Topic Two
Organisation Theory:
Multiple Perspectives
Organisation Theory:
Multiple Perspectives
• Organisational Studies
–Multidisciplinary
• What is the purpose of organisation studies/organisation
theory?
• Knowledge and knowledge generation
• Contemporary theoretical approaches
–Modern (e.g. General Systems)
–Critical Theory
–Symbolic interpretive (e.g. Social Constructionism)
–Postmodern (e.g. Deconstruction)
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Organisational Studies
Multidisciplinary field of study
–Sociology
–Anthropology
–Social and Industrial Psychology
–Political Science
–Engineering
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What is the purpose of organisation
studies?
• To generate knowledge about organisations.
• To identify ways to apply this knowledge to
improve and/or transform organisations in some
way.
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How do we generate knowledge?
• Theory construction
• Collection and analysis of data
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The Process of Generating Knowledge
Knowledge generation consists of a number of interrelated steps
with a certain direction of determinism:
Three levels:
Metatheoretical (the foundation of all theories):
A: Ontology: our assumptions about reality. What is ‘real’?
B: Epistemology: How do we gain knowledge of the world?
What counts as knowledge? How do we know this is the ‘real’
nature of reality?
Theoretical: set of ideas intended to explain facts, events, and the
nature of reality.
Methodological: Devices used to uncover data or ‘reality’.
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The Process of Generating Knowledge
• The metatheoretical, theoretical and
methodological levels are organically
interrelated.
• Different metatheoretical assumptions
‘determine’ the criteria of scientific explanation
(theory), choice of methodology, procedure for
theory construction and what one considers to
be data.
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Multiple Perspectives
• Ways of seeing the world. They provide broad
frameworks to guide our thinking and research.
• A convenient means of categorising similar ideas,
traditions and ways of thinking.
• Each incorporates a toolbox of inter-related concepts for
making systematic sense of organisations.
*There is no one ‘correct’ perspective to use.
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Multiple perspectives
Modernism
• Ontology: objectivism-there is an objective reality
independent of our knowledge of it.
• Epistemology: positivism—truth is ‘discovered’ through
conceptualisation/theorisation and ‘testing’ our logic
against the reality found in the objective world.
–Organisations are ‘real’ entities that lend themselves
to our senses.
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Modernism
Theory:
Goal is to discover the ‘truths’ that govern organisations.
–‘Truths’ are seen as accurate accounts of
organisational properties (e.g. causal powers and laws)
and the events with which ‘we’ (i.e. management) must
deal when ‘we act.
–Through ‘truth’ ‘we’ avoid being distracted by
speculation, hunches and lies of ‘others’.
–‘Truths’ possess instrumental value (practical utility).
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Modernism
• By knowing the ‘truth’ ‘we’ can intelligently
formulate and accomplish our goals.
• The instrumental value of ‘truths’ for management
is in assisting them to establish control over an
organisation, predict outcomes and learn about
one’s powers and vulnerabilities.
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Modernism
Method: Based upon statistical methods (hypothesis
testing) to discover the correspondence between the
hypothesis (i.e. our conceptualisation of reality) and the
empirical world.
– Deductive approach: ‘test’ theory against ‘empirical
reality’
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Modernism
General Systems Theory
• Influenced by Emile Durkheim’s Structural Functionalism.
– Concerned with social integration (i.e., what binds
individuals and groups together?)
• A system is constructed of mutually and organically
interrelated specialised parts called subsystems.
• The goal is to understand the ‘laws’ governing these
systems and how each subsystem performs a particular
activity and ‘functions’ to help reproduce the larger system.
• An organisation is seen as a system comprised of four
sub-systems (technology, social structure, culture and
physical structure) located within a supersystem (i.e.
global environment) of which it is a part.
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Systems Theory
Application:
• To create an innovative organisation a systemic
organisational environment for discovery and innovation
is required:
– A particular social organisation of innovation
– Interaction between departments, teams and ‘cultures’
– Expenditure on research and development
– Rewards and incentives for taking risks
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Critical Theory
Challenging Modernist Thought
• 1940s and 1950s Modernism dominated Organisational
Studies
• By the 1960s Modernism was being challenged on
several fronts
– Empirically—as peace and stability gave way to
increasing social unrest (e.g. Strikes).
– Intellectually—the rise of a more ‘critical’ approach to
understanding organisational life.
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Critical Theory
The emergence of a ‘critical’ organisational studies:
In the US:
– C.Wright Mills (1956) The Power Elite
– Alvin Gouldner (1954) Patterns of Industrial
Bureaucracy
– (1955) Wildcat Strike
In the UK:
– Ralph Dahrendorf (1959) Class and Class Conflict In
An Industrial Society
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Critical Theory
Major influence Karl Marx (1818-1882)
• Concerned with social divisions, power, inequality and
conflict within organisations and broader society.
• Studied organisations through an analysis of capitalist
class relations (i.e. owner and labourer).
• Capitalist mode of production characterised by
exploitation and alienation of the proletariat (workers) by
the bourgeoisie (owners of the means of production).
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Critical Theory
• A concern with modernist claims about the
possibilities of reason and knowledge.
• Concern with Ideology—how distorted accounts of
reality attempt to conceal and legitimate unequal
power/material relations (Marx’s ‘False
consciousness’).
• Unmasking the ‘roots’ of domination
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Critical Theory
Metatheoretical:
• Ontology: there is an objective reality independent of our
knowledge of it. It is driven by natural laws.
• Epistemology: subjectivist
–‘Knowing’ the ‘truth’ is ‘tainted’ by dominant ideology
and values of the those seeking ‘truth’.
