Ron,
I'm fairly new on the net and brand-new as a subscriber to the
learning-org forum. I haven't quite figured out how to navigate it, but I
came across a request you made with regard to Mary Parker Follet and when
I clicked "next in thread" there was no answer. So just in case you're
still waiting, here's the info you requested.
While MPF was out of print for some time, there are currently two
books in press. The first was published in the mid-90's by Harvard
Business Press and is entitled Mary Parker Follett--Prophet of Management.
You can find a couple of reviews (including my own) on amazon.com. And
yes, she was a systems thinker before systems thinking was recognized as a
discipline. The second book in currency was just released last month.
It's a republication of her 1918 work The New State. When I first came
across Peter Senge's work in 1991, I was impressed that a contemporary had
recaptured so many of Mary Parker Follett's insights and had given an
interpretation to systems thinking which Follett would have been very
pleased to see unfold.
I wrote my doctoral dissertation on Mary Parker Follett's contribution
to administrative thought, entitled Integrative Administration: The
Contribution of Mary Parker Follett. It was a theoretical piece (1985)
attempting to understand how and why her contribution was so different
from mainstreams of management thought in the 20th century. Since then,
most of my applied work has been based upon her systemic action learning
approach to organizational change. I have found her perspective useful as
a critical frame of reference which helps to sift the wheat from the
chaffe among "contemporary innovations in management."
Terence
terence@actionlearn.net
--"B Terence Harwick" <Terence@ActionLearn.Net>
[Host's Note: In association with Amazon.com, these book links...
Mary Parker Follett : Prophet of Management : A Celebration of Writings from the 1920s, paperback, 1996 http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0875847366/learningorg
Mary Parker Follett-Prophet of Management : A Celebration of Writings from the 1920s (Harvard Business School Press Classic), Hardcover, 1994 http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0875845630/learningorg
The New State : Group Organization the Solution of Popular Government Mary Parker Follett / Hardcover / Published 1998 http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0271018259/learningorg
The New State : Group Organization the Solution of Popular Government Mary Parker Follett, Benjamin R. Barber / Paperback / Published 1998 http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0271018267/learningorg
...Rick
Learning-org -- Hosted by Rick Karash <rkarash@karash.com> Public Dialog on Learning Organizations -- <http://www.learning-org.com>