The blog orgtheory has a good post on the recent history of organizational theory, summarizing a recent paper published in Organizational Studies: link.
What interested me most about this history of organizational studies is that since the 1980’s, most organizational theorists have migrated to the business schools. Which helps explain why the organizational theory I read seems to be permeated by free-market and business attitudes. I’m pretty comfortable with a business approach, but a congregation is not a business, a minister is something different from a chief executive, other program staff are not the same as employees, lay leaders are not the same as volunteers in a non-profit. It’ll never happen, but wouldn’t it be nice if organizational theory developed ties to the theological schools?
Well… before org theory got to the b-schools, weren’t the only two institutions who thought seriously about organization and management the Church and Military? Isn’t that what all that talk about covenants was all about? How to order or organizational duties to each other?