MN3201. Week 2. Guided reading.
Hassard J (1991). Multiple Paradigms and Organizational Analysis: A Case Study.
Summary of article.
Hassard’s (1991) article is useful to us for getting a grasp of social research paradigms. My summar y
applies a quite brisk and loose interpretation. This will help you complete this week’s small-group task.
As the final part of this week’s study (after the small-group task) you must read the original text in full,
and see whether you think I’ve done a fair job of summarising it. In work you submit later in the module,
you will likely want to reference Hassard directly, so you must become familiar with that text. This
summary document is not referenceable, but is stored on Turnitin.
First read this document on its own terms (with just a few glances at the original and a skim-read, to get
familiar with it), and do the small-group task. Then, read it again alongside the original full article, and
make a note of any problems or confusions you find.
For reference, where I have written NNTD it means ‘no need to dwell’. These are sections you can note,
but don’t need to spend a lot of time working on a deep understanding just at present.
I’ve used square brackets [..] to insert comments that I think will help you learn extra little things that
are not necessarily ‘in’ the original text. The ‘boxes’ 1-4 that summarise each paradigm are also from
me, not from Hassard.
Let’s begin.
P275.
This article introduces the idea of multiple paradigm research. It builds on earlier work (Burrell and
Morgan, 1979) that identified four paradigms in research on organisations (see the other materials on
paradigms and thought styles). It uses the UK Fire Service as a case-study to demonstrate the four
paradigms.
First it discusses Burrell and Morgan’s (hereafter B&M) model.
276.
The B&M model refers to 2 dimensions, which you can imagine like the x and y axes on a simple graph:
Y
X
On the X axis (horizontally) are subject-object debates.
This means we can think of organisations as being composed of individuals, so we are interested in the
subjective thoughts and understandings of those people;
or, we can think of organisations as structures that exist objectively, over and above the views of particular
individuals.
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[To understand this, think for a moment about yourself in relation to St Andrews University. You are a
member of the University, and without all its members, the University would not exist. And yet, it has
existed for 600 years and will continue after you and me have left, so it has enduring objective existence].
On the Y axis (vertically) are regulation-change debates.
This indicates our political approach. Do we see organisations as fulfilling social functions, so we want
to protect them and find ways to make them run smoothly? Then we are interested in regulation.
Do we see organisations as possibly dysfunctional, so we want to find ways to challenge and reorganise,
or even overthrow them? Then we are interested in change.
Change
Subjective
Objective
Regulation
This mapping creates four conceptual spaces, four approaches to research, four paradigms: functionalist,
interpretive, radical humanist, radical structuralist.
While B&M were mapping different research approaches to create this 4-type model, they identified
different kinds of assumptions that researchers make.
Within the (x-axis) subjective-objective dimension, B&M noticed that researchers made different
assumptions around:
Ontology. The ‘essence’ of phenomena. This means existence. How do things exist?
Things may really and simply exist in the world (realism), so we human subjects merely encounter and
perceive them, or ...
.. they may exist only insofar as people believe them to exist, and label them by name (nominalism, but
we will speak more usually of constructivism or constructionism in this module), ie. we somehow bring them
to exist, by asserting they do exist, talking about them, acting around them, believing in them, populating
them, etc.
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Epistemology. The ‘grounds of knowledge’. On what basis can we know things?
We may imagine that there are simple truths in the world, truths we can discover with high confidence
or certainty, by observing and measuring carefully (positivism), or ...
.. claims to know about the world may only make sense in relation to particular contexts, cultures and
values. Truth claims then are not absolutely but relatively coherent and persuasive, competing acts of
interpretation, claim and counter-claim (anti-positivism, interpretivism).
[Note – you will also hear of empiricism, meaning much the same as positivism]
Human being. What are human beings like, what is it like to be human?
Do human actors think and do things entirely because of the already-existing situations they find
themselves in, which they cannot control? (determinism), or ...
.. do they exercise free will, and therefore construct the world deliberately, collectively? (voluntarism)
[Note – you will also find this issue expressed in terms of structure and agency]
Methodology. How should we try to gather knowledge?
Should we look for generalities, like laws of nature that hold true irrespective of context? (nomothetic).
