Abstract
Secularism is a prevailing norm for scholarly organizational research, yet the post-secular turn in philosophy provides an opening for researchers to work from theological perspectives and inquire into organizational topics of theological concern. This study introduces practical theology as a method for pursuing organizational research. This method involves iterative, mutual engagement with empirical data, social theories, and theological traditions. Research done as practical theology can contribute to advancing organization theory and management practice by promoting awareness of theological assumptions operating in research and organizations and by motivating constructive and critical proposals that are unreachable from a secular perspective.
Published research demonstrates that scholars in management and organization studies value contributions from a wide array of disciplines, including the natural and social sciences and the humanities. Despite the value that researchers place on interdisciplinary engagement for advancing organization theory, research found in the most widely read academic journals almost never engages directly work in the field of theology or adopts an explicitly theological perspective or method for studying organizations (Sørensen, Spoelstra, Höpfl, & Critchley, 2012). Scholarly writings exhibit secularism as an implicit norm in organizational research (Case, French, & Simpson, 2012; Kim, McCalman, & Fisher, 2012; Sørensen et al., 2012). Secularism is an ideology expressing Enlightenment reasoning that seeks to exclude religious expression from public debate and social life. Even organizational research on religion and spirituality, which has grown in recent years (see Oswick, 2009; Tracey, 2012), largely has avoided theology and left unchallenged the prevailing norm of secularism in scholarly research. Secularism is a defining ground rule for participation in scholarly debate and demarcates a boundary around the academic field of management and organization studies that marginalizes theological perspectives.
Although the normative status of secularism is widely taken for granted, philosophical discussions have challenged the case for secularism in recent years. Normative secularism reflects an outdated philosophical stance inherited from the Enlightenment that favors skepticism and naturalism over religious faith as the basis for public dialogue and scholarly pursuits. Recent developments in the field of philosophy have undermined the privileged standing of secularism by arguing that secularism is just another faith perspective among many others. Secular patterns of inquiry and reasoning are no less in need of justification than nonsecular perspectives. This recognition opened philosophy to theology, and it provides support for a similar move beyond secularism in organizational research.
Organization theory and management practice are not theologically neutral (Ashforth & Vaidyanath, 2002; Mitroff & Denton, 1999; Pattison, 1997, 2000). As Sørensen et al. (2012) observe, “Organization studies, despite its appearance of being a ‘proper’ social science, is already theological” (p. 270). Even when researchers remain silent about theology, they often operate from theological presuppositions. For example, Maciariello and Linkletter (2011) document the theological understanding of human nature—particularly influenced by Søren Kierkegaard and Reinhold Niebuhr—in Peter Drucker’s management writings. Acknowledging that researchers sometimes draw from theological perspectives is an important step toward uncovering the assumptions behind their theories and better understanding the nature of management and organizational scholarship. Moreover, theological perspectives can enrich the field by offering new ways of critiquing, conceptualizing, and practicing management.
The opening section of this study makes the case for admitting explicitly theological perspectives into scholarly research in the field of management and organization studies. This case rests on arguments that have shifted philosophical discussions beyond secularism (Blond, 1998). This philosophical shift opens up the possibility of approaching organizational research as practical theology. The second section of this study introduces the perspective and methods of practical theology. Practical theology involves dialogical engagement with tradition, data, and theory. Doing practical theology requires working within a particular tradition; there is no way to do practical theology generically or objectively. The present study reflects developments in practical theology within the Christian tradition. Hence, the second section of this study can be viewed as illustrating a particular response to the general opening to theological perspectives argued in the first section. The final section of the article anticipates some possible implications—both opportunities and challenges—for management and organization studies that follow from opening research to theological perspectives.
An Opening for Theology After Modernism
A bit of history is needed to understand the place of theology in Western thought. This simplified history divides Western thought into three stages: premodern sacralization, modern secularization, and postmodern desecularization (see Caputo, 2001). The method expressed by Augustine and Anselm of holding to a faith perspective in order to understand the empirical world characterized the scholarly ideal practiced during the premodern period. Thomas Aquinas has proven to be the most prominent exemplar of premodern philosophical thought. Despite subsequent shifts in the intellectual climate, Thomism endures to the present day as an influential stream of Christian philosophy (Padgett & Wilkens, 2009). In this tradition, religious faith is the guiding concern in all scholarship.
Descartes and Kant are often singled out as exemplars of the subsequent era—modernism (e.g., Bernstein, 1983; Rorty, 1979). The Enlightenment perspective characteristic of that era strove to separate reason from religious faith and elevated reason over faith. Descartes is noteworthy for establishing doubt as the starting point for reasoning by individuals. Likewise, Kant emphasized reasoning to arrive at knowledge and made allowance for religious faith only within the limits of reason. He excluded ethics and aesthetics from the truth status of knowledge produced by reason. The thinking of this era was foundationalist, in that philosophers sought and claimed indubitable intellectual foundations from which to reason rationally (Bonjour, 1978; Sosa, 1980). Empiricists such as Locke and Hume were foundationalists of a different sort, arguing that experience, not ideas, ground knowledge (Thiel, 1994). Both the idealist and the empiricist versions of modernist foundationalism categorized religious faiths outside rational knowledge due to the uncertainty of their truth claims. In response to foundationalism, theologians also sought to ground their truth claims along idealist (revealed theology) or empiricist (natural theology or experience-based) lines (Grenz & Franke, 2001).
