{"product_id":"symbolic-management-governance-strategy-and-institutions","title":"Symbolic Management","description":"The theory of symbolic management reveals a pervasive pattern of 'symbolic decoupling' - a separation between appearances and reality - at every level of the governance system. At each level the processes of governance are less efficient or effective than they appear; from interpersonal relations within organizations such as those between CEOs and directors, top managers and lower-level employees, to relations between firm leaders and external stakeholders such as journalists and security analysts. There is even a separation between appearances and reality at the level of the governance system itself. \n\nIn this book, James Westphal and Sun Hyun Park develop symbolic management into a major theoretical perspective on governance. Not only does symbolic management provide a compelling behavioral alternative to economic perspectives such as agency theory, but it subsumes economic theory. Agency theory is reconceived as a historically contingent institutional logic that became taken for granted among corporate stakeholders for a period of time and eventually replaced by a new logic of governance. Through a body of extensive empirical research Westphal and Park demonstrate how the symbolic management activities of firm leaders have contributed to this historical shift in prevailing logics of governance, and present a warning to regulators, investors, and the general public.","brand":"Oxford University Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":54026228236632,"sku":null,"price":58.99,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0278\/1295\/4195\/files\/9780198792055_1226875a-0075-48a5-acd8-12916ccc6972.jpg?v=1777212928","url":"https:\/\/agendabookshop.com\/products\/symbolic-management-governance-strategy-and-institutions","provider":"Agenda Bookshop","version":"1.0","type":"link"}