[These might make us feel secure, that we definitively ‘know’ the world]. Or ...
.. should we look for details, particularities, variations and possibilities, that may be unusual or unique?
(idiographic). [This might act as a challenge to our conceits of what we can ‘know’].
[NB. NNTD these italicised labels (nominalism, determinism, nomothetic, etc..) to start with. You will
encounter various technical terms in this module. The more important ones will come up repeatedly,
and you will come to know them well when you find them used in context.]
[Do notice, though, that the (y-axis) regulation-change dimension is more straightforward, doesn’t seem
at this point to require any more explanation. It makes a simple division between seeking knowledge
towards supporting social change, or knowledge towards conserving and maintaining the current social
order.]
277.
Some discussion of whether the four paradigms overlap with each other, or are truly separate. NNTD
just now while you grasp the characteristics of each paradigm on its own terms, but something to reflect
upon when you are doing this week’s task, and indeed throughout the module ....
Each of the four paradigms is next discussed, in turn.
Functionalist paradigm imagines that society, and social institutions, are ‘real’, ‘concrete’, ‘systematic’,
ordered, regular, behaving in uniform and predictable ways. It imagines a social science that like natural
science (which studies things like chemicals, planets, physical forces etc.), reaches for objectivity,
disconnection from values, ideals. It insists the world can be understood ‘simply as it is’, through
rigorous and careful scientific method. The knowledge produced through this paradigm is supposed to
be automatically and necessarily useful, because it is objective.
Interpretive paradigm imagines that society and social institutions are ordered, but not ordered from the
outside by universal, inevitable forces. Instead, the social world is ordered from the inside, constantly
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and actively produced by people through their actions and interactions. Researchers in this paradigm are
interested in the everyday actions and interpretations of people, as those people ‘construct’ the world.
Their actions and interpretations create the social world in an ongoing way, either to keep it the same,
or to subtly change it, little-by-little. In this paradigm, any claim to be objective is misleading. People
can only judge and interpret the world from the viewpoint of their unique position within it.
Radical humanist paradigm is also social constructionist: but rather than assume that the world is how it
is because people make it so (ie. so it must be right that it is that way), it asserts that people find
themselves in a constant struggle against structures that are accidental, unfair and unequal, that create
dissatisfaction and unhappiness, that are systematically oppressive for marginalised groups or for
everyone. It asserts that people can and do find ways to resist, to try to change the social order,
successfully or unsuccessfully. The social world is a collection of stories of people in a struggle to fulfil
their personal human potential.
Radical structuralist paradigm also looks towards change, and hopes that change is possible: but it does not
look to individual acts and understandings to bring about change. It sees people truly as prisoners of
social and material structures, forces that act from the outside to condition human lives. If change is to
be achieved, there must be structural transformation that transcends individuals. [For example, this
might take the form of changing political systems, or the re-organisation of a culture by gender or
ability/disability or race, or a change in the material conditions of living, or a change in conditions of
health/illness that affects everyone ...]. This change is brought about through tensions, contradictions
and conflict, symbolic or actual contestation and violence.
278.
Next, Hassard outlines a plan for doing research in multiple paradigms, by choosing a case-study topic
(the Fire Service), and studying it in four different ways.
[Notably, Hassard mentions the idea of a ‘theory community’ – suggesting perhaps that each paradigm
is associated with a community of people who are accustomed to view the world, and research the world,
in a particular way. Reminiscent of Fleck’s ideas of ‘thought style’ and ‘thought collective’, that we will
come across through the module.]
Where Hassard says he sought to ‘bracket phenomenologically the assumptions of other paradigms’, he
means he immersed himself in each paradigm in turn and excluded the others from his thoughts, to
achieve an ‘authentic’ account from each paradigm. [Incidentally, this gives us a hint about his own
disciplinary background in anthropology – something NNTD just now].
[A paradigm incorporates various theories that offer different accounts of the social world. You can think
of theories within a paradigm as all supporting that paradigm, but differing from each other over the
research questions they pose, and the details of causes and effects.]
Within each paradigm, Hassard identified a theoretical approach to work with. NNTD on this to begin
with, merely note that the theories he selects are:
Functionalism: systems theory
Interpretive paradigm: phenomenology
Radical humanist: critical theory
Radical structuralist: Marxian structuralism
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279. Hassard found that each paradigm led him to address different aspects of the organisation (Fire
Service).