Kierkegaard and Nietzsche were prominent early voices who foreshadowed subsequent critiques of modernism and asserted the unavoidability of personal subjectivity in knowledge claims. A key distinguishing feature of postmodernism is rejection of the possibility of epistemic certainty. Contemporary philosophers working in the continental tradition generally reject foundationalist epistemologies and make the counterargument that all knowledge involves local warrants and faith in unproven beliefs (Rescher, 1988; Wolterstorff, 1983). Furthermore, people never can be fully aware of all of their presumptions and their logical interconnections (Polanyi, 1962; Quine, 1961). Because of their unavoidable presumptive elements, truth claims are fallible. Knowledge is also historically situated, rather than objective. Rejecting Descartes’s portrayal of the individual thinker as the locus of knowledge and rationality as singular and universal, postmodernism appreciates the role of local communities in generating and sustaining knowledge claims. Although people may claim that their truth holds generally, they necessarily make such claims out of the particularity of idiosyncratic historical-social settings.
This postmodern shift in epistemology motivates an understanding of science that acknowledges that researchers invariably bring to their work conceptual schemas that include presumptive beliefs (Davidson, 1974; Kuhn, 1970; Polanyi, 1962; Rescher, 1988; Toulmin, 1961). Data underdetermine scientific theories (Hesse, 1980; Laudan, 1984). Along with empirical data, extra-empirical beliefs and the availability of viable alternatives affect the perceived acceptability of theories (Lakatos, 1978). Rather than standing apart as distinctly authoritative sources of knowledge, scientific rationality overlaps with other forms of inquiry, including theology (Rosenau, 1992; Watts, 1998). Science, like theology, is a social process for interpreting experiences (Bernstein, 1983; van Huyssteen, 1997). It involves fiduciary commitments admitting ethical and theological considerations (Stenmark, 1995; van Huyssteen, 1999).
According to the modernist ideal, scientists pursue truth about the natural and social world by collecting, analyzing, and interpreting empirical data objectively. The problem with this ideal is that philosophers have never succeeded in articulating grounds for objective knowing. Attempts to establish indubitable foundations for knowing have failed (Bonjour, 1978; Thiel, 1994; Wolterstorff, 1984). As such, we need to understand science in terms of its particular practices, not in terms of unattainable ideals. Studies of what scientists actually do point to the personal and presumptive ways in which they carry out their work (e.g., Polanyi, 1962). Rather than consisting of a uniform set of practices (i.e., a singular “scientific method”), science consists of a diverse and changing array of idiosyncratic practices. Science is a pluralist field, and as such, one is hard pressed to identify what all the sundry activities labeled “science” have in common. Nevertheless, as a legacy of modernism, the reputation persists that science provides a reliable path to knowledge that is objective, uniform, and rational. Theology, in contrast, seems to be subjective, local, and inconsistent with norms of scientific rationality. A closer look at the practices within science and theology reveals how tradition, faith, and engagement with data enter into both. Rationality is not exclusive to one community; instead, we find a plurality of rationalities operating tacitly and explicitly in science and theology, and these rationalities—although distinct—are not independent of one another (van Huyssteen, 1999).
The practices of science and theology may be distinguished in terms of their tendencies, not in terms of absolute differences holding without exceptions. Science stresses empiricism and naturalism (i.e., the belief that everything that exists belongs to the natural realm and can be studied with methods appropriate to natural phenomena). Scientists posit causal explanations in the natural realm and seek to derive, verify, or falsify their explanations empirically. The perpetuation of naturalism in the sciences is less a matter of making an explicit philosophical case for a naturalist ontology and more a matter of enculturating newcomers into practices that favor forms of inquiry and reasoning that are implicitly naturalist. Communities of scientists organize around distinct epistemic practices (Knorr Cetina, 1999), and their members’ sense of identity and passion for the work that they do are tied to their particular ways of contributing to knowledge (Polanyi, 1962).
Theology involves investigation and reasoning within traditions that admit or privilege interpretations of experience that go beyond the natural world to a transnatural realm (e.g., a truth or deity). Although theologians readily acknowledge the role of science in producing knowledge, they argue that science as a naturalistic pursuit is incomplete—it misses vital aspects of human experience that relate to ultimate concerns about meaning, values, and purpose (see Padgett, 2003). Theological communities function epistemically (or hermeneutically), but their practices prioritize formation in the affective, relational, and ethical dimensions of religious faith, not just advancing knowledge. Although the questions, concerns, and explanations of theologians often differ from those of scientists, such differences may be more complementary than contradictory. Theologians may be guilty of making arguments that serve primarily to uphold their traditions while neglecting conflicting empirical evidence, but scientists also face pressure within their communities to fit empirical evidence into prevailing paradigms and set aside or explain away disconfirming evidence (see e.g., Kuhn, 1970; Lakatos, 1978).
The philosophical and cultural shift from modernism toward postmodernism provides an opening for theological perspectives in academic discourse. Postmodernism does not reinstate the sacralization that characterized premodernism; instead, it subverts the privileged standing of secularism by pointing out that such a position is laden with presuppositions and values. Postmodernism neither privileges nor disadvantages theology in academic discourse; it merely acknowledges that theology cannot be dismissed for its lack of objectivity and reliance on faith. By undermining secularism as an exclusive ideal for scholarly research, postmodernism provides an opening for working from theological perspectives, as well as inquiry into topics of theological concern as part of academic discourse. Developments in postmodern philosophy—particularly in French phenomenology as pursued by Levinas, Derrida, Marion, and others—bear out these implications (Simmons, 2008).
For Wolterstorff (1984), the demise of modernist foundationalism opens space within fields of academic research for theological commitments to function as control beliefs when devising and evaluating theories. Theological perspectives operate both negatively—leading to rejection of certain theories—and positively—suggesting possible productive directions for theory development. This claim for theologies follows Lakatos’s (1970) portrayal of scientific research programs as providing both “negative heuristics” and “positive heuristics” letting researchers know what paths to avoid and pursue, respectively.
