The Discipline of Organizing: Professional Edition, 3rd Edition

Preface to the Third Edition

Robert J. Glushko

The Third Editions

For a book to be republished in a third edition barely two years after its first is highly unusual, but we were compelled to update the book by the extremely positive reception it has received. In 2014 The Discipline of Organizing was named an “Information Science Book of the Year” by the Association of Information Science and Technology. As gratifying as this recognition is for all of us who have applied themselves to this work, it is even more gratifying that nearly 60 schools—three times as many as a year ago—are using it in a very diverse set of courses. Each new course ratifies the idea that multiple perspectives can reinforce a shared focus on organizing, while at the same time highlighting the concepts, technologies, and methods that distinguish those points of view.

The discipline of organizing emerges at the intersection of existing disciplines. We distinguish discipline-specific content and illustrate the disciplinary mix of endnotes for the entire book here, and later for each chapter. (See Endnote Types and Groups.)

Because the book structure mirrors this content structure with a transdisciplinary core supplemented with discipline-specific content, it is easy to add content when new courses or instructors identify a need for it. However, even when they were suggesting revisions or new content, many ...