Abstract
Why now? In this ‘post-truth’ world of President Trump and Brexit, the vanishing of the traditional large corporation (Davis, 2016), and wide-scale inequality (Picketty, 2014), it seems fitting to return to a collection of work that encourages organizational theorists to reconnect with foundational theories in order to make sense of broader social issues and transformations. In this review, I consider two Handbooks that do just this.
The Oxford Handbook of Sociology and Organization Studies, edited by Paul Adler, provides a rapid historical tour of foundational sociologists for organizational theorizing; the blanket premise being that without sociology there would be no organization studies. While it is, on the one hand, depressing that almost 10 years ago the same familiar calls were made for organizational theorists to engage in public debates as they are today, on the other, there seems to be no greater and timely reminder for scholars to return to classics in “seeking guidance on how to theorize large-scale economic transformations” (Adler, 2009, p. 17).
Perhaps counter-intuitively, I start with the Afterword. Here Davis and Zald reflect on how canons and classics are determined; they remind the reader of how authors (e.g., Marx, Parsons) may be “included or excluded according to intellectual, social and political environment and approved forms of rhetoric holding sway” at the time (Adler, 2009, p. 17). This recognition of time and context is importantly reflected throughout the chapters of the Handbook. Davis and Zald emphasize Thornton’s (Chapter 2) summary of Stinchcombe’s (1982) six reasons for returning to classics and that continues to ring loud and true today: classics as touchstones, developmental tasks, intellectual small coinage, fundamental ideas, routine science, and rituals.
This Handbook of 28 chapters is organized in approximate chronological order, moving through European theorists to American theorists. Readers are initially taken through key tenets and concepts from Tocquville (Swedberg), Marx (Adler; Marens), Weber (Clegg and Lounsbury; du Gay), Durkheim (Dobbin; Hirsch, Fiss and Hoel-Green) and Simmel (Scott; Kanter and Khurana) to Veblen (Hamilton and Petrovic), Commons (Van de Ven and Lifschitz) and Parsons (Heckscher), with additional chapters on distinct thought collectives at the Chicago School (Abbott) and the Columbia School (Haveman).
Most helpful are the multiple chapters on single theorists (e.g., Weber, Durkheim and Simmel), whereby readers are presented with variety in interpretation of key tenets (and opinions on reasons for their neglect or marginalization) and suggested relevance for contemporary theorizing, including guidance on understanding complex organizations (e.g., Kanter and Khurana). In addition to specific individual theorists and schools, several chapters look at how to understand classic organizational issues of race (Nkoma) and identity (Carlsen), drawing upon field experts that are not specific to organizations (e.g., Du Bois for race and James for identity). There are also two chapters that focus on organizational theorizing in the period of time after World War II (Reed, Chapter 25; Haveman, Chapter 26). Across the chapters, we have theoretical development based not only on historical lineage of the field itself, but also on borrowing classics from other fields, and snap shots of periods of time influenced by major global events. Overall, it shows organizational theorizing in context and tries to make sense of the issues of the day.
It is perhaps Clemen’s (Chapter 24) discussion on the absence of a classic response to the emergence of the large corporation, the organizing unit for much of the past century, that resonates strongly for me today. She asks, how could they have missed it? By focusing on the market and the State the “implications of the large organization for liberal democracy” became “a problem unseen”. This “question of the relationship between the large corporation to liberal democracy is with us still” (Clemens, p. 537), and I would argue in ever-greater need of theorizing, given contemporary politics in particular. Overall, this is a classic handbook (pun intended) that clearly lays out foundational authors, situating their work in historical context, offering multiple interpretations of key tenets, identifying opportunities for further theorizing, all while recognizing the social construction of the canon.
The second, more recent and complementary Handbook, again edited by Adler and colleagues du Gay, Morgan, and Reed, looks across sociology, social theory and organization studies to identify contemporary currents in theorizing. If the first Handbook (Adler, 2009) was focused on the classics pre-1950s, this succeeding Handbook is focused on the next generation of the classics with theorists from the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s, up to today. Similar to the earlier Handbook, Adler and colleagues have organized this volume of 30 chapters into two main sections: European (French and German) theorists and Anglo-American (American and British) theorists. While this Handbook continues to argue for the important role of sociology in organizational studies, “given that much of mainstream sociology is increasingly framed in relation to the concerns of social theory” the editors have expanded their “field of view” accordingly (Adler, du Gay, Morgan, & Reed, 2013, p. 2), and demonstrate how contemporary theorists in sociology and social theory have enriched the study of organizations and offer further explanatory power and opportunity for organizational studies. This is argued as especially necessary for organization studies to reclaim its voice in public debate and avoid myopic tendencies; an argument with which I tend to agree.