Wolterstorff (1984) also observes that theological commitments are neither necessary nor sufficient for arriving at adequate theories. Although theologies may guide researchers’ lines of inquiry, they typically do not contain the details that a theory of a particular phenomenon requires. Theological control beliefs may admit many theories—both true and false. Theoretical pluralism can persist among those sharing a theological perspective to the extent that theologies underspecify theoretical explanations. For example, who could argue for a political explanation and against a behavioral explanation of organizational decision making on theological grounds? Competing theories may be equally admissible within a given theological perspective, so choices among them as explanations for any given phenomenon turn on considerations outside theology—particularly empirical evidence. Likewise, researchers holding contradictory theological control beliefs may nevertheless arrive at the same theories. Hence, holding a particular theological perspective is not a precondition or guarantee for achieving knowledge through research.
Whereas Wolterstorff (1984) proposes that theological commitments can—and even should—function as control beliefs when developing theories, others make stronger assertions that theories are, without exception, regulated by religious beliefs (Clouser, 1991) or that “social theories are themselves theologies or antitheologies in disguise” (Milbank, 1990, p. 3) and “theology is itself a social science” (Milbank, 1990, p. 380). Arguments such as those of Clouser (1991) and Milbank (1990) illustrate a hermeneutical approach that interprets theories as theologies and seeks to overturn any possibility of secularism in the natural and social sciences. Both authors go to unhelpful extremes. Clouser relies on a definition of religious beliefs that is so broad that it completely rules out naturalist reasoning. Milbank’s conflation of social science and theology neglects important differences in beliefs, practices, and phenomena of interest across the two research communities. A postmodern context that is also post-secular (Blond, 1998; Habermas, 2010) no longer upholds a sharp dichotomy between theology and social science, yet differences remain between the perspectives and practices of the two fields that ought to be acknowledged.
In the face of postmodern critiques, the burden of justifying its knowledge falls on science just as it does on theology. Furthermore, it remains unclear whether science and theology can speak to one another or whether their truth claims are incommensurable. In a postmodern context that precludes appeals to a universal, foundationalist epistemology, researchers have recourse only to local, fallibilist epistemologies—such as those that operate within specific sciences or theologies. In such a context, scientists and theologians may retreat into their own forms of fideism, thereby isolating themselves from interdisciplinary engagement and accountability. In response to this threat to interdisciplinary engagement, van Huyssteen (1999) observes, Accepting that different reasoning strategies—as diverse forms of intellectual inquiry—are involved in theology and the sciences does not mean that they do not also share the same resources of human rationality and, along with that, overlapping epistemic goals and similar interpretative procedures. (p. 119)
The next section introduces practical theology—its history, current state, and distinctive features. Theological methods differ across religious traditions; hence, presenting an overview of practical theology requires adopting a tradition in which to work. This study presents developments in practical theology within the world’s most widely practiced tradition, Christianity. 1 This focus narrows the methodological scope covered but still reveals a plurality of approaches in the practices of different communities making up global Christianity. By no means is interest in practical theology limited to participants in Christian traditions. As Miller-McLemore (2010) indicates, “analogous interest in lived faith or practiced theology exists in other religions” (p. 1740). Although beyond the scope of the present study, elaborating other religions’ theological methods and their implications for organizational research remains to be done in the future.
Practical Theology as a Research Method
Practical theologians seek to understand and influence theology as practiced in everyday life in specific social settings. A primary focus on contemporary empirical situations characterizes practical theologians’ research and distinguishes their methods from those of other branches of theology (Cahalan & Nieman, 2008; Farley, 2009; Fulkerson, 2007; Swinton & Mowat, 2006). Following the fourfold division of Christian theology established in Europe by the 19th century, practical theology stands apart from exegetical, systematic, and historical theology as an applied area of empirical research focused on the practice of faith in contemporary contexts (Farley, 2001).
Miller-McLemore (2010) distinguishes four uses of the term practical theology: (1) an activity of believers seeking to sustain a life of reflective faith in the everyday, (2) a curricular area in theological education focused on ministerial practice, (3) an approach to theology used by religious leaders and by teachers and students across the curriculum, and (4) an academic discipline pursued by a smaller subset of scholars to sustain these first three enterprises. (p. 1741)
From the middle of the past century, the correlational approach developed by Tillich (1951) and Tracy (1975) became the prevailing method for connecting theology to issues in contemporary society. This method does not refer to statistical correlation. Instead, this method qualitatively correlates relevant aspects of theology with contemporary personal and cultural experiences. According to Tillich, human experience provokes existential questions that motivate the search for fitting responses within theology. “The ‘situation’ theology must consider is the creative interpretation of existence, an interpretation which is carried on in every period of history under all kinds of psychological and sociological conditions” (Tillich, 1951, p. 4). Hence, practical theology approached correlationally relates questions arising from human dilemmas to pertinent responses in religious understandings and practices. This is a unidirectional conception of the relation between society and religious tradition—the former serving as a source of questions and the latter as a source of possible responses.
