Paradigms Regained:

Theorizing the Contemporary Status of Management and Organization Studies

Professor John Hassard

Manchester Business School, Manchester, UK

Email: john.hassard@mbc.ac.uk

Professor Julie Wolfram Cox

Monash University, Caulfield, Australia

Email: julie.wolfram.cox@monash.edu

Paper Submission, Australia and New Zealand Academy of Management (ANZAM)

Conference, Critical Management Studies Stream,

Wellington, New Zealand, December 7-9, 2011

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Paradigms Regained:

Theorizing the Contemporary Status of Management and Organization Studies

ABSTRACT: We rethink the Burrell and Morgan legacy by regaining (reclaiming and updating) the

paradigm concept for interpreting and developing theoretical and empirical orientations in

management and organization studies. A meta-theoretical model is developed to explain relations

between structural, anti-structural, and post-structural paradigms. The model accounts not only for

characteristics of ontology, epistemology, human nature and methodology but also for each

paradigm's orientation to politics and ideology. Particular attention is paid to the contribution of the

model for locating debates within the broad domain of Critical Management Studies.

Key Words: Critical research philosophies and methods

In this paper we aim to achieve two objectives: first, to outline the meta-theoretical

assumptions underpinning the major paradigms of contemporary Management and Organization

Studies (MOS); and second, to assess these paradigms in terms of their political and ideological

orientations. In doing so we present a meta-theoretical model of three research paradigms - structural,

anti-structural and post-structural – that contributes toward clearer articulation of the variety of

assumptions underlying both normative and critical research in organizations. In particular we

suggest that regaining the Burrell and Morgan (1979) legacy helps to locate and clarify several

debates that have been included within the broad domain of Critical Management Studies (CMS)i.

It is over 30 years since Burrell and Morgan (1979) produced their celebrated two-

dimensional model for understanding the major paradigms or alternative assumptions underlying

social and organizational theory, viz. functionalist, interpretive, radical humanist and radical

structuralist. Since then the world of organizational analysis has moved on significantly and their

notion of paradigm has been relegated to a much-respected comparison point from which theory has

now advanced. In particular, "subjective-objective" and "radical change-regulation", the principal

dualisms identified by Burrell and Morgan and a wealth of other social theorists have been joined not

only by attempts to reconcile them - under, for example, structuration theory (after Giddens, 1984;

e.g. Weaver & Gioia, 1994) - but also, more notably, by the articulation of a different order of

analysis, in the name of post-structuralism and more broadly postmodernism.

In social theory this postmodern turn has represented an analytical approach drawing

reference to notions such as decentring, deconstruction, reflexivity and simulation. It is an intellectual

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movement whose research characteristics stand in stark contrast to traditional sociological

perspectives of structure and agency. In recent decades there have been many attempts to account for

this new order within organization theoryii but a model for explaining the structure and content of

these major analytical orders as new “paradigms” remains lacking. The appeal of the Burrell and

Morgan matrix was that it gave readers a basic guide to exploring the complex terrain of MOS, their

model providing a convincing explanation of the location of theory and research in two-dimensional

space. With developments in post-structuralism, similar attempts to define the contemporary order of

MOS virtually came to a halt (e.g., Tsoukas & Knudsen, 2003) asresearch characteristics of post-

structuralism could not seemingly be accounted for through deploying sociological dualisms as the

basis for analysis. Contributions to post-structuralism and postmodernism appeared to be premised

not on the use but the interrogation of the binary oppositions.

This notwithstanding, there have been notable attempts within MOS to “rethink the Burrell

and Morgan legacy” (Deetz, 1996; see also Alvesson and Deetz, 1996; Cunliffe, 2010), although not

in the direction of paradigm construction. In contrast, we offer a robust framework for explaining the

intellectual constitution of research approaches in MOS. We do so in order to improve the

accessibility of these approaches to MOS students and to facilitate conversations with interested

scholars whose primary identifications lie within related traditions of the Academy (cf. Burrell, 2003).

