Harold J. Leavitt

With more than half the papers new to this book, the fourth edition of Readings in Managerial Psychology represents a substantial revision of this popular text. This edition focuses more than ever on the managing process, both within and between organizations, and such "soft" issues as managing creativity and imagination, managers' values and beliefs, and organizational culture play a larger role than they have before. Readings in Managerial Psychology is designed for managers in business and industry, students of management, public and university administrators, and executives in other organizations. The collection can be used independently or as a companion volume to Harold J. Leavitt and Homa Bahrami's Managerial Psychology: Managing Behavior in Organizations (5th edition, 1988), also published by the University of Chicago Press.

This article asserts that we have generally failed to include front end, pathfinding aspects of management in our programs of management education. Instead, we have concentrated on analytic problem solving and, to a much lesser extent, on teaching collaboration and teamwork. Our emphasis on those aspects has led us, implicitly, to reject individualistic, pro-active pathfinders because their cognitive styles are an anathema both to convergent analysis and also to group-oriented teambuilders. Pathfinding imagination and purposiveness can and should be taught, but it will require that we redefine the teaching process.