[Note, this is entirely expected under Kuhn’s (1962) understanding of a scientific paradigm. A paradigm
does not just offer answers to pre-set questions, but rather, identifies what the important questions are,
and defines ways of answering them. Hence a ‘paradigm shift’ does not just bring about new answers to
familiar questions – it changes the questions as well, leading to a new stable culture of puzzle-solving.
You don’t need to know much more about this just now, but lodge it in your brain for reference.]
Next, Hassard identified a topic appropriate to each paradigm, as follows:
Functionalism: job motivation
Interpretivism: work routines
Radical humanist: management training
Radical structuralist: employment relations
Hassard invokes an idea of pragmatism to account for the approach he took, NNTD on these details of
method, as he will reflect further on it later, in the conclusion. Next, he discusses each paradigmatic case
in turn.
280. Functionalism.
There are various theories that sit within a functionalist paradigm, but Hassard chose systems theory to
work with, as that is a dominant theory for this kind of research.
It aims to define law-like relationships between (things like) organisation structure, workforce
motivation, organisational performance, rate of output, and so on.
In this paradigm, Hassard draws on another theoretical idea – the Job Characteristics Model – and uses
a survey method to collect data.
281.
There is a diagram of the Job Characteristics Model – NNTD, but note it is basically interested in
motivation, job satisfaction and effectiveness of workers. All hallmarks of a functionalist approach, as they
are oriented towards measuring how well the organisation functions.
Hassard outlines his method for this part of the study. He administered surveys of three purposefullychosen groups amongst the population of firemen. (You can read this bit in the original, the details are
clear. As a statement of method, it is straightforward.)
282-284.
Next there is an account of statistical analysis and comparison with another study. Hassard notes some
statistically significant differences between the populations. Have a look at this in the original but NNTD
too long as his findings are marginally important to us just now.
285.
Here Hassard makes some interpretations of the survey results, as to what they tell about the organisation
and the feelings of workers.
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In the final section of p285, Hassard reflects on the functionalist study being ‘realist, positivist,
determinist and nomothetic’. Refer back to these terms as introduced earlier, and check this makes sense
to you. This research:
- looks to establish facts;
- uses statistical tests, like natural-scientific method (ie. like studying the properties of objects, or
particles);
- seeks knowledge that is valid, reliable, generalisable (ie. comparable across contexts);
- is oriented towards achieving and enhancing functional success;
- seems to be free of social values and politics, by attempting to report neutrally upon demonstrable
facts;
- is quasi-experimental (ie. meaning it has an experimental form, but the study subjects are not
randomised into groups to start with, they are surveyed within the groups they are already in). NNTD,
this will come clear later in the module, when we study quantitative methods.
Box 1. How would you recognise research in the functionalist style?
- it is adherent to scientism – attempting to follow and reproduce a method thought to be naturalscientific, likely applying some kind of experiment;
- it is supposed to provide objectivity, facts, truths that apply irrespective of context, or can be
compared across contexts;
- it may be interested in people’s thoughts/feelings/wellbeing, but usually in relation to
organisational success and productivity, rather than as ends-in-themselves;
- there is an assumption that changing the conditions of an organisation causes changes in how people
behave, eg. so they will work more productively;
- the implicit values of the study are to protect, strengthen, and regulate the extant social order.
286.
Interpretivism.
In this part of the study, the researcher spoke to firemen and recorded their ‘speech, gestures and actions’
to ‘understand the essence of their work’. Participants are taken to be experts in the work that they do.
Presuppositions and pre-judgements on behalf of the researcher are excluded, in order to let the
participants (firemen) speak for themselves and on their own terms, as people who make sense of their
own social world, actions and routines.
Hassard uses the term ‘inductive’ to indicate his attempt to ‘bracket off’ his own preconceptions, and
not impose any kind of theory or external sense-making from his own perspective upon the firemen’s
accounts. He trusts that sense and insight will come directly from the firemen’s descriptions of their
work.
Analysing the firemen’s accounts, Hassard characterises their working routines by the ideas of
uncertainty, instability, and the task of making the day run smoothly.
