An Actor's Approach to Management: Conceptual Framework and Company Practices

This book is a contribution to the development of methods and practices for handling the complexity and non-linearity of organizational processes. The basic premise is that the individual person possesses creativity and problem-solving skills that can be used in a constructive way in his/her daily work-life, and that organizations can become more competitive if management is capable of tapping into these abilities. The challenge for management is to take care of employees' creativity, encouraging them to be innovative and taking on responsibility for organizational concerns in their work. The book provides a conceptual framework for understanding the complexity and challenges for management. A number of cases are presented in order to illustrate how managers can practice the actor-based method, which contrasts with the more mainstream management approaches that tend to focus on rather mechanical management techniques, constructing the employees as reactive entities.