Tracy (1975) goes further than Tillich by envisioning the correlational method as an interpretive process involving mutual critical dialogue between contemporary culture and theology. Mutuality occurs as questions and responses arise on both sides of the dialogue. Learnings from human experience provide input into theology, just as theology provides ways of interpreting and responding to experiences. Both the contemporary situation and the tradition are susceptible to revision through this process of mutual engagement. In short, the revisionist theologian is committed to what seems clearly to be the central task of contemporary Christian theology: the dramatic confrontation, the mutual illuminations and corrections, the possible basic reconciliation between the principal values, cognitive claims, and existential faiths of both a reinterpreted post-modern consciousness and a reinterpreted Christianity. (Tracy, 1975, p. 32)
Developments in theoretical perspectives and methods in practical theology reflect three key drivers. First, practical theologians have sought to gain acknowledgement of their scholarly contributions within the academy and broader influence in society (Pattison, 2007). Second, practical theologians have drawn broadly from theories and methods in the social sciences (Couture, 2012). Third, globalization of the field brought in researchers from around the world and fostered an appreciation for the need to contextualize research to diverse local cultural settings (Graham, Walton, & Ward, 2005; Schreiter, 1985; Schweitzer & van der Ven, 1999). These same three drivers—seeking legitimacy within the academy and society, borrowing from social sciences, and globalization—have shaped research in management and organization studies in recent decades. Evidence of these trends can be found in (a) the joint emphases on rigor and relevance in management research (Gulati, 2007; Vermeulen, 2005); (b) widespread appropriation of theories and methods from psychology, sociology, economics, and political science; and (c) international diversity of participants in academic professional societies (e.g., the Academy of Management) and research sites. As a result of common influences, the theoretical perspectives and methods used in organization studies and practical theology increasingly have come to overlap.
Table 1 identifies theoretical perspectives and methods employed in practical theology research. The left column offers a brief statement of the distinct purpose for each theoretical perspective along with representative practical theology references. The right column lists research methods, identifies their distinguishing attributes, and provides relevant references from practical theology. Because practical theology and organization theory have each borrowed from the social sciences, many of the theoretical perspectives and methods reported in Table 1 should be familiar to organizational researchers—particularly those doing qualitative research. As such, the cited works in the table provide points of entry for organizational researchers interested in connecting with practical theology research relevant to their interests. In addition to identifying influential books, the table includes chapters from The Wiley-Blackwell Companion to Practical Theology (Miller-McLemore, 2012), which should be helpful to management and organizational researchers interested in recent reviews of topics and methods in the practical theology literature.
Theoretical Perspectives and Methods in Practical Theology.
In the midst of the field’s diverse perspectives and methods, what unites practical theologians is a shared interest in interpreting social settings from a theological perspective. This approach acknowledges that theological work—like social science—is inherently hermeneutical. In keeping with this perspective, Heitink (1999) characterizes practical theology as a “hermeneutical-communicative praxis” (p. 111). Hermeneutics is not a codifiable universal technique; it is a dialogical practice of learning through reading and conversation (Gadamer, 2002; Schrag, 1986, 1992). Traditionally, hermeneutics dealt with the interpretation of texts. During the past century, hermeneutics extended to the interpretation of artifacts and human actions in social settings (Geertz, 1973; Ricoeur, 1971; Taylor, 1971), and practical theology expanded in this same direction (S. A. Brown, 2012).
The correlational method of Tillich (1951) and Tracy (1975) conceptualizes practical theology as work between two domains—tradition and data from experience. After Tillich, practical theology expanded this method by incorporating theoretical perspectives from the social sciences. Hence, a method initially conceived as a bilateral dialogue became trilateral. Figures 1a and 1b depict these two distinct ways to frame the method of practical theology. The general method of practical theology (Figure 1b) involves iterative, mutual engagement with experiential data, social theories, and tradition. Practical theologians’ appropriations of social theories can be understood as varied attempts to expand and enrich its hermeneutics of social settings. The theoretical perspectives listed in Table 1—action, Black, feminist, and so forth—guide the gathering and interpretation of empirical data about social phenomena in ways that augment theologians’ traditional sensemaking.
Methods in practical theology and science. (a) Correlational method. (b) General method of practical theology. (c) Scientific method.
Traditions consists of beliefs, practices, and artifacts handed down from the past to the present (Shils, 1981). Practical theologians attend to theories and empirical contexts from within a tradition that provides practices used in inquiry and delimits what is worthy of consideration. The same can be said of scientists (e.g., Kuhn, 1970; Pickering, 1992; Rouse, 1996); however, natural and social scientists may often pursue their investigations without explicitly acknowledging or reflecting on the traditions in which they operate. Scientific practices inherited from predecessors often persist as tacit knowledge (Polanyi, 1962), and the background assumptions within research programs often go unacknowledged and unchallenged (Lakatos, 1978; Quine, 1961). Overlooking immersion in tradition, the question of method in science reduces to the bilateral relation between theory and empirical data depicted in Figure 1c. Such a characterization of science follows modernism in downplaying the implications of researchers being situated within traditions. In contrast, practical theology serves to remind researchers of their historical-social conditioning. The past shapes the sensibilities and practices that researchers bring to their present interpretive task. Traditions both enable and constrain thoughts and actions (cf. Gadamer, 2002; Giddens, 1984; Habermas, 1977). As such, researchers’ capacity to identify, draw implications from, reflect critically upon, and revise the traditions that they indwell are essential to progress in science. Explicitly recognizing tradition as a consideration that informs methods responds to the postmodern context of current research. Expanding consideration of method from a twofold (theory-data) framing to the threefold (theory-data-tradition) framing depicted in Figure 1b is relevant to organizational researchers in general, irrespective of whether they work within a scientific or theological tradition.
Figure 2 identifies the components of practical theology within a trialogue (three-way dialogue) of theory, data, and tradition. At the base of the triangle is the familiar dialogue between data and theory. Researchers work with data to produce theory through processes of induction (identifying patterns) and abduction (postulating causal mechanisms). Through deduction, researchers work from theory to produce hypotheses applicable to empirical data. Hence, the dialogue between data and theory involves both theory building and testing. The left side of the triangle reflects the dialogue of the correlational method in practical theology. Here, practice is considered in relation to tradition and the empirical setting. Tradition renews contemporary practices by resourcing expressions of faith. Engaging the empirical setting in turn can reform tradition through contextualizing theology (see Bevans, 2003). The right side of the triangle is evident in practical theology research but generally not acknowledged explicitly as part of its method. Here the dialogue involves the relation between tradition and theory. Together, tradition and theory contribute to conceptual framing of a topic. Tradition provides background that orients the search for and evaluation of theories (Wolterstorff, 1984). Tradition also can stimulate novel theoretical proposals. Theories in turn fill in explanatory details—such as constructs, relations, and causal mechanisms—missing from tradition. In summary, Figure 2 identifies six distinct movements within the trialogue of practical theology.
