The Organization Man
- ISBN-10
- 0812209265
- ISBN-13
- 9780812209266
- Category
- Social Science
- Pages
- 448
- Language
- English
- Published
- 2013-05-31
- Publisher
- University of Pennsylvania Press
- Author
- William H. Whyte
Description
Regarded as one of the most important sociological and business commentaries of modern times, The Organization Man developed the first thorough description of the impact of mass organization on American society. During the height of the Eisenhower administration, corporations appeared to provide a blissful answer to postwar life with the marketing of new technologies—television, affordable cars, space travel, fast food—and lifestyles, such as carefully planned suburban communities centered around the nuclear family. William H. Whyte found this phenomenon alarming. As an editor for Fortune magazine, Whyte was well placed to observe corporate America; it became clear to him that the American belief in the perfectibility of society was shifting from one of individual initiative to one that could be achieved at the expense of the individual. With its clear analysis of contemporary working and living arrangements, The Organization Man rapidly achieved bestseller status. Since the time of the book's original publication, the American workplace has undergone massive changes. In the 1990s, the rule of large corporations seemed less relevant as small entrepreneurs made fortunes from new technologies, in the process bucking old corporate trends. In fact this "new economy" appeared to have doomed Whyte's original analysis as an artifact from a bygone day. But the recent collapse of so many startup businesses, gigantic mergers of international conglomerates, and the reality of economic globalization make The Organization Man all the more essential as background for understanding today's global market. This edition contains a new foreword by noted journalist and author Joseph Nocera. In an afterword Jenny Bell Whyte describes how The Organization Man was written.
Get the book
Other editions
Similar books
-
American Urbanist: How William H. Whyte's Unconventional Wisdom Reshaped Public Life
By Richard K. ReinThey both championed the involvement of the layman as much as, or more than, the expert. An unbylined Fortune editorial (with an unmistakable Whyte tone) in February 1958 identified the role of laymen in city planning.
-
An Analysis of William H. Whyte's The Organization Man
By Nikki SpringerWilliam Whyte’s core idea in The Organization Man is that the Protestant Ethic that characterized financial and personal success in American history had been replaced in modern times by the Social Ethic.
-
The Last Landscape
By William H. WhyteThese are the outposts of what was once a larger pattern of forests and farms, the "last landscape." According to William H. Whyte, the place to work out the problems of our metropolitan areas is within those areas, not outside them.
-
Transaction Man: The Rise of the Deal and the Decline of the American Dream
By Nicholas LemannHow did all this come about? In Transaction Man, Nicholas Lemann explains the United States’—and the world’s—great transformation by examining three remarkable individuals who epitomized and helped create their eras.
-
Enabling Creative Chaos: The Organization Behind the Burning Man Event
By Katherine K. ChenRobertJackall and Henry M. Levin. Berkeley: University of California Press. Jones, Peggy McGuckian. 1980. Emigrant Trails in the Black Rock Desert: A Study of the Fremont, Applegate-Lassen, and Nobles' Routes in the Winnemucca District ...
-
The Wall Street Lawyer, Professional Organization Man?
By Erwin Orson SmigelThe Wall Street Lawyer, Professional Organization Man?
-
Counter-Cola: A Multinational History of the Global Corporation
By Amanda CiafoneI'd like to buy the world a Coke and keep it company. That's the real thing. What the world wants today. I'd like to teach the world to sing in perfect harmony I'd like to buy the world a Coke and keep it company. It's the real thing.
-
City: Rediscovering the Center
By William H. WhyteWhy do places designed primarily for security actually worsen it? Why are public restrooms disappearing? "The city is full of vexations," Whyte avers: "Steps too steep; doors too tough to open; ledges you cannot sit on. . .
-
A Piece of the Action: How the Middle Class Joined the Money Class
By Joe NoceraA comprehensive examination of the money revolution in America since the 1950s examines the acquisition of financial power by the middle class through credit cards and mutual funds, the Age of Inflation, the 1987 crash, and the current bull ...
-
Masculinity and the British Organization Man since 1945
By Michael Roperheld by more blatantly 'traditionalist' engineering men such as the Chairman of Hill Components, Mr Dowell, but also by men like Bannerman who claimed professional knowledge of the difficulties facing women, and commitment to their ...