287-288.
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He uses direct quotes to convey the content of firemen’s narratives of what they do in their workplace.
There is an account given of a management relationship (between station officer and divisional officer)
that conditions the nature of routine work, as the day has to be made ‘acceptable’ and ‘kept going’. More
quotes are used to illustrate this.
[Note how Hassard describes this participant-observer method as ethnography. This is a term for your
glossaries, look out for it recurring as we go through the module. Also he refers again to phenomenology
– this is a philosophical term meaning experience of the world through first-person perception and
consciousness. NNTD, just note this for now.]
Finishing this section are some insights about identity work, personality displays, hierarchical behaviours,
unspoken codes of conduct, expectations and strategies for acting, that carry meaning. This is a rich
micro-sociological (ie. small-scale, interested in detail) account of this social world, populated by
individuals who continually invest it with meaning, interpret it, make sense of it, bring it alive.
More quotes illustrate.
Reflecting on the interpretive paradigm, Hassard notes that it finds explanations that are nominalist, antipositivist, voluntarist and ideographic, in stark contrast to the functionalist paradigm. Again, check this
makes sense to you.
He talks about a ‘life-world of social construction’ (referencing Schutz, another anthropologist) and rulecreation that indexes ‘a contextual system of meaning’ (referencing Garfinkel, an ethnomethodologist),
implying that the workers actively create this system of meaning themselves. The key idea is that the
organisation is created and maintained through ‘a continuous process of enactment’, ie. people doing
things and making meaning as they go.
Box 2. How would you recognise research in the interpretivist style?
- it does not attempt to imitate or emulate natural science, as it is interested in individual people as
active agents constructing reality;
- it is highly context-specific, not concerned with testing generalisations, but could lead towards the
building of theory as enhanced understanding;
- it is intensely interested in people’s thoughts/feelings/wellbeing, as ends-in-themselves and causes
of organisational culture;
- there is an assumption that changes in how people behave would cause the nature of the
organisation to change;
- the implicit values of the study are that the extant social order will naturally regulate, protect and
strengthen itself.
289.
Radical humanism.
Hassard notes that this paradigm is less well developed by B&M, and owes a fair bit to continental
traditions (French existentialism, Frankfurt school – NNTD).
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There’s a section making a connection to critical theory and Gramsci (NNTD again). The idea of a
‘frontier of control’ suggests a space of conflict and coercion, where ‘administrative science’ is used to
train/force workers to behave in ways advantageous to organisations, not necessarily comfortable for
themselves or serving their own interests. This links to ‘capitalist ideology’, the idea of a dominant way
of thinking and set of values that overrides the interests of individuals caught within the system. This
connects also to an idea of class: ‘middle class careers’ attained through managerialism, setting up a
dynamic of conflict between those in positions of relative power (middle class), and those who must
follow orders, relatively disempowered (working class).
Fieldwork for this part of the study was an analysis of training courses designed to prepare firemen for
promotion to managerial posts. Again, the approach to data-gathering is ethnographic (ie. the researcher
participated themselves, as well as talking to people involved).
290. There is talk of the organisation ‘keeping tight control’ and imposing ‘constraints and conditions’
on the experiences of employees.
Quotes are used to illustrate.
Discussion of technologies and theorisations that are used towards maintaining organisational control
(and an interesting comparison with military organisations). The idea of ‘loyalty’ is explicit – promoted
firemen are expected to be loyal to the organisation, rather than to other firemen who they work
alongside. Underlying this emotional shift in loyalty is a ‘logic’ of allegiance to the command structure.
Illustrative quote, in which the language points towards problems, conflict, unfairness, disquiet.
291. More quotes illustrating the explicit, direct nature of establishing a doctrine of command, led by
considerations of rank, hierarchy, and people following their own rules and instincts, which may conflict
with the ‘guidelines’ of the organisation.
Note again the use of the term ‘hegemony’ which means domination by a social group over others,
and/or a set of one ideas and beliefs over others (closely related to ‘ideology’ – NNTD).
Reflecting on this part of the study Hassard notes that it is once again nominalist, anti-positivist,
voluntarist and ideographic (check this all makes sense to you), but unlike the interpretive paradigm, it
has a political commitment to exposing the limitations and shortcomings of existing social arrangements
and structures. The phrase ‘false consciousness between the known self and the true self’ is crucial here.
