What was He Thinking? Managerial and Organizational Cognition:Theory, Methods and Research

What Was He Thinking? Managerial and Organizational Cognition:Theory, Methods and Research

Do you ever wonder what in the world your boss is thinking? Read this book for insight into what goes on inside mangers' heads. Editors Eden and Spender compiled 13 articles on the topic of managerial and organizational learning and thinking. None concern different aspects of learning theory and the final four discuss computerized methods of studying thinking called causal mapping. Spender collaborated on two articles and Eden co-authored three, demonstrating their interest and knowledge in the field.

The book is set up in 13 chapters of approximately 15 to 20 pages long. The liberal use of three different types of figures aids representation of the material. Pictorial figures are small black, gray and white pictures of people in groups or alone performing work-related tasks. There are arrows between the pictures showing their inter-relatedness. These add visual appeal and break up the text nicely. Data is shown in typical tables and graphs. Flow charts show relationships between ideas, learning and the organization of the research studies. Unfortunately, some of the data and flow charts are complicated and confusing. Terms such as "heuristics," "boundary spanning," or "degree of appropriation" may not be commonly known outside of the organizational psychology research circles. Notes and references conveniently follow each chapter.

The book defines managerial cognition as how individual managers arrive at decisions, evaluate situations, and view their companies. The authors find that organizational cognition, developed over years, can ebb and flow with new upper management or acquisitions and mergers of companies. This book describes how interviews are commonly used to elicit cognition patterns. The editors show it is prudent to study managerial cognition to determine the most effective decision-making patterns. The more we know about how people think, the more we can choose "clear-thinkers" for positions within organizations.

Regrettably, most of the book rambles and is not very engaging or practical. Unfortunately, passages like this are common: "Following Sandlelands and Stablein, Weick and Roberts tried to avoid reifying the organization or imbuing it with any ability to cognize in ways detached from the cognizing of its members" (p. 19). After reading sentences like this or sections Symbolic Interactionsm, Semiotics and Ethnomethodology (p. 63), I found my self wondering what I had read and I was fighting sleep. A lot of the material discussed appears far removed from the daily business operations that most managers conduct.

European businesses are studied in this volume, therefore, data may be too specialized to extrapolate to U. S. managers because there are fundamental differences in foreign business systems. American readers may not be able to relate to Swedish newspaper editors, British prison wardens, Nordic wood fiber company workers, or the like. Another problem with interpreting the data is the small-scale study size of some of the research, for example one study only includes four newspapers.

Although knowledge of organizational and managerial cognition has significant potential benefits to business executives, they may find this book too laborious to complete. The long and unfamiliar words are not user-friendly enough for busy managers to glean the important information in this volume. Unfortunately, most will not utilize its latent value.