In seeking to reinvigorate theoretical and empirical focus on the organizational level as a legitimate unit of sociological analysis, many of the chapters in this Handbook focus on issues of organization and organizational life as opposed to the previous Handbook’s focus on foundational theorists whose concepts evolved from struggles to make sense of broader economic and social transformations. Consistent with the first Handbook’s discussion of the determination of the “classics”, the theories that comprise this latest Handbook are selected against three criteria: (1) They made substantial contributions to sociology and social theory over the past 50 years; (2) They influence scholars in organizational studies; (3) They are recognizably “outside” the core taken-for-granted perspectives in organization studies.
These criteria have led to in Part 1 “European Influences” chapters on the work of individual theorists including Foucault (Mennicken and Miller, Chapter 2), Bourdieu (Townley, Chapter 3), Latour (Czarniawska, Chapter 5), Callon (Cochoy, Chapter 6), Luhmann (Seidl and Mormann, Chapter 7), Habermas (Rasche and Scherer, Chapter 8), Bhaskar (Fleetwood, Chapter 9). Also in Part 1 are additional chapters on the pragmatic sociology of critique (Scott and Pasqualino, Chapter 4) and comparative analysis of capitalism in the study of organizations (Morgan and Kristensen, Chapter 10).
In Part 2 “Anglo-American”, the range of chapters covers both key organizational issues and lead theorists, including power and C. Wright Mills (Barrat, Chapter 11), emotions and Arlie Russel Hochchild (Smith, Chapter 17), knowledge, organizational design and Hayek (Foss and Klein, Chapter 20), and structuration and Giddens (Mutch, Chapter 25). In addition, there are chapters in Part 2 that focus on schools of thought and their relation to organization studies, such as rational choice theory (Abell, Chapter 14), critical theory (Granter, Chapter 23), feminist theory (Calas and Smircich, Chapter 26), and British industrial sociology (Ackroyd, Chapter 24). What is further valuable in this Part of the Handbook are the chapters that provide reviews of theorists and their work that has had significant ontological influence on organizational studies and methodological approaches, specifically Goffman (Manning, Chapter 12), Garfinkel (Llewellyn, Chapter 13), Geertz (Abolafia, Doodge, and Jackson, Chapter 15), and more generally on discourse and communication in organization studies (Kuhn and Putnam, Chapter 18). The diversity of Part 2 continues with chapters on organizations as objects of study as they relate to risk (Power, Chapter 16), social movement theory (Weber and King, Chapter 21), ethics (Marens, Chapter 19), imperialism (Mir and Mir, Chapter 27), and space (Burrell and Dale, Chapter 28).
The concluding section of the Handbook, Part 3, “Organizing Social Worlds: Sociology, Organization Studies, and the ‘Social’”, comprises of two suggestive chapters for the field of organization studies. The first argues the case for public organization theory (Spicer, Chapter 29); that is, organizational theory that is addressed to broader publics (stakeholders) than just narrow academic audiences located mainly within business schools (and indeed within specific management departments within business schools). Building on some existing studies that exemplify this approach (e.g., Davis, 2009; Khurana, 2010; and more recently, Davis, 2016; Munir, 2011), this approach would “ask substantive questions about organizational issues which are of public concern in a skeptical and contextual way which is addressed to a wider public” (Spicer, p. 712). While its limits are also recognized within the chapter, these arguments also resonate with current university sector-wide shifts toward explicit recognition of research impact and external engagement, observed globally.
In the final chapter of Part 3, du Gay and Vikkelso continue this line of inquiry and ask “what makes organization”, suggesting “organizational theory as a practical science” (Chapter 30, p. 736). The authors here posit whether sociological theorizing of organizations moves organization studies closer or farther away from its core object – organization. The authors make arguments regarding the need for organizational scholars to also return to classical authors in their own field, that were driven by the practicalities of organizational life and the role of managers and executives (e.g., Barnard, 1968, and Follet, 1982 – I note here that Follet’s work was also discussed at length in the earlier Handbook). In doing so, the issues of contemporary management and organizations may be long-identified issues from these classic texts, just with new labels; hence, the value of returning to the “classics” in all forms.
Combined, these two Handbooks provide a valuable resource for understanding and contextualizing classics of the field of organizational studies, from foundational ideas to more recent theorizing. They open up debates to interpretation and application of theorists and theories, and so are both theoretically and empirically generative. And yet, the editors themselves note that this list of theorists is not exhaustive (p. 5).
Across both Handbooks, the underpinning theme of the value of organizational scholarship to public life and society is clear, as is the need to strengthen the public value of social science generally (Flyvbjerg, 2001). I agree with the editors that we should not underestimate the “intellectual capacity and moral potential” of organization studies to help us understand the pressing wicked problems of our time and the options we have in a “society of organizations” for trying to deal with them at micro, meso and macro levels. In doing so, sociology and social theory will continue to provide inspiration for organization scholars.