Postmodern Management Theory

Marta B. Calás, Linda Smircich

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN: 9781138363311
• eBook ISBN: 9780429776687
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business General
• Index: Business

First published in 1997, this volume asks: when was 'The Postmodern' in the History of Management Thought? Marta B. Calás and Linda Smircich have chosen this subtitle as entry point to the collection for several reasons. The first, and most evident, is that it prompts us to reflect on the inclusion of a volume on postmodern organization studies within a series of books on the history of management thought. What does such inclusion signal? Are we saying that we are past the postmodern in organization studies? That we have transcended modernity and, beyond, postmodernity?

Similar to other social sciences, organization and management studies in the Anglo-American and European academy became impressed by the styles of 'postmodernism' and their epistemological companions, 'poststructuralisms', during the 1980s.

For this collection we have selected twenty two journal articles, published between 1985 and 1996, that we consider emblematic of postmodern endeavours in management thought, as they further our understanding of how 'truth' (of any paradigmatic persuasion), is fashioned through particular discourses and other signifying practices.

Taken together, these articles address the following questions: What has the field accomplished through attempts at being postmodern? With what consequences? And, where does the field stand now, if it is still/already (going) after 'the postmodern'? In our view 'the postmodern' cannot transcend modern management thought; it is, rather, part of it. Nevertheless, the mere appearance of efforts towards making the field 'postmodern' makes it important to account for them in the history of the field. Such is the narrative that we are trying to portray in this volume.

Part I
Intimations

[1]
Administrative Science As Socially Constructed Truth

W. Graham Astley

This paper argues that the body of knowledge that constitutes administrative science is a socially constructed product. Because empirical observations are inevitably mediated by theoretical preconceptions, our knowledge of organizations is fundamentally shaped by the subjective world views through which we perceive data. Truth is defined in terms of the theoretical constructs and conceptual vocabulary that guide research and mediate access to organizational phenomena. The chief product of research is, consequently, theoretical language, rather than objective data. The knowledge of administrative science is not built from objective truths but is, instead, an artifact — the product of social definition. Institutional mechanisms rein-force these social definitions of truth by investing them with the stamp of scientific authenticity.

In an ambitious proposal for enhancing the state of organization theory, Warriner, Hall, and McKelvey (1981: 1731 invited all organizational scholars to participate in formulating "a standard list of operationalized, observable variables for describing organizations." This invitation was designed to overcome problems resulting from the tendency of different investigators to use alternative sets of variables and, consequently, describe organizations of the same type, and even the same organizations, in quite different ways. Thus, Warriner, Hall, and McKelvey (1981: 175) argued that a more accurate representation of organizational phenomena could be achieved by establishing a repository of "pooled data" on operational measures to be used in empirical research.

Underlying this proposal is a conventional model of scientific progress as a cumulative discovery of objective truth. This model, which currently dominates administrative science, assumes that knowledge grows linearly as new data are added to the existing stock of research findings. In this view, the lack of standardized measures and variables for describing empirical reality greatly impedes scientific progress and should be rectified. This paper, in contrast, argues that variety in the language of administrative science is unavoidable, since it reflects deep metatheoretical differences between researchers whose backgrounds, values, and philosophies diverge radically. No theory can simply "describe" empirical reality in neutral linguistic terms; all theoretical perspectives are infused by the biases inhering in particular world views. The search for a standard list of variables is, consequently, based on a misapprehension, since differences in perspective between theoretical approaches cannot be resolved through an appeal to "objective" truth.

In contrast to the conventional model, this paper represents administrative science as a fundamentally subjective enterprise. Because researchers adhere to different world views, they generate a variety of alternative perspectives as they impose different meanings and interpretations upon data. The field's development is characterized not by increasing convergence upon an accepted body of knowledge but by a growing divergence in research perspectives and approaches. Intense competition between rival paradigms prevails as advocates of diverse theoretical positions attempt to persuade others of the intrinsic superiority of their favored conceptual vocabulary. Scientific progress, in this view, does not result from the instrumental acquisition of information about objective reality; it is the product of an essentially subjective process in which administrative scientists seek preeminence for their chosen paradigm as an end in itself.

