Bureaucracy

'This book is both stimulatingly provocative and deeply questioning of much of the literature on the bureaucratic phenomenon. Tom Vine advances a Deleuzian perspective on bureaucracy as an ‘emergent and immanent force’ in late modernism. Repetitive and recurrent ‘differences’ within and across its operational planes require life-skills in their positive resolution. In presenting his arguments he draws from a wide range of alternative perspectives.'

Ray Loveridge, Professor Emeritus, Aston University, UK; Visiting Professor, University of Suffolk, UK; Visiting Associate, University of Cambridge, UK

'Tom Vine's erudite and engagingly personal reexamination of bureaucracy offers compelling alternatives to the familiar debate on 'post-bureaucracy' and the pejorative caricatures of bureaucracy in popular management literature. Rather than arguing for or against bureaucracy, Dr Vine's unique approach is to ask how people in organisations experience, navigate and make sense of this phenomenon. He combines autoethnography, literary criticism and expansive scholarship to develop a phenomenology of bureaucracy. Written with refreshing style and a colourful wit, his book offers invaluable insights for the critical study of contemporary organisations.'

Samuel Mansell, Lecturer in Business Ethics, University of St Andrews, UK