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Tom Burns (born 1913, died 2001) was a prominent sociologist, author and founder of the sociology department at Edinburgh University.

Life and work
A fellow of the british academy, Tom Burns was Professor of Sociology at Edinburgh University from 1965 to 1980, he also taught at Harvard and Columbia. He is best known for his studies of the organisation of local government, the electronics industry and the National Health Service. He also wrote on his experiences as a prisoner of war in Crete during World War Two.

Writings
The Management Of Innovation First published in 1961, The Management of Innovation is one of the most influential books of organization theory and industrial sociology ever written. The central theme of the book is the relationship between an organization and its environment - particularly technological and market innovations. Based on first-class scholarship and engagingly written, the book presents the authors' now famous and ubiquitous classicifications of "mechanistic" and "organic" systems. For this it has become justly famous, but the book is also a penetrating study of social systems within organizations and organizational dynamics. Erving Goffman