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The preface to the book mentions that there are decision-support diskettes available and that there is a version of the text in which they are included. The preface indicates that the software will allow the teacher to introduce students to meaningful computer-assisted strategic and finan-cial analysis. In addition, there is an instructor's manual covering work on the chapters in the text, case notes, transparency masters and financial case information. These were not available to me for review.

I feel that the text with cases would be most suitable for a final-year degree group in business studies. In addition it would be suitable for use by part-time students on OMS/MBA courses who can bring their work-related experience to the study of the cases.

0A VID JOHN HALLETT

Strategic Organization Design: Concepts, Tools & Processes DAVID NADLER and MICHAEL TUSHMAN Scott Foresman, Glenview, Illinois, 1988. 209 pp. £12.95 ISBN 0 673 15860 8 As a book targeted at the student and the person in an organization, Strategic Organization Design has a vast potential readership. Organizations appear everywhere. Their only constant seems to be change, even if only from the effects of age on their members. How to organize these members to best effect is a universal challenge, but one rarely overcome.

'We've got to nuke the GM system. We've got to throw away Sloan's book.' 1 Ross Perot's attack on a corporate design demands a methodology for designing its successor and that suc-cessor's rivals. Strategic Organization Design offers such a methodology.

Strategic Organization Design has fundamental concepts, and these are the first concern of the book. With these established, attention moves to the tools which management have at their dis-posal to apply the concepts. Next come the processes which allow those tools to be brought to bear upon real organizations.

Throughout its 200 pages, Strategic Organization Design presents its concepts, tools and pro-cesses very clearly. The text is to the point, and is well supported with diagrams and figures. The figures would make excellent aide-memoires, once the text has been read. Case studies are present throughout to remind the reader that there is more to designing an organization than scrawling a few lines and boxes on a napkin whilst waiting for the liqueur waiter to come by.

Design is the principal interest of the book but it is not allowed to become isolated from other corporate realities, such as the presence of people. The chapter on implementation identifies the pitfalls which await the best design. The double-edged sword of corporate culture is discussed. The informal organization, the grapevine which can choke or support a fledgling design, is also approached.

Such comprehensive examination might seem to be too far-reaching, but design cannot be effec-tively viewed in isolation. It acts as the skeleton for an organization, and is thus connected with all corporate areas. For Strategic Organization Design to live up to its title, these questions had to be addressed.

Strategic Organization Design has clearly stated aims: 'to help people understand organizations and their design'. It achieves them.

Reference 1. T. PETERS (1988) Thriving on Chaos, p. 649. Harper & Row, London.

Artificial Intelligence, Expert Systems and Languages in Modelling and Simulation C. A. KULIKOWSKI, R. M. HUBER and G. A. FERRATE (Editors) North-Holland, Amsterdam, 1988. 374 pp. US$97.25/Dfl.185.00 ISBN 0 444 70482 5

!AN MITCHELL

This is a collection of 51 papers from the first IMACS Symposium of the same name, held in Barcelona, Spain in June 1987. IMACS is the International Association for Mathematics and

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