Theory and Method in Organization Studies: Paradigms and Choices, London, Sage, 2000 (original) (raw)
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Strati A., Theory and Method in Organization Studies: Paradigms and Choices, London, Sage, 2000
2000
SOCIETY IN A NETWORK OF ORGANIZATIONS 12 "External society" and "internal society" Subjectivity and social integration Legal authority and modern organizations Managing organizations: the principles of the classical school An organization is modelled on a machine The organization as an agent of civilization Organizational networks and organizations without walls Organizations meet other organizations The notions of "loose coupling" and of the creation of the external environment Networks of inter-organizational relations The network of organizations The organization as a stable form of transaction The organization without walls Organization is a continuous process Further Reading 2 41 ORGANIZATIONS AS SOCIAL CONTEXTS 41 Theoretical paradigms and organizations as social contexts Researching organizations and paradigmatic pluralism The study of organizations as social contexts The schools of organizational thought The rational, interactionist, structural and compliance models The perspective of the rational, natural and open system The industrial, bureaucratic and organizational issues The emerging strands of organizational analysis The emerging organizational methodologies Metaphors for organizations Research programmes Paradigms in the study of organizations as social contexts Fragmentation, multiplicity and paradigmatic incommensurability Further Reading 3 80 WEAVING THE ORGANIZATION TOGETHER 80 The metaphor of construction The social construction of reality Constructivism and constructionism Organization as hypertext The metaphor of the hypertext Real organization and virtual organization An organization is an artefact The concept of texture of organizing The contextualist world of organizing Action and tacit knowledge The use of the concept of texture of organizing Further reading 4 101 THE ETHOS, LOGOS AND PATHOS OF ORGANIZATIONAL LIFE 101 Organizational actors Critical event and subjects Competence and/or productivity The community of practice and community memory Organization and occupational and professional communities The negotiation of rationality and organizational subjects Courses of action and the negotiated order Meaningful action and organizational interaction The organizational order and the structure-in-process Deontological, ontological and aesthetic dimensions Emotions in organizations Aesthetics in organizational life The continuity of organizational phenomena Further reading 5 123 THEMATIC CONTINUITIES AND NEW INSIGHTS 123 Thematic continuities Power and the negotiation of the organizational order Alienation and the governance of organizational structures Participation in organizational life Institution and organization Organizational decisions Emerging themes Gendered organizations Organizational space
Organizations as real and ephemeral
Zeitschrift für Weiterbildungsforschung
Currently a dilemma within organization studies seems to be represented by, on the one hand, proponents who argue for a retro-wave, to go back to the original ideas of organization studies, the core tasks of enterprises and importance of the relevance of organization studies to practitioners. On the other hand, another contemporary movement may be observed within organization studies, which is to defend the use of general theories of the social sciences. This latter trend is represented through the language of organizations as processes and practices, sometimes termed the 'process-' and 'practice-turn'. Although I tend to subscribe to the latter position, I aim to illustrate the value of bridging the dilemma of a canon of history and tradition and the inclusion of more general social science theories within organization studies. I also argue that it is beneficial to hold the eye both on organizations as entities and to understand persons' interactions around work as pivotal for education and learning related to enterprises. We both need the canon and organizations as continuously emerging; organizations as units and the interactions of its persons. I make the argument standing on the shoulders of pragmatist philosophy (particularly the works by John Dewey) and the basic understanding that present experiences are always both grounded in history and tradition (the canon) and dynamically oriented towards the future (emergent).
Organization: The Relevance and the Limitations of Elias
In this introductory paper, I use a quotation from Elias’s (1992) essay on time in order to introduce some key Eliasian concepts. I then explore the relation between power, interdependency and subjectivity through reference to Elias’ s oft-cited studies of court society as well as his less known analyses of time. Drawing on these referents, I discuss the relation of Elias to current organization theory focusing on Foucauldian work, Marx and labour process theory and, especially, actor-network theory. Eliasian argument has a number of points of contact with current fields of organizational analysis such as organizational strategy, violence in organizations, emotion in organizations, knowledge and discourse, globalization, organizations and the natural environment, etc. The paper briefly reviews such examples before considering certain limitations in Elias’ s conceptualization of interdependency and subjectivity.
The terms 'modem' and 'postmodern' have become common currency in intellectual debates within organization studies. The postmodern is variously interpreted as an 'epoch', a 'perspective', or a new 'paradigm' of thought. In this paper the author argues that what distinguishes the postmodern from the modem is a 'style of thinking' which eschews the uncritical use of common organizational terms such as 'organizations', 'individuals', 'environment', 'structure', and 'culture', etc. These terms refer to the existence of social entities and attributes within a modernist problematic. This is because a modernist thought style relies on a 'strong' ontology (the study of the nature and essence of things) of being which privileges thinking in terms of discrete phenomenal 'states', static 'attributes' and sequential 'events'. Postmodern thinking, on the other hand, privileges a 'weak' ontology of becoming which emphasizes a transient, ephemeral and emergent reality. From this thought style, reality is deemed to be continuously in flux and transformation and hence unrepresentable in any static sense. Debates about modernism and postmodernism which do not address this ontological distinction miss critical insights which postmodernism brings to the study of organization. Adopting a postmodern mode of thinking implies radical consequences for rethinking organization studies. Instead of the traditional emphasis on organizations, organizational forms and organizational attributes, what is accentuated is the importance of examining local assemblages of 'organizings' which collectively make up social reality. A postmodern style of thought, therefore, brings with it a different set of ontological commitments, intellectual priorities and theoretical preoccupations to bear on the study of organization. Descriptors: ontology of being, thought style, fallacy of misplaced concreteness, heterogeneous engineering, micro-logics of organizing
Any narrative depends upon the perspective and location of its author. My perspective is as an American organization theorist, trained and employed in business schools, who has taught management and organization theory, and published research on organizations, in both the US and Europe during the 1980s and 1990s. My formal education took place at the University of Colorado, where I studied architecture as an undergraduate; Indiana University, where I studied English literature and creative writing as an undergraduate, and later earned an MBA in finance; and Stanford University, where I earned my PhD in organizational behavior with an emphasis on organization theory. My learning then continued in the context of my teaching posts-at San Diego State University and UCLA in the US, the Copenhagen Business School in Denmark, and now at the Cranfield School of Management in England-as well as through memberships in professional associations, including the American Academy of Management, the British Academy of Management, the Standing Conference on Organizational Symbolism (SCOS), and the European Group for Organization Studies (EGOS).