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Organization theory seeks to explain how people coordinate their behaviors to achieve common objectives, but it has offered little insight into how organizations emerge from such coordination. Fully understanding entities requires knowing their origins. The purpose of this paper is to draw attention to and to suggest an approach for fortifying a foundational weakness in organization theory: pre-organization theory.

To develop pre-organization theory, this paper employs an evolutionary approach that integrates three theories. This paper first employs memetics to articulate a unit of selection, the i-memeplex, and next introduces inducement-contribution theory to tailor the i-memeplex to pre-organization, yielding a founder’s mental map for exchanges of inducements and contributions. It then applies generalized Darwinism to complete its evolutionary theory of pre-organization.

Memetics, inducement-contribution theory, and generalized Darwinism can be integrated to create a promising theoretical solution, but further investigation is needed to assess the empirical and practical value of pre-organization theory.

This paper contributes to organization theory by (1) explicating a foundational weakness in organization theory – its lack of pre-organization theory – and (2) integrating a novel set of theories to develop an evolutionary theory of pre-organization.

This issue is a selected bibliography covering the subject of leadership.

We issue a double Souvenir number of The Library World in connection with the Library Association Conference at Birmingham, in which we have pleasure in including a special article, “Libraries in Birmingham,” by Mr. Walter Powell, Chief Librarian of Birmingham Public Libraries. He has endeavoured to combine in it the subject of Special Library collections, and libraries other than the Municipal Libraries in the City. Another article entitled “Some Memories of Birmingham” is by Mr. Richard W. Mould, Chief Librarian and Curator of Southwark Public Libraries and Cuming Museum. We understand that a very full programme has been arranged for the Conference, and we have already published such details as are now available in our July number.

Communications regarding this column should be addressed to Mrs. Cheney, Peabody Library School, Nashville, Term. 37203. Mrs. Cheney does not sell the books listed here. They are available through normal trade sources. Mrs. Cheney, being a member of the editorial board of Pierian Press, will not review Pierian Press reference books in this column. Descriptions of Pierian Press reference books will be included elsewhere in this publication.

This paper aims to present that deliberate change is strongly associated with formal structures and top-down influence. Hierarchical configurations have been used to structure processes, overcome resistance and get things done. But is deliberate change also possible without formal structures and hierarchical influence?

This longitudinal, qualitative study investigates an open-source software (OSS) community named TYPO3. This case exhibits no formal hierarchical attributes. The study is based on mailing lists, interviews and observations.

The study reveals that deliberate change is indeed achievable in a non-hierarchical collaborative OSS community context. However, it presupposes the presence and active involvement of informal change agents. The paper identifies and specifies four key drivers for change agents’ influence.

The findings contribute to organisational analysis by providing a deeper understanding of the importance of leadership in making deliberate change possible in non-hierarchical settings. It points to the importance of “change-by-conviction”, essentially based on voluntary behaviour. This can open the door to reducing the negative side effects of deliberate change also for hierarchical organisations.

Purpose – In this chapter, we outline early sociological thinking on time rooted in various philosophies of time and review the relatively current research in the area of temporal perspective. Next, we define the scope of the social psychology of time and illustrate how and why social psychology has failed to properly and effectively include time as a central component of study. Finally, we link current thinking about time to group processes research, most directly to identity and social identity processes (though not exclusively), making clear the ways current and future approaches could benefit from including temporal perspectives.

Methodology – We review relevant research engaged with concepts related to time in psychology, sociology, and social psychology. On the foundation of our review and the identification of gaps in the literature, we provide insights and recommendations regarding how temporal perspectives may be adopted by existing knowledge bases in sociological social psychology.

Findings – As a conceptual chapter, this work presents no empirical findings. A review of the literature reveals a scarcity of research effectively embedding temporal perspectives in major areas of social psychological research.

Practical Implications – The recommendations we make for connecting temporal perspectives to existing research areas provide a practical foundation from which to develop new ideas.

Social Implications – This work contributes to the social psychology of time by detailing how time is an important, yet mostly overlooked, component to our understandings of many social psychological processes. In the effort to extend identity and social identity theory in specific, we add to the general knowledge of the self and self-processes via the incorporation of temporal perspectives.

Originality – This work is the first to explore how temporal perspectives in sociological social psychology are employed, but mostly, how they are underutilized. We make recommendations for how novel theoretical predictions may emerge by including perspectives about time in existing research programs.