Tom Burns is Professor of Sociology, Retired, Edinburgh University.

"Few managers around the world have heard of Tom Burns, a former professor of sociology at Edinburgh University. Yet he created a string of concepts which have had an increasingly powerful international influence since he retired 13 years ago. They have improved western management practice immeasurably--and made millionaires of several famous American pundits who embroidered them....Written in refreshingly plain English, it is a riveting read and brims with insight after insight."--Christopher Lorenz, The Financial Times

"Tom Burns' book was a minor classic when it was first published; one of the most sensible and profound critiques of bureaucracy in print. It was way ahead of its time, perhaps "prematurely right." I congratulate Oxford University Press for this reissue, the third edition, with a new and extraordinary Preface to a book that is now a major classic."--Warren Bennis, University of Southern California, author of An Invented Life: Reflections on Leadership and Change

"A new edition of Burns and Stalker's scholarly text on organisation theory and industrial sociology is indeed welcome and should provide stimulating reflection for those who work in dynamic industries and professions...For over thirty years, this book has taken a leading role in encouraging creative behaviour in industry and commerce; its message remains relevant in today's harsh economic environment...Those who offer professional services - including market and social research - will find that this pioneering text inspires them to reflect imaginatively on their present activities as practitioners and managers."--Journal of the Market Research Society