The Agile Imperative

While the literature often examines agile instruments from a business perspective, this edited collection advances the discussion of the efficacy of agile working, by applying a more critical social science perspective.The chapters scrutinize whether agility is just a discursive imperative, or an organizational and institutional reaction to better deal with complexity and volatility.

Part 1. Multi-level-perspectives on agility as a new principle of organizing work.- 1.Agile Methods: Self-Management vs. The World, Robert Biddle.- 2.The Use of Software Tools in Agile Projects, Azuka Mordi.- 3. Antecedents and consequences of agility - on the ongoing invocation of self-organization, Sabine Pfeiffer;,Manuel Nicklich, Stefan Sauer.- Part 2. The team-level as the base of agile work.- Part 3.Management and organizational level as the impulse of agile work.- 4. Reflexive Scaling, Stephanie Porschen-Hueck.- 5.Design Thinking as a Panacea? Towards a Symbiotic Understanding of Design Thinking and Organizational Culture, Gordon Müller-Seitz.- 6. Strategility - A challenging alliance, Kerstin Pichel & Andrea Müller.- 7. Agile organizations in startup companies, the new way of manufacturing consent?, Flecher, Marion.- Part 4.Societal level as the frame of agile work.- 8.Traveling management ideas, lost and gained in translation: Agility in Japan, Takahiro Endo; Masatoshi Fujiwara; Yuki Tsuboyama.- Understanding agility: multi-level analysis of a Belgian subsidiary of a foreign bank, Olivier Jégou & Fyriel Souayah.- Designing work for Agility and Affect's Measure, Phoebe Moore.