Above all, we wish to exploit the benefits for MOS research from "developing theories building upon

multiple lenses" (Okhuysen & Bonardi, 2011: 6). We seek to account not only for the well

documented meta-theoretical assumptions of structural and agentic theorizing - which in terms of the

volume of science practiced we refer to as the first and second orders of analysis respectively - but

also and more importantly for MOS to incorporate the less meta-theoretically documented third order

that includes both linguistic post-structuralism and epistemological postmodernism. In short, we

synthesize into an integrated meta-theoretical model what previously have been characteristically

discrete attempts to account for the main theory orders of MOS (e.g., Chia, 2003; Donaldson, 2003;

Hatch & Yanow, 2003; Willmott, 2003)

To provide a sense of terminological correspondence when analyzing paradigm orders in

MOS, we will differentiate these paradigm orders around a single concept - structure. We do so in a

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manner similar to how Gioia and Pitre (1990: 588) deployed "the general concept of structure as a

running theme" in their analysis of multi-paradigm perspectives in theory building. In our model, the

concept of structure is defined, for example, in the first order of analysis as stable and objective, in the

second as unstable and socially constructed, and in the third as destabilized and decentred. Our

review of contemporary MOS is directed, therefore, at what we perceive to be contributions

corresponding to “structural”, “anti-structural” and “post-structural” analysis in recent decades. These

orders represent ostensibly similar intellectual terrain to what elsewhere might be defined as

functionalist, interpretive, and postmodern respectively. In terms of theory and method, it is the meta-

theoretical definition and comparison of these orders, or paradigms to which we shall refer to them.

Locating the (Retro) Argument

In terms of its own paradigmatic location, the argument made here is straightforwardly

structuralist, functionalist and modernist; it concerns primarily the potential for constructing rather

than deconstructing theory and method. We simply regain (reclaim and update) the paradigm

concept: to respect the importance of foundational works as well as to challenge and clarify existing

theory (cf. LePine & Wilcox-King, 2010). In doing so, we hope to assist researchers in understanding

a range of theoretical and methodological positions and to speculate on how they can be used

pluralistically in field investigations (see also Newton, 2010). As such ours is a modest, even

conservative, project (cf. Burrell, 1997) and one that differs from those that would weaken or even

collapse ontological and epistemological distinctions (see Cunliffe, 2003) or cultivate the more

complex logics of problematization (Locke & Golden-Biddle, 1997; Sandberg & Alvesson, 2011).

Paradigms as Meta-theoretical Communities

While Burrell and Morgan invoked a specific use of the term paradigm, their model did not

directly rehearse any of Kuhn's (1962) original uses in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions of the

term paradigm; nor indeed any of those inferred subsequently by his “critics” (Jackson & Carter,

2008; Kilduff, Mehra & Dunn, 2011; Lakatos and Musgrave, 1970; Masterman, 1970). Our argument

adheres more closely, but not exclusively, to a Kuhnian perspective as the focus of our enquiry is on

scientific communities that share a repertoire of basic characteristics in respect of their social science

philosophies and practices. In turn, the evidence that is generated from a community's “normal”

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scientific investigations reflects the meta-theoretical assumptions of the academic community in

question. As will be seen, deploying the notion of paradigm to reflect the main disciplinary matrices

of organization theory is a far more sociological and cultural use of the term than in Burrell and

Morgan (cf. Deetz, 1996).

As depicted in Figure 1, we characterize paradigms as substantive fields of academic

influence that are not separated by solid intellectual barriers but are instead merely circumscribed by

indeterminate “edgelands” (Farley & Symmons Roberts, 2011; Rapport, Wainwright & Elwyn, 2005;

Shoard, 2002). As their various academic meta-languages are, for the most part, translatable in the

process of doing "boundary-work” (Willmott, 1993), social science paradigms are thus perceived to

be incompatible rather than incommensurable phenomena. Our description of a triumvirate of major

MOS communities sees paradigms more in “essential tension” (Kuhn, 1977) with one another than

engaged in wars on two fronts (see Mir & Mir, 2002; Pfeffer, 1997). To borrow a geological analogy,

the tensional forces between academic paradigms can be both convergent and divergent (Wegener,

1968); whereas the meta-theoretical geography may remain relatively stable, resident research

communities may move, expand or contract over time.

