PARADIGMS AND ORGANIZATIONAL PARADIGMS AND ORGANIZATIONAL ANALYSISANALYSIS

Vedran Omanović, PhD(Senior Lecturer and Researcher)

September 2014  

Department of Business Administration at the School of Business, Economics and Law,

Gothenburg University  

E-mail address:vedran.omanovic@handels.gu.se

The PlanThe Plan

 A Discussion about Paradigms and Organizational Analysis

Instructions for the literature seminar(s)

Questions about the “knowledge interests” • What is “knowledge”?

•Knowledge, for whom? •And, for what purposes? 

The end of 1960s and the 1970s The end of 1960s and the 1970s

The end of 1960s and the 1970s The end of 1960s and the 1970s

The characteristics of the field of organization studies:

… strong influences of a positivist thinking (paradigm)

 Providing explanations of the status quo, consensusIt seeks to provide rational explanations of social affairsKnowledge, which can be put in useProblem-oriented in approach (practical solution)The social world is composed of relatively concrete empirical artefacts and relationships, which can be identified, studied and measured.

The (social) world is not something, which the individual create – it exists out there!

• Thomas Kuhn / philosopher, natural scientist and historian of science/ “… the researchers view the world in a new way, whether the world has changed or not.”

• Clifford Geertz /an interpretative anthropologist/

• Berger and Luckmann /sociologists/ (1967)

• Burrell and Morgan (1979)

• Morgan (1980)

•Society is a human product

•Society is an objective reality

•Man is a social product.

Berger and Luckmann Berger and Luckmann (1967:61)(1967:61)

Why should (should not) we talk about different paradigms/perspectives/methodological approaches?  Why/Why not/ is it important to understand alternative point of views?

*** •… being aware of the assumptions upon which our own perspective(s) are based…

•… it provides a tool for establishing where you are, where you have been and where it is possible to go in the future.

•Also, the paradigm idea is useful because it allows us to understand why research is done the way it is…

***• … the paradigms offer alternative views of social

reality, and to understand the nature of all four is to understand four different views of society.

• The paradigm idea applies equally well to the practical world of managing. Managers hold different assumptions about human nature and about how organizations function. These assumptions, often implicit, underlie the managers’ decisions.

(Possible) Aims of our (continuous) discussion(s):

One aim of our discussion is to development your/our capabilities for understanding and critiquing theorizing from the standpoints of alternative approaches.

Another aim is to develop understanding of the changing historical and institutional context in which knowledge about organizations is being produced.

Burrell and Morgan´s paradigmsBurrell and Morgan´s paradigms

… all theories of organization are based upon a philosophy of science and a theory of society (B&M, 1979).

A PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE

A PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE – conceptualizing social science in terms of four sets of assumptions related to:

Ontology

Epistemology

Human nature and

Methodology

A Philosophy of ScienceA Philosophy of Science

A Theory of SocietyA Theory of Society

Instructions for the literature seminarsInstructions for the literature seminars

An instruction material

Groups

The purpose of the practice/task

For all groups (Due to the literature seminar on September 29)

 to read the four articles carefully (Rosen, 1985; Gibson, 1992; Watson, et al., 1993; West & Zimmerman, 1987)

to get inside of different ways of conceptualizing,

 to understand how the authors think about the studied phenomena and what are consequences of such thinking

The purpose of the practice/task For each of the articles – you should think about the following:

 What is the article about? - Or What did the author(s) study?

How is the studied phenomena/concept conceptualized?

 How are, according your interpretations, they thinking? Why?

What assumptions guide their work (e.g. the assumptions about the nature of the studied phenomena/the objective-subjective/; the assumptions about human nature/determinist-voluntarist/?

How do they understand the purpose(s) of what they are doing/studying (e.g. for prediction and control, to produce generalizable laws, to describe phenomena, for emancipation, for fundamental changes …)?

A SPECIFIC TASK TO EACH GROUP…

Thanks for your attention!