ORGANIZATION jWsiKe) hee eeHO34 Oxy. ‘UNIVERSITY PRESS Great Clarendon Street, Oxford ox2 60° Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. Ie furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide in Oxford New York Auckland Bangkok Buenos Aires Cape Town Chennai Dares Salaam Delhi Hong Kong Istanbul Karachi Kolkata Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Mumbai Nairobi Sao Paulo Shanghai Taipei Tokyo Toronto Oxford isa registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries Published in the United States by Oxford University Press Inc., New York © Oxford University Press, 2003 ‘The moral rights of the authors have been asserted Database right Oxford University Press (maker) First published 2003 All rights reserved. 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Oxford University Press HD O94 2003 3023'5—dexa_—- 2002035573 ISBN 0-19-925832-5 13579108642 ‘Typeset by Kolam Information Services Pvt. Ltd., Pondicherry, India Printed in Great Britain on acid-free paper by TJ. International Ltd., Padstow, Cornwall 332996 HD31,094 ‘METU LIBRARY. ‘The Oxford handbook of organization i 02021! BIR IG fy inet 2 2 N e a N For Efi ‘a madness most discreet / A choking gall, and a preserving sweet HT.ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ‘The idea for this handbook came initially from David Musson, the Business and Management Editor at Oxford University Press. In July 1999, at the 15th EGOS Colloquium, University of Warwick, Haridimos Tsoukas was an organizer (with Jean-Claude Thoenig) of one of the streams of the Colloquium, entitled ‘Organiza- tion Theory as Science: Prospects and Limitations’, in which Christian Knudsen presented a paper. David liked the topic of the stream as well as several of the papers presented and suggested that we edit an Oxford Handbook on Organization Theory with an explicitly meta-theoretical focus. Since both of us had been individually (and jointly) researching meta-theoretical issues in OT for several years, we were more than delighted to have this marvellous opportunity to put together a number of high-quality contributions by some of the field’s most distinguished academics. We would like to thank David Musson for this opportunity. Without his stimu- lating encouragement and keen eye for spotting interesting debates in management and business studies, this volume probably would not have been produced. We would also like to thank his team at the Oxford University Press for their profes- sionalism, especially Lynn Childress for her thorough and meticulous copyediting. Last, but not least, we would like to express our gratitude to the contributors to this volume for the enthusiasm with which they embraced the idea of the present handbook, and their energy and patience in going through seemingly endless rounds of commentaries and revisions. This volume is what it is thanks to their high standards of scholarship and their passion for reflective dialogue. Thank you all. Haridimos Tsoukas and Christian Knudsen e we + CONTENTS List of Figures List of Tables List of Contributors Introduction: The Need for Meta-theoretical Reflection in Organization Theory Haripimos TsouKAs AND CHRISTIAN KNUDSEN PART I ORGANIZATION THEORY AS SCIENCE . Organization Theory as a Positive Science Lex DonaLDson . Organization Theory as an Interpretive Science Mary Jo Hatcu anp Dvora Yanow . Organization Theory as a Critical Science? Forms of Analysis and ‘New Organizational Forms’ Huex Wittmort Organization Theory as a Postmodern Science Rosert Cuia xi 39 63 88 3viii CONTENTS a ~ 10. nL 12. PART II THE CONSTRUCTION OF ORGANIZATION THEORY The Origins of Organization Theory Wit1aM H. Starsuck The Historical and Epistemological Foundations of Organization Theory: Fusing Sociological Theory with Engineering Discourse YEHOUDA SHENHAV Feminist Theory and Organization Theory: A Dialogue on New Bases SttviA GHERARDI . The Styles and the Stylists of Organization Theory BARBARA CZARNIAWSKA . Pluralism, Scientific Progress, and the Structure of Organization Theory Curistian Knupsen PART III META-THEORETICAL CONTROVERSIES IN ORGANIZATION THEORY The Agency/Structure Dilemma in Organization Theory: Open Doors and Brick Walls Micuazt REED Modes of Explanation in Organization Theory ANDREAS GEORG SCHERER Micro and Macro Perspectives in Organization Theory: A Tale of Incommensurability WiittaM McKiniey AND Mark A. Mong 143 183 210 237 262 289 310 345 13. 14. 15. 16. yy. 18. 19. 