Trialogue of practical theology.
As an enacted practice, practical theology’s method is irreducible to a consistent and codifiable protocol: “The content and methods of practical theology are always related to the actual task in hand, the resources available and the particular context” (Ballard & Pritchard, 1996, pp. 73-74). Interdisciplinary research proceeds not on the basis of explicit rules but as a practical outworking in light of the discovered features of the research setting, which can never be known fully in advance (Schrag, 1992; van Huyssteen, 1999). Because of its openness in practice, any description of theological inquiry as a method must remain incomplete. While acknowledging pluralism in practical theology’s methods and the irreducibility of any research method as practiced to a standard script, it still is possible to offer some guidance about how practical theology is done and how it might be done in organizational research. Essential to the method is theological reflection upon experience. The point of engagement is a social situation in which the researcher, working within a particular faith tradition, recognizes a theological issue. In the context of organizational research, the researcher identifies an aspect of organizational life in which something of theological significance is at stake. The researcher then engages the empirical setting by working from any of the various methodological approaches listed in Table 1. Although diverse methods such as action research, case study, or ethnography imply distinct ways of relating to and interpreting empirical settings, they all depend on gathering data to form a rich depiction of the situation that is essential material for practical theological reflection. Work in practical theology encompasses dialogue with theory (as in Figure 2), but that dialogue is for the sake of reflecting upon an empirical setting.
Consider, for example, Reinhold Niebuhr’s experience as a pastor in Detroit, Michigan, during the 1920s. As he learned about management practices at Ford Motor Company and the hardships that workers faced, Niebuhr investigated the matter and wrote a series of articles characterizing the company as deceptive and immoral (see Fox, 1985). As chairman of the Detroit mayor’s Interracial Committee, Neibuhr had access to unpublished data on wage rates at Ford plants that showed the falsity of Ford’s claim to have improved wage rates for workers. In 1925, Ford management succeeded in speeding up the assembly line to match in a five-day work week the output that previously required a six-day week. While the production volume remained constant, wages declined. Niebuhr used these findings to dispute Henry Ford’s humanitarian pretensions. Furthermore, Neibuhr challenged the emphasis within Ford on wages and hours to the neglect of addressing workplace conditions (e.g., rigid jobs and lack of worker governance) at odds with his theologically-informed understanding of personhood. This experience shaped Niebuhr’s pastoral ministry and his subsequent scholarly activity as an influential socially-engaged theologian.
A theological stance may lead to affirmation or critique of organizational practices based on their accord or discord with ethical commitments within a religious tradition. In the former case, the researcher works descriptively and normatively to uphold, and even promote, organizational practices. In the latter case, concerns about inconsistencies between a faith tradition and organizational practices provoke a search for fuller and more consistent expressions of faith in that setting. Affirmation and critique are complementary stances available within any hermeneutical perspective (Prasad, 2002; Ricoeur, 1973).
Cahalan and Nieman (2008) view the interpretive work of practical theologians operating in both discerning what is and proposing what might be. Describing a social situation is not a simple or neutral activity. Practical theologians seek nonreductionist accounts that reveal the complexity and polyvalence of social situations (Swinton & Mowat, 2006). Any description is based on prior understandings that are subject to critique from a theological perspective. Hence, critical theological reasoning is directed toward researchers’ own understandings as well as toward the practices that characterize the empirical situation. By bringing theological background into their interpretations, practical theologians go beyond simply putting the social sciences to use in describing and proposing; they draw creatively upon possibilities within their theological tradition. At the heart of a Christian theological hermeneutic of situations is the recognition that within social situations lay possibilities for both human corruption and redemption (Farley, 2009). It is not surprising, therefore, that the theme of liberation runs through much of the practical theology literature (see the left column of Table 1).
After initial identification of a theological issue, theological reflection involves focusing on the empirical setting while concurrently and iteratively drawing upon relevant prior research and the faith tradition. For organizational researchers, this means identifying and reviewing relevant management and organization theories and associated empirical findings and pursuing appropriating methods for gathering and analyzing data relevant to studying the focal issue. To the extent that prior studies shed light on the phenomenon of interest, they assist the researcher in framing the issue, irrespective of whether the prior research was done from a secular perspective. Researchers may come at their topic from diverse background assumptions that operate as control beliefs, yet their focus on a common phenomenon provides the potential for their diverse efforts to be mutually informing.
Although practical theology, consistent with interpretivist research in general, tends to employ qualitative research methods, it is by no means limited to qualitative methods alone. Both quantitative and qualitative methods are at the disposal of the organizational researcher working as a practical theologian in pursuit of understanding an empirical setting (cf. Schilderman, 2012; Swinton & Mowat, 2006; van der Ven, 1998). Methods choices are contextual and personal (Buchanan & Bryman, 2007; Miller, 2005), and a researcher’s theological perspective can be one, but never the only, relevant consideration. Although some empirical methods will be more appropriate than others in a given situation, no approach to data gathering and analysis is beyond consideration. With respect to reviewing the literature and employing methods for data collection and analysis, the organizational researcher working as a practical theologian can draw from the full range of research practices in management and organization studies.
