Duality in a Volcanic Temple: a Critical Assessment of Management's Never-Ending Crisis (original) (raw)
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Evidence based' management is a popular contemporary account of the relationship between research and practice in management studies. This paper critically examines the implications of this account from the perspective of Formalism: a narratological approach to critique that focuses on how narratives are made compelling, and hence powerful. Compelling narratives deploy devices that establish (i) credibility and (ii) defamiliarization. Using this approach the paper identifies and examines different ideological strands in the nascent literature on evidence based management: pragmatism, progress, systematization, technique, accumulation. These are the means by which advocates of evidence based approaches construct a compelling story about the value of this approach. Prior criticism of the evidence based approach has centred on epistemological and technical issues. The aim here is to use an aesthetic mode of criticism to highlight political and moral implications. These are important given the relationship between claims to knowledge and the use of power; and the interaction between management research, and management as practice.
Management Research After Modernism
British Journal of Management, 2001
's report 'Bridging the Relevance Gap' offers some topical insight into a long-running issue where there are no easy answers. For most of the twentieth century, social scientists have debated 'knowledge for what purpose' (Lynd, 1939). As these debates have moved in and out of fashion so they have been mirrored by changing social and economic contexts, altering expectations of science and a greater variety of conduct of science in different natural and social science disciplines (Nowotny, Scott and Gibbons, 2001). One of the lessons from the natural history of development of the social sciences is that there can be no one best way of framing, producing, disseminating and using knowledge. The changing contexts and content of knowledge in the social sciences and management will pierce any bubble of conventionality which claimed universal appeal and applicability. In this sense, Gibbons et al.'s (1994) Mode 2 form of knowledge production is no more the answer to contemporary doubts about the relevance of management and social science research than any of its predecessors. In the sequel to The New Production of Knowledge (Gibbons et al., 1994), Nowotny, Scott and Gibbons seek to reframe and widen their message in order to condition and contextualize it. In locating the development of Mode 2 knowledge production in a co-evolutionary process with the development of a Mode 2 society, Nowotny et al. encourage a much more theoretical treatment of science in an age of uncertainty. In so doing they also seek to counter two criticisms of their earlier influential book. They have clearly been stung by the view that The New Production of Knowledge has become an apologia for applied science. They also wanted to shift the ground of the debate in this new book to counter the view that The New Production of Knowledge could be assessed purely in empirical terms. The danger and the promise in the Mode 1-Mode 2 knowledge production debate lies in the dichotomous form of the argument. There is a long tradition in the social sciences and management of using bi-polar modes of thinking. These bi-polar concepts are variously portrayed and used as dichotomies, paradoxes, contradictions and dualities. Dichotomies are remembered. They are powerful simplifiers and attention directors as the influence of Burns and Stalker's (1961) mechanistic and organic systems and Lawrence and Lorsch's
The Narrative of ‘Evidence Based’ Management: A Polemic
Journal of Management Studies, 2008
Evidence based' management is a popular contemporary account of the relationship between research and practice in management studies. This paper critically examines the implications of this account from the perspective of Formalism: a narratological approach to critique that focuses on how narratives are made compelling, and hence powerful. Compelling narratives deploy devices that establish (i) credibility and (ii) defamiliarization. Using this approach the paper identifies and examines different ideological strands in the nascent literature on evidence based management: pragmatism, progress, systematization, technique, accumulation. These are the means by which advocates of evidence based approaches construct a compelling story about the value of this approach. Prior criticism of the evidence based approach has centred on epistemological and technical issues. The aim here is to use an aesthetic mode of criticism to highlight political and moral implications. These are important given the relationship between claims to knowledge and the use of power; and the interaction between management research, and management as practice.
Bridging Scholarship in Management: Epistemological Reflections
British Journal of Management, 2003
If the relevance gap in management research is to be narrowed, management scholars must identify and adopt processes of inquiry that simultaneously achieve high rigour and high relevance. Research approaches that strive for relevance emphasize the particular at the expense of the general and approaches that strive for rigour emphasize the general over the particular. Inquiry that attains both rigour and relevance can be found in approaches to knowledge that involve a reasoned relationship between the particular and the general. Prominent among these are the works of Ikujiro Nonaka and John Dewey. Their epistemological foundations indicate the potential for a philosophy of science and a process of inquiry that crosses epistemological lines by synthesizing the particular and the general and by utilizing experience and theory, the implicit and the explicit, and induction and deduction. These epistemologies point to characteristics of a bridging scholarship that is problem-initiated and rests on expanded standards of validity. The present epistemological reflections are in search of new communities of knowing toward the production of relevant and rigorous management knowledge.