20. ° CONTENTS ix Economic versus Sociological Approaches : to Organization Theory 373 RICHARD SWEDBERG Meta-theoretical Controversies in Studying Organizational Culture 392 Joanne Martin PART IV ORGANIZATION THEORY AS A POLICY SCIENCE Actionable Knowledge 423, Curis ARGYRIS Theory and Practice in the Real World 453 Kart E. WEIcK Organization Theory and Ethics: Varieties and Dynamics of Constrained Optimization 476 Ricnarp P. NiELsEN Character and Virtue in an Era of Turbulent Capitalism 502 Tain MaANGHAM PART V THE FUTURE OF ORGANIZATION THEORY The Future of Organization Theory: Prospects and Limitations 525 Gipson BurrgELL Managing Organization Futures in a Changing World of Power/Knowledge 536 Stewart CLEGGx CONTENTS 21, The Future of Organization Studies: Beyond the Selection-Adaptation Debate Ariz Y. Lewin anv HENK W. VoLBERDA 22. At Home from Mars to Somalia: Recounting Organization Studies Marra B. Cards anp LinpA SMIRCICH 23. New Times, Fresh Challenges: Reflections on the Past and the Future of Organization Theory Haripimos Tsouxas Index 568 596 607 623 on 0.2 94 9.2 ma 1.2 13 4 1541 152 53 15.4 FIGURES What meta-theoretical reflection is about Social research as a practical activity Reputational organizations in the social sciences The specialization vs. the fragmentation trap The relationship between philosophy of science, organization theory, and organizational practice Deductive-nomological explanation Hempelian models of explanation Macro- and micro-level interrelations Model I theory-in-use Model II theory-in-use The action cycle The action and sub-routine cycle 274 282 313 315 316 330 439 47 4483a Ja 72 34 16.1 ya 211 21.2 TABLES Habermas’s three knowledge-constitutive interests A summary of feminist approaches The ‘woman’s standpoint’ approach compared to the ‘positionality’ approach The economic vs. the sociological view of organizations Mindsets associated with concrete and abstract systems Perspectives on organization theory and ethics Single-lens theories informing selection-adaptation discourse Antecedents of coevolution 95 215, 221 385 456 478 577 580 List oF CONTRIBUTORS Chris Argyris is the James Bryant Conant Professor Emeritus, Harvard University. His books include Overcoming Organizational Defenses (1990), Knowledge for Action (1993), Flawed Advice (2000), Theory in Practice (1994), and Organizational Learn- ing II (1996), both with Donald Schén, and Action Science (1985) with Diana Smith and Robert Putnam, Gibson Burrell is Professor of Organization Theory at the University of Essex, UK, having previously been at the Universities of Warwick and Lancaster. He is Editor of the journal Organization. Over many long years he has published a small number of books, edited collections, and articles. Some of this material has even been read. He is currently working on a co-authored book entitled Architecture, Space and Organ- ization. email: gibsonb@essex.ac.uk Marta B. Calas is Associate Professor of Organization Studies and International Management at the Isenberg School of Management of the University of Massa- chusetts-Amherst. She was born in Cuba and has lived and done academic and scholarly work in several countries. She teaches International Management, Organ- ization Theory, and a doctoral seminar in Conceptual Foundations of Organization Studies. Her earlier scholarly writing centered on cross-cultural organizational behavior, but in recent years she has been pursuing cultural and critical perspectives on organization and management. Her various publications, often co-authored with Linda Smircich, apply insights from cultural studies, postmodern, feminist, and post-colonial theorizing to interrogate organizational topics such as leadership, business ethics, and globalization. She is co-editor of the international, interdiscip- linary journal Organization, along with Gibson Burrell, Mike Reed, and Linda Smircich. email: marta@mgmt.umass.edu Robert Chia is Professor of Strategy and Organization at the School of Business and Economics, University of Exeter. He is the author of several books and journal articles on Organization Theory and Management and has presented conference papers at the American Academy of Management, the British Academy of Manage- ment, as well as other international conferences in Management and Organization Studies. Prior to entering academia, he worked for sixteen years in aircraft main- tenance engineering, manufacturing management, and human resource manage- ment and was Group Human Resource Manager of Metal Box Asia Pacific based in