Recently, the organization sciences have been subjected to severe disputes about fundamental premises. To a degree, these battles appear to have involved disagreements about ontology and epistemology. This article analyzes two of these conflicts, the so-called Paradigm War in Britain and a related set of controversies in North America, using an agnostic interest-oriented framework. The analysis revealed a new perspective on the debates and the current direction of the field. Among other things, this new perspective suggested that previous interpretations of the debates have overstated the role of ontological and epistemological causes and understated the role of differences in interests. Moreover, recent development can be seen as accepting high degrees of metaphysical uncertainty and recognizing that interests or values have been and continue to be major factors in shaping what constitutes knowledge in the field.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
Alvesson, M.
, & Willmott, H. (1992). On the idea of emancipation in management and organization studies. Academy of Management Review, 17(3), 432-464.
2.
Argyris, C.
(1975). Danger in applying results from experimental social psychology. American Psychologist, 30(4), 469-485.
3.
Astley, W. G.
(1985). Administrative sciences socially constructed truth. Administrative Science Quarterly, 30, 497-513.
4.
Astley, W. G.
, & Zammuto, R. F. (1992). Organization science, managers, and language games. Organization Science, 3(4), 443-460.
5.
Bailey, J. R.
, & Eastman, W. N. (1994). Positivism and the promise of the social sciences. Theory & Psychology, 4(4), 505-524.
6.
Baritz, L.
(1960). The servants of power. New York: John Wiley.
7.
Beyer, J. M.
(1992). Metaphors, misunderstandings, and mischief: A commentary. Organization Science, 3(4), 467-474.
8.
Beyer, J. M.
, Chanove, R. G., & Fox, W. B. (1995). The review process and the fates of manuscripts submitted to AMJ. Academy of Management Journal, 38(5), 1219-1260.
9.
Bibby, C.
(Ed.). (1967). The essence of T. N. Huxley: Selections from his writings. New York: St. Martin's.
10.
Bourgeois, V. W.
, & Pinder, C. C. (1983). Contrasting philosophical perspectives in administrative science: A reply to Morgan. Administrative Science Quarterly, 28, 608-613.
11.
Burrell, G.
, & Morgan, G. (1979). Sociological paradigms and organisational analysis. London: Heinemann Educational Books Ltd.
12.
Canella, A. A., Jr.
, & Paetzold, R. L. (1994). Pfeffer's barriers to the advance of organizational science. Academy of Management Review, 19, 331-341.
13.
Chuang Tzu
. (1968). The complete works of Chuang Tzu (Burton Watson, Trans.). New York: Columbia University Press.
14.
Clegg, S.
, & Dunkerley, D. (1980). Organization, class and control. New York: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
15.
Clegg, S.
, & Dunkerley, D. (Eds.). (1977). Critical issues in organizations. New York: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
16.
Connell, A. F.
, & Nord, W. R. (1996). Towards an agnostic perspective for organization science. Unpublished manuscript.
17.
Cummings, L. L.
, & Frost, P. J. (1985). Publishing in the organizational sciences. Homewood, IL: Irwin.
18.
Davis, M. S.
(1971). That's Interesting! Philosophical Social Sciences, 1, 309-344.
19.
Dennett, C. D.
(1991). Consciousness explained. Boston: Little, Brown.
20.
DiMaggio, P. J.
(1995). Comments on "What Theory Is Not."Administrative Science Quarterly, 40, 391-397.
21.
Donaldson, L.
(1985). In defence of organization theory: A reply to the critics. New York: Cambridge University Press.
22.
Donaldson, L.
(1988). In successful defence of organization theory: A routing of the critics. Organization Studies, 9(1), 28-32.
23.
Donaldson, L.
(1992). The Weick stuff: Managing beyond games. Organization Science, 3(4).
24.
Eastman, W. N.
, & Bailey, J. R. (1994). Examining the origins of management theory: Value divisions in the positivist program. Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, 30(3), 313-328.
25.
Feyerabend, P.
(1970). Against method. New York: Schocken.
26.
Frost, P.
(1980). Toward a radical framework for practicing organization science. Academy of Management Review, 5(4), 501-507.
27.
Gergen, K.
(1982). Toward transformation in social knowledge. New York: Springer-Verlag.
28.
Gouldner, A. W.
(1970). The coming crisis of Western sociology, New York: Basic Books.
29.
Guba, E. G.
(1990). The paradigm dialog. Thousand Oaks: Sage.
30.
Habermas, J.
(1971). Knowledge and human interests (J. J. Shapiro, Trans.). Boston: Beacon.
31.
Hunt, S. D.
(1994). On the rhetoric of qualitative methods: Toward historically informed argumentation in management inquiry. Journal of Management Inquiry, 3(3), 221-234.
32.
Husserl, E.
(1977). Phenomenological psychology (J. Scanlon, Trans.). The Hague, Netherlands: Martinus Nijhoff. (Original work published 1925)
33.
Jacques, R.
(1992). Critique and theory building: Producing knowledge "from the kitchen."Academy of Management Review, 17(3), 582-606.
34.
James, W.
