Stanford Business Classics

Upon its publication in 1962, this book became one of the founding texts of organizational sociology. Bringing together diverse approaches, it presented a new focus of interest: the formal organization. Blau and Scott raised the level of analysis from attention solely on individual participants and work groups to a broader understanding of organizations as collective actors. In the book, the authors reviewed multiple types of studies-including case studies, experimental research, and surveys-and integrated them to define new central themes. They used their own empirical studies of two social welfare agencies to illustrate the ways in which varying organizational contexts shape work group and participant attitudes and activities. Formal Organizations served to integrate research on both formal and informal systems, authority and leadership, and stressed the importance of links to the wider environment. This reissue, which includes a new introduction by Scott, makes this seminal work accessible to a new generation of scholars and practitioners.

Private Management and Public Policy is a landmark work at the intersection of business and society. First published in 1975, it focuses on the management processes that companies use to respond to social issues. The text develops the "principle of public responsibility" as an alternative to the notion that firms have unlimited accountability. And, it presents one of the first systems-based approaches to corporate responsibility, providing theoretical support for business involvement in public policy. Arguably, the book's major contribution is its broad outline of an alternative theory of the firm in society-one that offers the possibility of overcoming traditional public and private dichotomies.