What distinguishes practical theology from secular research is how a theological tradition shapes the researcher’s hermeneutic. Theology’s influence comes through the ontological and ethical commitments researchers bring to their research and express in acts of personal judgment in designing and executing research. Theology shapes researchers’ sense of what is plausible and desirable, thereby informing the initial choice and conceptualization of the empirical phenomenon, the evaluation of prior theories and empirical evidence, the formulation of hypotheses, the design of the empirical research, and the interpretation of findings. Empirical evidence, together with grounding in prior theory and empirical findings, and drawing upon relevant theological resources clarify the framing of the issue—theoretically and theologically—and add richness to a descriptive account of the situation. Description and ethical prescription are interrelated and emerge together in a theologically reflective research process. The researcher evaluates empirical results with a view toward their theological significance, not just their statistical or substantive (i.e., effect size) significance (cf. Seth, Carlson, Hatfield, & Lan, 2009). Theological significance generally gets expressed as ethical concerns but also asserts ontological understandings that challenge or are being challenged in a given situation.
Theological reflection presupposes formation in a faith tradition. Although it is possible to assume a theological perspective without a personal commitment to it, the more common approach of researchers is to work from the tradition that they indwell. In doing so, traditions—whether secular or theological—operate both explicitly and tacitly in researchers’ practices (see Miller, 2005; Polanyi, 1962). Researchers can attend to the tradition focally by engaging theological resources directly (e.g., through reading, conversation, and participation in a faith community), but tradition also operates subsidiarily (as that from which they work) as researchers focus on the phenomenon of interest. The prospect of doing practical theology research challenges organizational researchers to become more familiar with their own faith traditions as they seek to find their theological voice.
Practical theology is done not as a solo activity but as part of an interpretive community of scholars and practitioners (Browning, 1991; Cahalan, 2005). In considering the hermeneutics of practical theology, this communal dimension deserves special consideration. Hermeneutic communication constitutes communities of practitioners—whether scientific, religious, or otherwise (Bernstein, 1983; J. S. Brown & Duguid, 1991; Knorr Cetina, 1999; van der Ven, 1998). The polyvalence of situations and the unique vantage points of individuals introduce diverse and often conflicting interpretations into a community’s conversation. van der Ven (1998) notes that there are two possible responses to pluralism and conflict: (a) eliminate the pluralism and conflict by appealing to authority and (b) make the pluralism and conflict themselves the object of communication. The latter approach raises the conflict among interpretations for conscious deliberation and seeks to arrive at a novel “fusion of horizons” (Gadamer, 2002). A community functions hermeneutically not just through its communication but also through its enacted responses to situations (Mudge, 1987).
Implications for Researchers
Some management and organizational researchers have written from theological perspectives, but this work seldom appears in the most highly regarded academic journals and receives little acknowledgment among scholars. 2 Two key factors underlie the marginalization of theological research in organization studies. First, organizational researchers still hold a prejudice against theological perspectives. One legacy of the Enlightenment is the prevailing Western worldview that divides the secular and sacred realms and leads researchers to frame organizational issues in secular terms (Kim et al., 2012). Sørensen et al. (2012) summarize the situation in the following way: “The field of organization studies is presumably still dominated by August Comte’s idea of a sociology which, being the ‘Queen of all sciences’, would put an end to theology and replace it with a secular science” (p. 268). Due to unfamiliarity with how discussions in epistemology, philosophy of science, and theology progressed in the past century, researchers (in their roles as authors, reviewers, and mentors) censor their own and others’ theological perspectives. In contrast, the post-secular turn in philosophy and the social sciences opens space for theological perspectives in organization theory (Bell, Taylor, & Driscoll, 2012; McLennan, 2007).
Second, theological research in management and organization studies often takes an exegetical approach that prioritizes tradition and associated texts but does not delve deeply into the empirical context of organizations and management practice. The usual method is correlational (Figure 1a) and often lacks robust engagement with organization theory and empirical data and methods (Figure 1b). The Journal of Biblical Integration in Business, for example, publishes articles that “integrate biblical principles and truths into the business disciplines” and asks that manuscripts be “directly related to biblical presuppositions, passages and perspectives throughout the paper.” 3 The shift from a primary focus on authoritative texts within a tradition to a focus on current situations is the key move that distinguishes practical theology from other branches of theology (Farley, 2009). Focusing on the phenomena of interest in organization studies is the way to contribute to the field. Enhancing the empirical content, theoretical arguments, and methodological rigor of organizational research done from a theological perspective should increase reviewers’ perceptions of the merit of such work. This in turn should improve the prospects for publishing theological work in academic journals and thus its influence on the trajectory of the literature and management practice.
Sørensen et al. (2012) propose a research agenda for a “theology of organization” that involves (a) identifying how the concepts operating in organizational research and practice originated from theology and (b) bringing theological concepts to bear upon problems in organizations and organization theory. Secularization of concepts and narratives operating in organizational research and practice may—to varying degrees—disguise their roots in theology, and careful analysis can uncover this genealogy. Complementary to this direction is the research strategy pursued by Pattison (1997), Ashforth and Vaidyanath (2002), and Grint (2010) of uncovering how the secular becomes sacralized in organizations. A full view acknowledges that “organizations are an important arena within which the parallel processes of secularization and sacralization are currently being enacted” (Bell, 2008, p. 294). The second facet of Sørensen et al.’s research agenda commends identifying instances where “an original meaning of a theological concept is lost, and that we suffer from this loss” and where “forgotten theological concepts can help us in finding forms of organization that go against the ways in which we currently organize” (p. 275). They envision a role for researchers operating from theological perspectives in evaluating organizational practices and proposing counterfactual alternatives.