(1991). Pragmatism. Buffalo, NY: Prometheus Books. (Original work published 1907)
35.
Kaplan, A.
(1964). The conduct of inquiry: Methodology for behavioral science. San Francisco: Chandler.
36.
Knights, D.
(1992). Changing spaces: The disruptive impact of a new epistemological location for the study of management. Academy of Management Review, 17(3), 514-536.
37.
Kuhn, T. S.
(1970). The structure of scientific revolutions (2nd ed.). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
38.
Mahoney, M. J.
(1977). Publication prejudices: An experimental study of confirmatory bias in the peer review system. Cognitive Therapy Research, 1, 161-175.
39.
Marsden, R.
(1993). The politics of organizational analysis. Organization Studies, 14(1), 93-124.
40.
Meehl, P. E.
(1954). Clinical versus statistical prediction: A theoretical analysis and a review of the evidence. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
41.
Miner, J. B.
(1990). The role of values in defining the "goodness" of theories in organizational science. Organization Studies, 11, 161-178.
42.
Mitroff, I. I.
(1974). Norms and counter-norms in a select group of the Apollo moon scientists: A case study of the ambivalence of scientists. American Sociological Review, 39, 579-595.
43.
Morgan, G.
(1983). More on metaphor: Why we cannot control tropes in administrative science. Administrative Science Quarterly,28,601-607.
44.
Morgan, G.
, & Smircich, L. (1980). The case for qualitative research. Academy of Management Review, 5, 491-500.
45.
Mumby, D. K.
, & Putnam, L. L. (1992). The politics of emotion: A feminist reading of bounded rationality. Academy of Management Review, 17(3), 465-486.
46.
Naess, A.
(1968). Skepticism. New York: Humanities Press.
47.
Nkomo, S. M.
(1992). The emperor has no clothes: Rewriting "race in organizations."Academy of Management Review, 17(3), 487-513.
48.
Nord, W. R.
(1977). Job satisfaction reconsidered. American Psychologist, 32(12).
49.
Nord, W. R.
, & Connell, A. F. (1993). From quicksand to crossroads: An agnostic perspective on conversation. Organization Science, 4(1), 108-120.
50.
Orne, M. T.
(1962). On the social psychology of the psychology experiment: With particular reference to demand characteristics and their implications. American Psychologist, 17, 776-783.
51.
Pfeffer, J.
(1993). Barriers to the advance of organizational science: Paradigm development as a dependent variable. Academy of Management Review, 18(4), 599-620.
52.
Pfeffer, J.
(1995). Mortality, reproducibility, and the persistence of styles of theory. Organization Science, 6,681-686.
53.
Pinder, C. C.
, & Bourgeois, V. W. (1982). Controlling tropes in administrative science. Administrative Science Quarterly, 27,641-652.
54.
Polanyi, M.
(1964). Personal knowledge towards a post-critical philosophy. New York: Harper.
55.
Putnam, L. L.
, Bantz, C., Deetz, S., Mumby, D., & van Maanan, J. (1993). Ethnography versus critical theory debating organizational research. Journal of Management Inquiry, 2, 221-235.
56.
Popper, K.
(1956). Realism and the aim of science. Totowa, NJ: Rowman and Littlefield.
57.
Reed, M.
(1985). Redirections in organizational analysis. London: Tavistock.
58.
Reed, M.
, & Hughes, M. (Eds.). (1993). Rethinking organization: New directions in organization theory and analysis. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
59.
Rorty, R.
(1980). Philosophy and the mirror of nature. Oxford, UK: Basil Blackwell.
60.
Rosenthal, R.
(1964). Experimenter outcome orientation and the results of the psychological experiment. Psychological Bulletin, 61, 405-412.
61.
Silverman, D.
(1968). Formal organizations or industrial sociology: Towards a social action analysis of organizations. Sociology, 2, 221-238.
62.
Silverman, D.
(1970). The theory of organizations. New York: Basic Books.
63.
Smircich, L.
, Calás, & Morgan, G. (1992). Theory development forum [Special issue]. Academy of Management Review, 17.
64.
Stough, C.
(1969). Greek skepticism: A study in epistemology. Berkeley: University of California Press.
65.
Suppe, F.
(Ed.). (1977). The structure of scientific theories (2nd ed.). Urbana: University of Illinois.
66.
van Maanen, J. (Ed.). (1979). Qualitative methology [Special issue]. Administrative Science Quarterly, 24.
67.
van Maanen, J.
(1995a). Fear and loathing in organization studies. Organization Science, 6, 687-692.
68.
van Maanen, J.
(1995b). Style as theory. Organization Science, 6, 132-143.
69.
Weick, K. E.
(1979). The social psychology of organizing (2nd ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill.
70.
Weick, K. E.
(1989). Theory construction as disciplined imagination. Academy of Management Review, 14(4), 516-531.
71.
Willmott, H.
(1992). Breaking the paradigm mentality. Organization Studies, 14(5), 681-719.
72.
Zald, M. N.
(1993). Organization studies as a scientific and humanistic enterprise: Toward a reconceptualization of the foundations of the field. Organization Science, 4(4), 513-528.