The Subjective Construction of Truth

The body of knowledge that constitutes administrative science is an artifact generated from the a priori constructs of predefined theoretical models. Such constructs do not just describe organizational reality by classifying it into analytical categories, they define its epistemological constitution. Rather than approach organizations as unbiased observers of the facts who passively record events in neutral theoretical descriptions, we already harbor conceptions of what is to be studied; our theories determine what will count as a fact in the first place. "The spectrum of organizational life is filtered through the researcher's preset categories; elements related to the categories are selected, coded as data, and simultaneously given meaning by the categories" (Evered and Louis, 1981: 391). From this perspective, administrative science did not begin with the process of documenting observations. It first required preliminary conceptual distinctions regarding what constituted the phenomenon of organization (Bittner, 1965). As Feyerabend (1975) argued, there are no "bare facts," since the facts that enter our knowledge are already viewed in a certain way and are, therefore, essentially ideational constructs.

As administrative scientists, we formulate knowledge subjectively through biased, selected observations of everyday managerial practice. The world of practice has its own "objective" reality, but since, as scientists, our only recourse to that world is through what we see and do, our knowledge is unavoidably subjective in nature. The "facts" constituting our knowledge are necessarily theory-dependent, since we can perceive nothing except through the knowledge structure in which perception is embedded. Factual truth exists only on this ideational plane. Behavioral observations have no intrinsic truth value; they are blank slates onto which we inscribe factual meaning. Theoretical constructs are connotative as well as denotative; they simultaneously describe and explain. Discovering truth is really a matter of creatively incorporating events into theories to make sense of them. Administrative science, in other words, is essentially an interpretive exercise, a sense-making activity in which truth is defined by the rules of intelligibility embodied in theoretical schemata.

Such considerations led Daft (1983) to describe organizational research as essentially concerned with "storytelling." Organizational research does not just report observations, it tells a story that imputes meaning and significance to those observations. As scientists, we do our job properly only insofar as we are creative in casting phenomena within interpretive frameworks. The interpretive frameworks, not the observations, contribute to our knowledge. Daft went on to argue that objective proof of an idea or theory is not possible: "we cannot obtain knowledge independent of our own judgment and social construction" (Daft, 1983: 543). There is no direct access to reality unmediated by language and preconceptions. Perhaps this is why we judge the ultimate validity of our measures, their "construct validity," not in terms of their correspondence with objective organizational phenomena "out there" but in terms of whether they plausibly support the theory they are meant to test.

Kuhn's (1970) analysis of paradigms as subjectively generated "world views" reinforces these arguments. Kuhn contended that whether a paradigm is retained or abandoned does not depend primarily on the accumulation of objective evidence. Paradigms are, instead, based on the acceptance of a set of metaphysical presuppositions, so that a paradigm shift "can only be made on faith" (Kuhn, 1970: 157). When new paradigms gain acceptance they do not negate their predecessors. They simply provide an alternative view of what constitutes the scientist's relevant universe. The new theories are not always improvements over the old in terms of predictive power; they primarily represent differing frameworks of under-standing. The world is seen anew, but not necessarily with greater accuracy.

To argue that truth is a subjective construction is not, however, to suggest that knowledge is an idiosyncratic product. Knowledge is generated not by fiat in the minds of individuals but through a rigorous examination of ideas in public communication. Though we may reject the "myth" that management science is an objective search for truth (Mitroff, 1972; Albrow, 1973), we must recognize that the discipline is, nonetheless, highly systematic in its formulation of knowledge. Ideas must usually survive an exacting process of intellectual scrutiny by advocates of diverse theoretical positions before they graduate to the status of truth statements. New definitions of truth emerge as products of a socially negotiated consensus between truth makers. Such consensus may encourage the negotiators to view the knowledge so produced as "objective," but it is, in fact, intersubjectively generated.