–‘Nature cannot be seen as it ‘really is’ or ‘really works’
except through a value window’ (Guba, 1990: 24).
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Critical Theory
Theory
Focus: developing the intellectual ‘tools’ to
‘unmask’ the truth.
Goal: develop an appropriate political practice
to address the problems.
*linking knowledge and human emancipation
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Critical Theory
Method: Qualitative
–Inductive: a process of developing theory from
observation and interpretation.
–Reflexive
–Historical
–Discourse Analysis
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Critical Theory
‘Truth’:
–Capitalist organisations alienate and exploit workers.
–Human emancipation requires the establishment of a more
democratic and egalitarian organisation.
Observation & Questions:
–Why is it that organisational members submit to their own
‘exploitation’?
–‘Why do they work as hard as they do?’ (Burawoy, 1979).
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Critical Theory
Position:
– Organisational members have been co-opted
– Organisational members have been misled
Focus = Dominant Ideology
‘Unless you are willing to drench yourself in your work beyond the
capacity of the average man, you are just not cut out for positions at
the top’ (J.C. Penney, US retailer)
‘I do not know anyone who has gotten to the top without hard work.
That is the recipe. It will not always get you to the top, but it will get
you pretty near’ (Margaret Thatcher, former British PM).
‘I've always worked very, very hard, and the harder I worked, the
luckier I got’ (Alan Bond, Australian businessman, convicted of
fraud).
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Critical Theory
The Practical Implications:
–A more ‘critical’ analysis of dominant organisational ideas and
management practices.
‘critical theorists have shifted the image of management and the
theoretical agenda ‘from saviour to problem’’ (Crowther and
Green, 2004: 119).
–Raising the consciousness of organisational members:
‘If hard work were such a wonderful thing, surely the rich would have
kept it all to themselves’ (Lane Kirkland, former US trade union
leader).
–Work towards a more equal and democratic organisation.
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Multiple perspectives
Symbolic Interpretive
• Ontology: subjectivism- what is real is that which we
agree is real (i.e. that which is meaningful).
• Epistemology: interpretivism: truth is relative to time and
place and the individuals who are involved in constructing
meaning.
–Organisations are ‘meaningful’ and are
(re)constructed by their members through meaningful
interaction with one another.
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Multiple perspectives
Symbolic interpretive
• Theory: The goal is to arrive at context specific and
relative statements of the logic of organisational reality.
• Method: Qualitative (e.g. Ethnography)
–Inductive: a process of developing theory from
observation and interpretation.
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Symbolic interpretive
Social Constructionism:
• A social construct is an idea which may appear to be
natural and obvious to those who accept it, but in reality is
an invention of a particular culture or society.
• Reality is socially constructed through an ongoing and
dynamic process whereby people act on their
interpretations and knowledge about a given phenomena
and thereby reproduce that idea/notion/reality.
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Social Constructionism
The Social Construction of Reality (Berger and
Luckmann,1966):
• Influenced by Max Weber (1864-1920)
–Examined how ‘ideas’ and ‘values’ influence social and
organisational behaviour.
• The social world is negotiated, organised and reproduced
(i.e. constructed) by our interpretations of events, the
action of others and the symbols around us.
• The social world is ‘objectified’ through repeating past
behaviours and shared experience, understanding (i.e.
meaning) and interaction.
• Intersubjectivity: an individual’s internalisation and
interpretation of shared experience and meaning.
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Symbolic interpretive
Practical utility:
• Used to frame or interpret, perceptions of organisational
life.
• Highlights the fluid, diverse and subjective aspects of
organisational activity and decision-making.
• Makes us consider the ‘value’ ladenness of ‘facts’ that
organisations rely upon.
• To bring about organisational change requires ‘rewiring’
the minds of the ‘constructors’.
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Postmodernism
Metatheoretical:
• Ontology: there is not an objective reality independent of
our knowledge of it. Reality is an ‘illusion’ created through
language and discourse.
• Epistemology: interpretations of the ‘illusion’ are made
through conceptualisation/theorisation.
–Organisations are ‘imagined’ entities whereby power
and social arrangements are reinforced through
language.
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Postmodernism
Theory:
• Reject the distinction between ‘truth’ and ‘untruth’.
• What a person regards as ‘true’ is either a function of the
person’s point of view or is determined by what the person
is constrained to regard as ‘true’ by various complex social
and organisational pressures.
• Rejects rationality and the Enlightenment vision that human
freedom and emancipation can be achieved through the
application of reason and search for ultimate meaning.
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Postmodernism
• Seeks to ‘open’ up alternative interpretations (and
possibilities) of organisations and events surrounding
organisations.
• Built upon reflexivity: questioning the assumptions that
underlie our interpretation and ‘understanding’ of
organisations.
• Focuses on dominant language and discourse used to
‘explain’ organisations and how this constrains
organisations.
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Postmodernism
Method: The goal is to uncover multiple interpretations of
organisational ‘reality’.
–Discourse Analysis and Deconstruction.
*Deconstruction: the reading and rereading of texts using
different contexts and audiences as a way to uncover
multiple interpretations and meanings. A methodological
device to expose our ways of thinking and acting.
Used to ‘deconstruct’ the assumptions underlying
organisational forms and practices, management theory and
ideologies and their implications for power within
organisations.
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Postmodernism & Critique
Practical utility:
• Provides alternatives to established thinking which may
be constraining, harmful & unproductive.
• Makes ‘us’ question organisational knowledge, the
application of this knowledge (decision-making) and
organisational outcomes.
‘knowledge serves power by shaping the boundaries
of what may legitimately be thought and spoken in
organisational settings’ (Taylor, 2005: 126).
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