Research from a practical theological perspective can reveal aspects of the human condition that carry ethical and spiritual implications relevant to transforming organizations (Bell, 2008; Dyck & Schroeder, 2005; Maciariello & Linkletter, 2011). Organizational research done as practical theology can contribute to the growing stream of critical studies that uncovers troublesome features in current management knowledge and practice and promotes reflection on philosophical and methodological aspects of organizational research (Fournier & Grey, 2000).
For example, Pattison (1997) undertook a critical examination of management practices in the British National Health Service (NHS). His study begins by presenting “a prima facie case for seeing management as a religion, or at least a substantially religious activity” based on “(a) the faith assumptions of management; (b) the religious style and order of management; and (c) the faith content (i.e. the actual beliefs that positively inform management) and the religious language found in management theory and practice” (Pattison, 1997, p. 28). Pattison cites ritualized market research, strategic planning, leadership, and performance-related pay among his examples of management as faith-based quasi-religion. Emphases within the style and order of management on commitment, discarding the past, identification with the organization, and obedience to leadership parallel aspects of religious conversion. Pattison argues that aspects of management reflect the historical influence of religion and serve the current practical needs of managers to cope with uncertainty and exercise control. He draws empirical background from firsthand observations as an NHS employee during a time when the health service organization was transitioning toward professional management. He also incorporates management literature to generalize about the nature of managerial work beyond the NHS. Most importantly, he brings the lens of a theologian and ethicist to the interpretation of management practices. Hence, Pattison’s method encompasses data, theory, and tradition. Pattison contributes to the field of management by taking a “religio-ethical perspective” that “throws into relief certain aspects of its theory and practice that might otherwise go unnoticed” (p. 151). For example, theological analysis highlights the roles of faith, myths, symbols, and rituals in management.
Hope and Eriksen (2009) provide a further example of critical theological research in their study of military sexual trauma experiences and the surrounding trauma caused by the organization. Their study is deeply grounded in the first author’s personal and witnessed experiences. As their method, they adopt the poetics of testimony of practical theologian Rebecca Chopp (1998) that facilitates trauma survivors’ articulation of lived experiences. In this discursive process, the researcher takes the role of agentic witness facilitating and treating as authoritative survivors’ testimony—even as such testimony defies prevailing norms, discourse, and theory. Prior research on workplace violence frames their study. Their article provides transcripts of the first author’s accounts of conversations with colleagues in the military about (a) an alleged sexual assailant and one of his victims and (b) seeking help through therapy after experiencing the organization-trauma of trying to investigate the assaults. These accounts reveal dismissal of victims’ perspectives and experiences in organizational discourse and carrying out organizational policies. Hope and Eriksen explain, “Throughout this article, we implicitly posit that trauma studies and theological studies are interdisciplinary fields which can inform the study of organizations” (p. 110). The authors’ major conclusions relate to Chopp’s theologically-based method of poetics of testimony, which they advocate for use in the military and other organizational sites of traumatic violence.
The potential contribution of theological research lies not only in critical reflection on methods, theory, and practice. Just as postmodernism has both critical and constructive expressions (Rosenau, 1992; Schiralli, 1999), so theology can be deployed in both of these ways (cf. Griffin, 1989, 2003; Ward, 2003). Organizational research pursued from a theological perspective can produce constructive conclusions that are inaccessible from a secular perspective. Steingard (2005) finds “profound possibilities for inquiry and transformation” in considering how spirituality alters the ontological, epistemological, and teleological dimensions of organizational research and management practice.
In considering whether to undertake theological work, organizational researchers should anticipate challenges to publishing their studies and contributing to practice. As already noted, secularism remains a prevailing norm when assessing theoretical and empirical contributions to organizational research (Kim et al., 2012; Sørensen et al., 2012). Reviewers and editors evaluate research primarily on the basis of its contribution to organization and management theory, and theological research will need to fulfill this expectation and demonstrate rigorous thinking and methods. The chief obstacle to contributing to practice is the potential inconsistency between practices espoused from within a theological perspective and the goals and values operating within organizations. The outcomes from integrating religion and spirituality into organizational practice may be either positive or negative with respect to managerial interests and performance metrics (Ashforth & Vaidyanath, 2002; Chan-Serafin, Brief, & George, 2013). Although practical theology may not be a method that places researchers on a fast track toward scholarly publications and changing organizations, another motivation enters into the decision to pursue such research, namely, researchers’ desire to express their faith. To conduct research as a practical theologian is to work from a commitment to advancing theory and organizational practices in accord with a religious tradition. The organizational researcher doing practical theology works within the disparity between theological convictions and the norms of researchers and organizations, and does so for the sake of the communities on both sides of that disparity.
Over 20 years ago, Zald (1993) presented a case for including the humanities in organization studies. He observed that the humanities bring a tradition of reflection on the moral and normative dimensions of our social institutions [that] stands in contrast to the social sciences which have developed a trained incapacity for moral reflection. It is not the case that social scientists are immoral; it is that the objectivist-value free stance of positivism leads them to lack a nuanced base for the discussion of value choice. (Zald, 1993, p. 524) Emancipatory theory urges attention to research and the construction of methods for such research that insist on attention to issues of justice that disclose structural, political, relational, and personal possibilities with constructive and transformative proposals for redemptive and restorative change. (pp. 190-191)
As an expression of interpretivism, practical theology acknowledges the inherent hermeneutical dimension of social science research. Unlike other forms of interpretivism, practical theology brings distinct ethical and ontological perspectives to its task (as introduced earlier when distinguishing theology from science). Practical theology complements the methods in use within organizational research by encouraging awareness of and reflection upon the metatheoretical hermeneutical traditions in which researchers operate (see Cunliffe, 2011). Opening organization studies to practical theology broadens the range of hermeneutical perspectives admissible within the field by allowing explicitly theological perspectives, rather than seeking to uphold a norm of secularism. Adding theological pluralism to a field already characterized by methodological and theoretical pluralism may raise fears about fragmentation of the research community and the potential incommensurability of researchers’ contributions (see Scherer, 1998). However, a common focus on the organizational phenomena of interest, along with attentiveness to relevant prior research, can guide researchers toward contributions that are complementary and cumulative. Sharing focal phenomena, rather than uniformity of researchers’ hermeneutics, makes collective scientific progress possible. Different hermeneutical perspectives can produce distinct and complementary understandings of complex phenomena and, as such, their inclusion can be part of an intentional research strategy (Lewis & Grimes, 1999; Lewis & Kelemen, 2002).
