 -- Coping with the post-merger situation at SmithKline -- Beecham 56 -- Networking 68 -- 5 Making sense of the paradox of control in merger situations 76 -- Organizations as complex responsive processes of relating 78 -- Power relations 85 -- The conversational life of an organization 89 -- 6 Measuring performance is not quite as simple as it seems 92 -- Why measure performance? 93 -- Project Dashboard 99 -- Was performance measurement really the task? 105 -- Ideology and power 109 -- 7 Supply chain management is messier than one might expect 115 -- The budget review meeting 116 -- Mess in tension with order: meaning emerges 119 -- 8 Are managers "in control"? 125 -- Mainstream understanding of control 126 -- A complex responsive process understanding of the -- paradox of control 129 -- Management as participating in the construction of meaning in the living present 133.

Also available in print edition. CRC Press (http://www.crcpress.com)

Mode of access: World Wide Web.