Language as the Product of Research

This view of knowledge as a product of social negotiation within a scientific community highlights the importance of theoretical language as the vital medium through which the community's negotiations are effected. Once we relinquish the view that theoretical constructs are direct representations of external reality, language itself becomes the essential subject matter of scientific deliberation. Language is not simply a vehicle for transmitting information. Rather, it is the very embodiment of truth; our knowledge structures are linguistic conventions (Gergen, 1982: 101 (.Scientific fields are word systems created and maintained through a process of negotiation between adherents to alternative theoretical languages.

Objective reality may have little relevance in determining the composition of these word systems. The relationship of a particular theoretical interpretation to a particular empirical phenomenon is often largely negotiable. The best example of this is dialectical analysis: the simultaneous superimposition of two or more competing analytical interpretations on the same empirical phenomenon. For instance, several divergent explanations can be offered to explain the phenomenon of internalization — the inclusion of activities that were formerly part of an organization's environment within the boundaries of the enterprise (Astley and Van de Ven, 1983). Internalization has been variously explained as an absorption of critical contingencies that might potentially impede the efficient functioning of the organization's technical core (Thompson, 1967: 39), an adjustment of portfolios designed to exploit product-market opportunities (Leontiades, 1980), a re-establishment of the economy's efficient allocation of resources under conditions of market failure (Williamson, 1975), and an attempt to eliminate fair market exchange and bring the economy under the political control of an elite of giant corporations (Edwards, 1979).

It is quite possible that arty one instance of internalization may simultaneously exhibit all of the empirical elements needed to lend support to each of these respective theories, in which case each theory would capture a different aspect of the phenomenon. This, however, is not the point. Rather, the key issue is that different observers tend to apply favored theoretical perspectives in a more or less exclusive manner. Some authors, for example, interpret virtually all occurrences of internalization as instances of market failure, while others interpret virtually all such occurrences as instances of elite control (Van de Ven and Joyce, 1981: ch. 8). The adherents of different positions typically do not concede that their perspective reveals only part of the whole story or that a theoretical synthesis would be desirable. Such adherence to distinctive, biased, essentially partial views of reality is, furthermore, rewarded within the discipline. Persistence in advocating the merits of a particular research paradigm creates visibility and is a common hallmark of academic success.

In many instances, moreover, objective reality cannot be the final arbiter in deciding which theoretical perspective is most valid. The notion of "loose coupling" (Weick, 1976) provides a good illustration. What appears as loose coupling from one point of view might equally well be viewed as tight coupling from another point of view. If we focus attention on the leeway that organizational subunits have to pursue their own subgoals and on the degrees of autonomy they possess vis à vis the remainder of the organization, we will likely conclude that organizations are loosely coupled systems. But such leeway and autonomy can never be total if the organization is to retain its corporate identity. Furthermore, different subunits possess different amounts of autonomy. Consequently, some degree of interdependence and constraint impinges on all subunits, and the activities of some subunits are more closely governed by functional interdependencies and operating ties with the rest of the organization than are other subunits. Thus, it makes as much sense to emphasize degrees of tight coupling as it does to emphasize degrees of loose coupling. Organizations are always both loosely coupled and tightly coupled, depending on the analytical lens we adopt. As Lincoln (1985: 35) observed, there can be no objective choice between alternative perspectives: the validity of the perspective employed depends on the context of inquiry and on the research concerns that guide investigation. The variety of ways to reconstitute our knowledge of organizational reality is, in this sense, bounded only by theoretical ingenuity in inventing new linguistic constructions.

Linguistic Ambiguity

Not only is language, rather than objective fact, the chief product of research, but ambiguous, empirically imprecise language, dominates theorizing. The maintenance of linguistic ambiguity enhances a theory's conceptual appeal by widening its potential applicability. The very generality of ambiguous constructs assures their widespread importance in the discipline. since a great number and variety of more specific propositions can be i...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title Page
• Series Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Series Preface
• Introduction
• Part I Intimations
• Part II Articulations
• Part III Genealogical Appropriations: The Foucauldian Turn
• Part IV Deconstructive Appropriations: The Derridean Turn
• Part V Past ‘The Post’: When ‘The Other’ Speaks Back
• Name Index