Because interest in social situations is not unique to theologians, practical theology is necessarily interdisciplinary (Cameron, Bhatti, Duce, Sweeney, & Watkins, 2010; van der Ven, 1998). Social phenomena of shared concern provide points of potential convergence among researchers in theology, the social sciences, and organization studies. Such work proceeds through dialogue exploring the empirical evidence and possible theoretical explanations, as well as identifying and evaluating the philosophies, theologies, and methods in use. Interdisciplinary engagement is always at risk of being usurped by one side. Either social and organization theorists or theologians can become the dominant partner. The dialogue becomes unbalanced when either side is at the cutting edge of scholarship but the other is not. The key is to maintain mutuality in the dialogue between organizational research and theology. Another risk is that participants in the interdisciplinary exchange perceive the conversation across disciplines as less rewarding than the conversation within their own discipline and therefore withdraw from interdisciplinary research. Theologians are known to take refuge in confessionalism, and scientists often retreat into secularism. Such moves cut off dialogue between the sciences and theology and isolate research communities.
To overcome the risks involved in interdisciplinary research, organizational researchers must value and make ongoing efforts toward sustaining conversation and debate (Fabian, 2000; Mahoney, 1993). Researchers should strive for intelligibility and foster communication across disciplinary traditions (see Bradbury & Lichtenstein, 2000; Huff, 1999). The premise behind such interdisciplinarity is that researchers from different disciplines share sufficient resources of human rationality that they can advance understanding by pursuing together topics of common interest (van Huyssteen, 1999). In theology and science, participants must trust their traditions, theories, and experiences enough to put them forward for critique by others and remain open to revising their own understandings (see Newbigin, 1989; Polanyi, 1962). To draw conclusions together from empirical data, researchers from different fields need to arrive at shared methods, even while their control beliefs do not coincide.
Practical theology challenges researchers to engage in interfaith dialogue. Openness to considering others’ faith perspectives and the possibility that others’ perspectives may correct one’s own is a prerequisite for interfaith exchange. To sustain interfaith dialogue, this norm cannot come as an imposition but must derive from the resources of each participant’s faith. The philosophical case subverting secularism and shared interest across faiths in working out the implications of theology in daily life encourage those of diverse faiths to engage in practical theology. The realization that what goes on within and around organizations is not theologically neutral may be enough to stimulate interest in practical theological research and dialogue among researchers from diverse faiths.
Theological commitments are not held absolutely during the process of building and testing theories but are subject to potential revision based on the evidence encountered during scholarly efforts (Wolterstorff, 1984). In other words, theology is at risk in empirical research. Using a “situational analysis of theology,” a theology comes under questioning based on challenges arising in the situation (Lartey, 2000). For example, Hope (2007) identifies how portrayals of God prominent in Christian theology contribute to workplace injustice. Drawing from feminist and process theological perspectives, she proposes alternative ways to envision the Christian God that result in greater inclusion and empowerment of workers marginalized in organizations. This critique acknowledges problems within her Catholic theological tradition and the possibility of constructive reform. To the extent that researchers from diverse traditions engage a common empirical subject, theological pluralism across researchers presents opportunities for reflecting critically and innovating within traditions. Learning in pluralist contexts calls for balancing affirmation and critique and openness to revising theories and theologies.
This study invites theologians into the field of management and organization studies as a context for doing public theology, which addresses issues of interest to society in ways that are publicly intelligible (Pattison, 2007; Tracy, 1981). Apart from the aggregate social and economic importance of organizations, the simple observation that many people spend most of their waking hours participating in organizations makes them a compelling context for theological reflection. To contribute to an interdisciplinary practical theology of management and organization, theologians need to become conversant or even proficient with organization theories and analytical methods. Theologians can partner with researchers who bring complementary skills in organizational research. Practical theologians have made a few initial forays into the realm of management (e.g., Frank, 2006; Hope, 2007; Hope & Eriksen, 2009; Pattison, 1997, 2000, 2007; Pembroke, 2008), thereby acknowledging that what goes on in organizations is within the purview of their field and providing distinct, pioneering examples of the kind of research that practical theologians can contribute to management and organization studies.
To undertake the kind of research proposed here, organizational researchers must deepen their understanding of their theological traditions and learn to engage in theological reflection. They must be willing to enter into ongoing dialogue with theologians. Identifying where practical theologians and organizational researchers draw on common theories and methods from the social sciences (see Table 1) will help to lower the barriers to interdisciplinary collaboration. Motivations for pursuing practical theology in management and organization studies include the desire to better understand and express personal faith by bringing theological considerations into one’s own scholarly work, openness to learning exchanges with theologians, and seeing the potential for such research to enrich organization theory and management practice.
Footnotes
Acknowledgments
I thank Robert Gephart, Peter Snyder, Paul Tracey, and seminar participants at Seattle Pacific University for helpful comments on earlier drafts.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.