Why, What, and How of Rigour and Relevance in Management Research
2009
In his 1993 presidential address to the assembled faithful of the Academy of Management Don Hambrick posed the question, "What if the academy actually mattered" (1994:11). This rhetorical question set his esteemed colleagues, world leading management scholars, in the category of perhaps rigorous knowledge workers, but definitely not relevant to their community of practice. One might presume that when Hambrick, a giant of his era with a record of citations that is the envy of most scholars, and a field of work (upper echelons) that has been defined by his contribution for over 20 years, we would take note and act. Unfortunately three years later Richard Mowday (1997:341) found it necessary to return to the theme in his presidential address referring to what has ultimately become a perennial challenge of being both rigorous and relevant. In 2002 Jean Bartunek (2003:203) had a dream for the academy where we work to make a difference and speak to tensions involving theory and practice. In 2005 Denise Rousseau (2006) addressed the topic through the search for evidence based management to bridge the research-practice divide. We look forward with anticipation to the new challenges evoked in this years speech, but hardly expect an announcement that we have risen to the challenge.
The Production of Management Knowledge: Philosophical Underpinnings of Research Design
Essential Skills for Management Research, 2002
Management research deals fundamentally with the production and legitimation of the various forms of knowledge associated with the practices of management. Most traditional approaches to management research and knowledge creation involve a varied combination of the key processes of observation, reflection, theoretical conjecturing and the testing of theories and models developed to capture the essence of management realities. A seemingly wide panoply of theoretical perspectives has been proffered in recent times in the social sciences and in management research in particular, including positivism, hermeneutics, phenomenology, critical theory and realism. Despite this apparent diversity of philosophical approaches, this chapter will show that they basically represent various amalgams of two opposing epistemological impulses driving research and knowledge creation in the Western world. Only the more recent rise of postmodernism poses a radical ontological challenge to the metaphysical premises of modern research. This chapter traces the philosophical roots of modern Western thought and identifies the key philosophical traditions and assumptions shaping perceptions of knowledge and knowledge creation in general and in management research in particular. I begin by examining the crucial link between philosophy and research in order to show how the former informs the latter in the academic production of management knowledge. This is followed by a systematic tracing of the intellectual origins of Western thought
Management as a Contextual Practice: The Need to Blend Science, Skills and Practical Wisdom
This paper contributes to the debate regarding whether or not management is, or should become, a profession. Using the principles of dialectic logic, arguments for the thesis that management is a profession and the antithesis that management is more akin to an art or a craft are critically reviewed. Aristotle’s intellectual virtues episteme (science), techne (skills) and phronesis (practical wisdom) are introduced as a synthesis to this debate. Rather than characterizing management as a profession, it is argued that management is a contextual practice that requires a blend of all three intellectual virtues.
Management as a science-based profession: a grand societal challenge
Management Research Review
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore how the quest for management as a science-based profession, conceived as a grand societal challenge, can be revitalized. Design/methodology/approach A reflective approach is adopted by questioning some of the key assumptions made by management scholars, especially those that undermine their capacity to inform management practice. One key assumption is that management needs to be done by a few people at the top of the organization; this idea is widespread but false. Findings An important finding is that the future of the management discipline may largely depend on the rise of new forms of management drawing on distributed intelligence and circularity of power and authority. Management scholars thus need to shift their attention from an almost exclusive focus on managerial intentions and behaviors to (the development and use of new) management technologies, similar to how modern aviation technology involves airplanes that only to a limit...
Management Research: A Meta-Synthesis of Natural Science, Social Studies and Management Practice
2003
Abstract Academics argue between the merits of “positivist” technical proofs derived from natural science and “interpretivist” contextual arguments justified by social studies. We propose a “Third Paradigm” that makes a dialectical synthesis of management practice with both. This “synthesist” paradigm should be founded in situational realities as distinct from technical or contextual issues.