Organization As a Way of Life: On the Continuing Significance of 'the Classic Stance' in Organization Theory. CANCELLED

Many of the concepts and concerns animating practitioners of what I term  ‘the classic stance’ in Organizational Theory are now seen as having little explanatory ‘traction’ in the present. This paper explores the work of one significant, but now largely forgotten, exponent of 'the classic stance', the businessman, minister of state, and  organizational theorist. Wilfred Brown. Through an exploration of Brown's analysis of 'bureaucracy',  'authority' and 'the judging of performance', I question  the common assumption of the present having ‘moved beyond’ the sorts of concerns, and the organizational toolkit, developed by practitioners of the 'classic stance' in Organizational Theory. Perhaps contempo­rary matters of organizational concern are not so far removed from those ani­mating the  classicists? And maybe, their conceptual toolkit is not quite so anachronistic as we might assume? Maybe their highly formulated knowledge of ‘what makes up good organization’ (Brown, 1965:32) has some possible traction for us, here and now?