The Ropes to Skip and the Ropes to Know: Studies in Organizational Behavior (Paperback)

by R. Richard Ritti (Author), Steven Levy (Author)
Key Phrases: mill superintendent, lower participant, The Company, Ted Shelby, New York (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
Now in it's seventh edition, this OB reader continues to both instruct and entertain the current generation of students and professionals about workplace realities. This book consists of a series of short, interwoven stories about the operations at a single, mythical company seen through the eyes of an employee. It reveals the psychological processes and social mores at work in a company, and it is uniquely valuable for helping to bridge the gap between theory and practice. It immerses readers in the "real-world" workplace as no other text does, and provides just enough theory to make sense of it. The new edition will continue with the same premise and will contain updated stories and chapters.

From the Back Cover
Hello, My Name Is Stanley

This story is about me, and some fellow employees in The Company. When I graduated from school and started working for The Company, I never thought it would be so hard––not only learning my job, but also making sense of the everyday events happening all around me. As I soon discovered, learning the ropes at any organization takes time.

Organizations have their own myths, rituals, cultures, and most importantly, their own people. You have to be able to decipher the unwritten rules. I hope my story will provide you with a new way of looking at organizations, and help you analyze, interpret, and understand the everyday realities of organizational life.

This Seventh Edition of The Ropes to Skip and the Ropes to Know is updated and revised to give you a feel for what it’s like to currently work for The Company. The new edition includes several new boxes and a new tale, and a significantly rewritten prologue. Also, a new and expanded Instructor’s Manual on the website features discussion starter questions related to issues addressed in each of the tales. Extensive notes on these issues are also provided for instructors.

Whether you are a new-comer or an old-timer in the business world, I hope my story will help you on your journey as you learn the ropes. 

“The interpretive/cultural approach of The Ropes provides a distinct competitive advantage. Students learn about the living world of organizational behavior through simple concepts, definitions, and short cases. The Ropes provides a more meaningful alternative because of its rich real-life stories.”
––Dale Fitzgibbons, Illinois State University

“As a person with ten years of corporate experience and many years of academia, I have found past editions full of delightfully real characterizations. As I told my students then, ‘I wish I had read this book before I started my corporate career.’ I liked the book because it was real.”
––Peter B. Venuto, Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania

Product Details

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Wiley; 7 edition (April 7, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0471736465
• ISBN-13: 978-0471736462
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #275,023 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Organizational Revelation, November 13, 2000

By	Stephen W. Carter (New York, NY, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Ropes to Skip and the Ropes to Know: Studies in Organizational Behavior, 5th Edition (Paperback)

"Ropes" is the only book that I read as part of my MBA course work from which I actually learned something useful. I apply its lessons at work everday. It reveals how organizations truly work. The various scenes played out in the book have been duplicated in my own career experience many times over. It is incredible. It was as if the author had studied the firm that I worked for and then wrote this book. I consider this book crucial in helping me in my career. Not only in advancement but in alleviating the frustration of not understanding why things happen the way they do in organizations. For example, "Ropes" helps answer the question, why does the idiot get put in charge of a project and not the person who is the most capable. It is also an excellent reference. I often turn back to it to see how a situation that I am experiencing now played out in the book. Not only is it instructive but it is also extremely entertaining. I could not put this book down and finished reading it in a day and a half. Since then I have read it several more times. This is the only edition that I have read, but since the different editions are significantly changed, I am sure that the earlier editions are just as worthwhile. I would highly recomend "ropes" to anyone who works in any type of organization and wants to understand what is going on in that organization.

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Superb book on management culture, the real thing., January 13, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The Ropes to Skip and the Ropes to Know: Studies in Organizational Behavior, 5th Edition (Paperback)

I have been reading the Ropes to Skip since my MBA, nearly two decades ago. Each have so much to contribute that I would recommend buying or finding the other four editions rather than go on to another book. Dr. Ritti keeps changing the stories enough to keep your interest. But what is really interesting is how these new stories and his theory seem to be a part of his journey of learning. For example, if I was younger than I am, I might gain more from his first edition than his later editions, as we all drop what is of burning interest in one part of our lives and of less in another. I'd say that these editions track from his forties to his sixties and thus should be of special interest in people of those ages. The stories are easy to read but even after reading these stories ten or twenty times when teaching them to my students, I still keep learning from them. A true master of organizational culture. In the style of Robert Shrank's "Ten Thousand Working Days" done by another insightful sociologist.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars How personnel tick, an inside view of an organization., November 2, 1998

By	Gerald R. Talandis([e-mail] (Davenport, Iowa) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Ropes to Skip and the Ropes to Know: Studies in Organizational Behavior, 5th Edition (Paperback)

I liked it, I loved it, it was very good. The book describes personnel behavior in a large corporation. It gives real life examples of how personnel act and react under different circumstances and the reasons for it. As an MBA student I found the information of great interest and will, undoubtedly, experience it myself. The subject is taught only peripherally in schools but will, most likely, affect my career more than the hard subjects I am learning. Most college books are written by academics to impress other academics. In most cases the learning of the language (code) is the most difficult part of mastering the subject. Usually the subject itself is relatively easy to learn. For example: "A 360-degree feedback program involves the use of multiple sources of evaluation information collected from a full-circle of evaluators". It takes awhile to translate this to: "If you wish to learn ask everybody in sight".

As I read the book the paragraphs, sections and chapters just came in a stream and I just devoured them without stopping. I understood, I learned and I enjoyed.

A DOUBLE SUCCESS: it deals with issues central to life in an organization and in a way that can be easily understood.