Reviews the ideas included in and the debate spawned by the author's paper at the 1974 International Intervisitation Program meeting in Britain. The paper questioned systems theory's adequacy as an exclusive explanation of organizations. (IRT)

Answers an earlier article by Jean Hills and the previous article by Donald Willower by proposing that organizations are invented social reality. (JM)

An argument is built for the investigation of the activity of schooling through an understanding of the personal ideologies of those people through whose actions schools are created and maintained. Provides an example of how recent developments in the inquiry into organizational life may complement current curriculum reconceptualization. (Author)

The study of educational administration should continue its trend toward a qualitative interpretation of reality and abandon the positivistic, scientific approach of the last 25 years. Herbert Simon's work in 1945 set the field upon the path of accepting the assumptions of positivistic thought as the limits of scientific inquiry in administration,…

The theory that organizations are ideological inventions of the human mind is discussed. Organizational science is described as an ideology which is based upon social concepts and experiences. The main justification for organizational theory is that it attempts to answer why we behave as we do in social organizations. Ways in which ideas and…

The usual ways of thinking about organiztions represent them as physical or biological entities that respond to their environments as whole, integrated systems existing apart from individuals. Such images omit human will, imagination and moral choice. If we think about organizations in human terms, we must think about the capacity of individuals…