Beyond culture and structure, Handy offered a psychological model for organizational longevity: (the S-curve).
In the early 1990s, management theory was at a crossroads. The Cold War had ended, globalization was accelerating, and the rigid, militaristic structures of the 20th-century corporation were beginning to groan under the weight of new technologies and flatter hierarchies. Into this fray stepped Charles Handy—an Irish economist and philosopher who had studied under Warren Bennis at MIT and had a knack for making the complex feel human. His 1993 work, Understanding Organizations (a fourth edition of a book first published in 1976), is not just a textbook; it’s a cultural artifact and a surprisingly fresh toolkit for deciphering the messiness of collective work. handy c. -1993- understanding organizations