Technology and Organization:: Essays in Honour of Joan Woodward

Professor Joan Woodward, one of the founding figures of organization studies, died in 1971 at the age of 54 after a relatively brief but highly distinguished career as a management researcher and teacher and just six years after the publication of her landmark book Industrial Organization. Professor Woodward was instrumental in bringing technology to the fore in organizational sociology and her 10-year research program was one of the most influential projects ever carried out in the field of organization and management studies. Charles Perrow argues that her work is "the most ambitious and stimulating comparative study using technology as an independent variable." The significant number of citations her work continues to receive across many disciplines is testament to its originality and importance.

This special volume of Research in the Sociology of Organizations critically re-engages with Professor Woodward's contributions to organizational scholarship, while carrying forward the spirit of her thinking on the complex interactions between the social and the technical realms. It also takes stock of recent developments in the themes, issues, and theories that she introduced.