---------------------------------

Insert Figure 1 about here

---------------------------------

Our first, second, and third order paradigms can, therefore, be perceived as variously stable,

unstable and even destabilizing phenomena. They can be conceptualized, metaphorically, as

communal fields that are encompassed by marginal, contested terrain in which we find the potential

for intellectual "overlap and complementarity, as well as sites of contradiction" (Okhuysen and

Bonardi, 2011: 6; see also Boisot & McKelvey, 2010; Gioia & Pitre, 1990; Reed, 1996). By way of a

basic relational metaphor, Figure 1 suggests that despite a range of internal debates, the majority of

paradigm research is undertaken under conditions of ontological and epistemological stability (see

Gouldner, 1970). In Kuhnian terms, this corresponds to “normal science”, in that theory and method

remain predominantly uncontaminated by the alternative philosophical influences of other paradigms

(e.g., see Gieryn, 1983; Grey, 2007; Zietsma & Lawrence, 2010).

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ASSUMPTIONS ABOUT THE NATURE OF SOCIAL SCIENCE

We now compare the main assumptions of our paradigms on the dimensions specified by

Burrell and Morgan for analyzing “assumptions about the nature of social science”; that is key

dimensions for understanding research orientations in social science - ontology, epistemology, human

nature and methodology (see Table 1). As the social scientific characteristics of our structural and

anti-structural paradigms share common ground respectively with the objectivist and subjectivist

approaches to social science outlined in Burrell and Morgan (1979: 1-9) we will not rehearse them

here (see also the kindred differentiation of modern and symbolic perspectives in Hatch, 1997; Hatch

with Cunliffe, 2006; albeit the body of anti-structural theory is more restricted) . Suffice it to say that

apart from some secondary changes to the terminology deployed by Burrell and Morgan - that is,

replacing nomothetic with deductive; idiographic with interpretive; and anti-positivist with

constructionist - to reflect the representative processes by which different types of theory and research

are developed within each community, these twin paradigm orientations remain intact in terms of their

basic definition in the original thesis. As such, we will restrict ourselves to defining and examining

the characteristics of the paradigm not addressed in Burrell and Morgan, that of post-structural and

postmodern MOS research.

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Insert Table 1 about here

--------------------------------

As with the original Burrell and Morgan model, the argument advanced here is that theories

of management and organization inherently reflect a "philosophy of science" and a "theory of society"

(Burrell & Morgan, 1979: 1). We will turn to the latter in due course, but for the former our argument

is that research in MOS that adopts a broadly postmodern approach can be characterized as

ontologically relativist, epistemologically relationist, and methodologically reflexive; it is also work

that, in decentring human agency, is deconstructionist in its approach to human nature.

For example, the approach which most readily reflects such characteristics, and which has

received a wealth of attention in the MOS literature over the last decade, is actor-network theory

(ANT) (see Alcadipani & Hassard, 2010; Hardy, Phillips & Clegg, 2001; Hull, 1999; Law, 1994;

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Newton, 2002; Whittle & Spicer, 2008). This is a particularly appropriate approach to follow given

the suggestion by Calás and Smircich (1999) that ANT has the potential to deliver MOS “past

postmodernism”. In our view, much MOS research drawing on ANT reflects qualities of ontological

relativism, epistemological relationism and methodological reflexivity; also in terms of human nature

and agency it represents an analytical perspective in which the “subject” is decentered as the locus of

understanding (Alcadipani & Hassard, 2010; Hardy, Phillips & Clegg, 2001; Law, 1994; Newton,

2002).

Ontology. The first of the Burrell and Morgan dimensions for assessing the philosophy of

science is that of ontology, or the theory of being. In debates on post-structuralism and

postmodernism, the ontological position that is most readily inferred is that of relativism. Although,

philosophically, third order approaches often express agnosticism about the “nature of reality” and

prefer to make epistemological rather than ontological claims, nevertheless, the concept of relativism

is of heuristic value in that it helps us to differentiate the metaphysics of a post-structural order from

those realist and nominalist ontologies that characterize, respectively, structural and anti-structural

analysis. In other words, relativism is expedient in that it sunders post-structuralism and

postmodernism from notions of objective truth and subjective meaning, with the work of Michel

Foucault being an exemplar in this respect. It can be argued, further, that literary deconstruction is

particularly ontologically relativist, given that it locates the meaning of texts in their appropriation and

reading, thus implying that there is “no true reading of a text” and “no text apart from its reading”.

When we consider the nature and role of actants (human and non-human actors) in an actor-

network, we assume they take the shape they do by virtue of their relative interactions with

one another (Latour, 1987).

