Wilbur K. Pierpont Collegiate Professor of Management
Professor of Sociology
Co-Director of the Interdisciplinary Committee on Organization Studies
Associate Editor of Administrative Science Quarterly
Books
Gerald F. Davis, 2009. Managed by the Markets: How Finance Re-Shaped America. Oxford University Press.
The current economic crisis reveals just how
central finance has become to American life. Problems with obscure securities
created on Wall Street radiated outward to threaten the retirement security of
pensioners in Florida and Arizona, the homes and college savings of families in
Detroit and Southern California, and ultimately the global economy itself. The
American government took on vast new debt to bail out the financial system,
while venerable Wall Street institutions disappeared, retailers went bankrupt,
and major manufacturers teetered on the brink of oblivion. How did we
get into this mess, and what does it all mean?
Managed by the Markets explains how finance replaced manufacturing at the center
of the American economy and how its influence has seeped into daily life.
From corporations operated to create shareholder value, to banks that became
portals to financial markets, to governments seeking to regulate or profit from
footloose capital, to households with savings, pensions, and mortgages that rise
and fall with the market, life in post-industrial America is tied to finance to
an unprecedented degree. Managed by the Markets provides a guide to how we got
here and unpacks the consequences of linking the well-being of society too
closely to financial markets.
W. Richard Scott and Gerald F. Davis, 2007. Organizations and Organizing: Rational, Natural, and Open System Perspectives. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall.
This book covers the early history of organization studies, provides a comprehensive framework for comparing competing theoretical paradigms, and addresses major developments in the most recent decade. Its scholarly yet accessible conceptual framework encourages our diverse scholarly community to come together to consider common issues and problems.
Social Movements and Organization Theory
Gerald F. Davis, Doug McAdam, W. Richard Scott, and Mayer N. Zald (eds.), 2005. Social Movements and Organization Theory. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Although the fields of organization theory and social movement theory have long been viewed as belonging to different worlds, recent events have intervened, reminding us that organizations are becoming more movement-like - more volatile and politicized - while movements are more likely to borrow strategies from organizations. Organization theory and social movement theory
are two of the most vibrant areas within the social sciences. This collection of original essays and studies both calls for a closer connection between these fields and demonstrates the value of this interchange.
