In today's workplace, managers are being confronted with what many perceive as a growing "litigation mentality." Across a variety of areas traditionally reserved for managerial authority - such as employee hiring and firing, plant closings, and corporate takeovers - managers are facing an increased likelihood of public and legal scrutiny of their decisions and decision-making processes.

The Legalistic Organization brings together first-rate scholars from a variety of disciplines (law, sociology, management, economics, communication, and political science) to investigate this phenomenon from the perspectives of formal procedures, decision-making criteria, and the use of legal rhetoric within organizations.

This extraordinary volume also emphasizes the implications for organizational learning and change and stresses the implications for legal scholarship, public policy, and management practice. Scholars and students of organizational behavior, human resource management, public policy, and law will find The Legalistic Organization an invaluable resource for studying this important and growing trend.