Abstract
This chapter positions Andrew Pettigrew as a process scholar. It describes his work of catching “reality in flight” as he investigated the continuity and change, which is involved in subject areas like the politics of organizational decision-making, organizational culture, fundamental strategic change, human resource management, competitiveness, the workings of boards of directors, and new organizational forms. The chapter also describes the research methodology of contextualism that Andrew Pettigrew developed to capture “reality in flight.” It discusses the extent to which Andrew Pettigrew succeeded and how his research program could be developed further.
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Further Reading
The best way to get to know Andrew Pettigrew’s work is to read it, with the list of references below providing the information when and where his books and articles have been published. To get ‘inside the man’, there are a few occasions where he reflected on his own work (Mintzberg, Waters, Pettigrew, & Butler, 1990; Pettigrew, 1998, 2001a, 2011b, 2012). Apart from that, concise introductions to his body of work can be found in Sminia (2009, 2016; Sminia & de Rond, 2012). Finally, two of his major publications, his dissertation project (Pettigrew, 1973b) and the ICI study (Pettigrew, 1985d) have been re-printed recently as Pettigrew (2001b) and (Pettigrew, 2011a) respectively.
Mintzberg, H., Waters, J. A., Pettigrew, A. M., & Butler, R. J. (1990). Studying deciding: An exchange of views between Mintzberg and Waters, Pettigrew, and Butler. Organization Studies, 11(1), 1–16. https://doi.org/10.1177/017084069001100101.
Pettigrew, A. M. (2001). The politics of organizational decision-making (Reprint ed.). Routledge.
Pettigrew, A. M. (2011). The awakening giant: Continuity and change in imperial chemical industries (Reprint ed.). Routledge.
Pettigrew, A. M. (2012). Context and action in the transformation of the firm: A reprise. Journal of Management Studies, 49(7), 1304–1328. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-6486.2012.01054.x.
Sminia, H. (2009). Process research in strategy formation: Theory, methodology and relevance. International Journal of Management Reviews, 11(1), 97–125. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2370.2008.00253.x.
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Sminia, H. (2021). Pettigrew, Andrew M.: A Groundbreaking Process Scholar. In: Szabla, D.B. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Organizational Change Thinkers. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-38324-4_53
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