Powerful structures are created by people, but they are also experienced by people as alienating,
oppressive, constraining human expression, unsatisfactory and in need of challenge. People (especially
those in lower social positions) find themselves needing to resist, disrupt and subvert norms that are
taken-for-granted as being common sense.
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Box 3. How would you recognise research in the radical humanist style?
- it does not attempt to imitate or emulate natural science, as it is interested in individual people
whose agency and activity conflicts with social structures;
- it is highly context-specific, not concerned with testing generalisations, but always interested in
power, resistance and the development of theory to enhance understanding;
- it is intensely interested in people’s thoughts/feelings/wellbeing, always in discord with the
demands of organisational strictures and structures;
- there is an assumption that people’s needs are at odds with the goals of organisations and
structures, and exploration of how people respond to factors beyond control;
- the implicit values of the study are to unsettle and criticise the extant social order.
292.
Radical structuralism.
Hassard introduces this section by making links to Marxist thinkers, and also the tradition after Max
Weber (who you have heard of if you’ve studied sociology, iron cage, bureaucracy etc. – NNTD), and
some other people as authorities on labour-process analysis.
293. The key point of interest is the ‘struggle for a normal working day’ – the amount of time people
are contracted and obliged to work. There is a history here of trade unions in endeavours to protect
working conditions, and managers/governments in endeavours to increase demands of the workforce.
Hassard gives a historical narrative of this.
In the context of the Fire Service, working hours are not so much at issue, but issues of ‘productivity’
have come to the fore, ie. not just time spent at work, but how this time is occupied. There is a conflict
over work designated as ‘unskilled’ and work designated as ‘skilled’. ‘Unskilled’ work would be
devolved to workers payed at lower rates, so that classifying work as unskilled saves the organisation
money. Further, there is conflict over the times of day that firemen are expected to be available.
Measures are put in place to strengthen managerial control, and raise expectations of workload.
294. Underlying these struggles are the conception of firefighting work as ‘unproductive’ (ie. non-profitmaking), and employers always aiming to spend less and gain more. The result is an ‘intensification of
labour’, demanding the completion of more highly skilled work within the same time span.
Hassard reflects that this paradigm utilises a realist perspective, where structural conflicts are understood
as facts. The ‘strategic relations between capital and labour’ (ie. between money and people) are laid
bare. This approach is interested in crisis points (eg. strikes, industrial action), and interested in attempts
to restore equilibrium by patching-over the mechanisms of conflict. The basic state of an (unjust) system
is not functionality, but systematic conflict, more or less well disguised.
It is realist, positivist, determinist and nomothetic.
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Box 4. How would you recognise research in the radical structuralist style?
- it has commonalities with the scientific method, often based on observation of objective social
structures and the conditions they create for managers, workers, other stakeholders;
- it is concerned with generalisations about social structures and the conditions they create, less for
individuals and more for groups (or classes) of people, outside of specific contexts;
- it is somewhat interested in people’s thoughts/feelings/wellbeing, but these may be secondary to
systematic conditions and organisational strategies;
- there is an assumption that people’s behaviours reflect the positions they occupy within the extant
social order;
- the implicit values of the study are to unsettle and criticise the extant social order.
Conclusions.
In closing, Hassard reflects upon how different frameworks of understanding and investigation (different
paradigms) yield different understandings of organisations. He uses the word ‘incommensurable’ to
indicate that the four paradigms are substantially different (so perhaps one cannot judge research in one
paradigm from the perspective of another paradigm). [Again, this harks back to Kuhn’s original
understanding of historical paradigms in science as being incommensurable with each other].
It will be worth your while reading this section carefully, once you have completed the small-group task.
295-6.
There are some interesting ethical issues mentioned in the last pages. Not immediately relevant, but do
read these and seed them in your brain for now. Ethics is something you will think about more in
Research Methods 2.
There are also some interesting points made about pragmatism, methodological freedom, order of
research, etc. NNTD this but do note the use again of ‘micro and macro levels of analysis’, meaning
studying organisations and social life at small, interactional scale (micro) or at large scale (macro).
BR, Sep 2020.
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