Epistemology. In terms of Burrell and Morgan's second dimension, epistemology, or the

theory of knowledge, although third order perspectives can also be accounted for under a similar

banner of relativism, we feel a specific form of relativism is expedient in this respect: relationism. In

its sociological sense, relationism is the theory that there are only relations between individual

entities, and no intrinsic properties. Given its focus on the contextual mapping and analysis of social

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and technical relations, our exemplar, ANT, reflects many of the qualities of relationism expressed in

Karl Mannheim’s pioneering views in the sociology of knowledge. In his most famous work,

Ideology and Utopia (1936), Mannheim followed Scheler (1924) in arguing for a conception of

ideology that accounts for actors' beliefs, including the social scientist's, as a relational product of the

context in which they are created. In brief, Mannheim's relationist epistemology suggests that the

recognition of different perspectives according to differences in time and location appears arbitrary

only to an abstract and disembodied theory of knowledge.

Human Nature. The third Burrell and Morgan dimension, human nature, is arguably a

compelling one for post-structural analysis, for under this order there is no unified rational subject to

know and no permanent understanding of what human nature - determined, voluntary, or otherwise -

actually is (see Butler, 1990, 1997). From this view, much first and second order theorizing is

charged with reflecting the "infinitist metaphysics" (Derrida, 1976: 71) of logocentric philosophies, in

which human agency is founded on a core of awareness and actions are coordinated from a knowing

self, the agent acting within the context of its own dynamic presence. Under logocentrism the human

subject is treated as either a (structural) cognitive marionette or an (anti-structural) agent of cognitive

choice.

For postmodernism, however, the logocentric subject of modern psychology becomes an

image that is not sustainable. The grand isolation of the subject is replaced by the notion of agency as

a series of transient relations between networked phenomena. The subject is no longer unified and

bounded but instead a convenient location for the throughput of discourses. Much post-structural

theorizing suggests that agentic presence is always mediated by absence and thus that consciousness

is never direct and unmediated but comes to us in an indirect way. From this perspective agency is an

artifact and subjectivity a process of locating identity in the language of the "other" (Cooper, 1983).

Rather than responding mechanistically to the external environment - as per determinism - or being at

the centre stage of free will - as per voluntarism - in our analytical third order the human subject is

instead relationally decentred as the locus of understanding, thus reflecting a deconstructionist

position. Post-structural research based on field investigations has frequently examined organization

from this deconstructionist view of human agency, in which the social and technical are constituted

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relationally through simultaneous symbolic and material systems. In research on ANT, for example,

the human subject is bereft of the logocentric authority it possessed when analytically present.

Methodology. Finally, the rise of post-structuralism and postmodernism in MOS research

has provided significant impetus to the development of reflexive methodology (Ashmore, 1989; Calás

& Smircich, 1999). Under postmodernism reflexivity is considered a positive development in

advocating that there is no “one best way” of conducting theoretical or empirical research (Johnson &

Duberley, 2003). The stress placed on the constructive forces of language serves to question the

notion that passive, rational and scientifically neutral observers can ever account objectively for real

experiences (Denzin & Lincoln, 1994). The linguistic turn of postmodernism emphasizes the often

unstable, ambiguous, relational and above all context-dependent nature of language and discourse.

Methodological reflexivity not only heightens our awareness of the dependence of sense-data on

theory and interpretation but also bolsters the notion that scientific “facts” can arise out of socially

constructed processes (Bourdieu & Wacquant, 1992; Woolgar, 1988). Indeed a reflexive approach to

methodology has now almost become obligatory for third order investigations, which frequently

emphasize the role of scientists and scientific institutions in the construction of research accounts

(Latour, 1987; Law, 1994).

NORMAL AND CRITICAL ASSUMPTIONS ABOUT THE NATURE OF SOCIETY

We now complete our regaining of the Burrell and Morgan model by considering the

implications of their second analytical dimension, “assumptions about the nature of society”. This

dimension concerns the nature of political and ideological orientations and thus reflects the traditional

"order-conflict" debate in social theory (Dawe, 1970).

On expanding our analysis to include a dimension for the theory of society we can explain our

three paradigms in terms of six constitutive analytical domains (Table 2). This is achieved by

hypothesizing the underlying political and ideological assumptions of scholarly communities within

our paradigm orders. However instead of deploying Burrell and Morgan's original terminology of the

sociology of regulation and sociology of radical change, we feel it more appropriate for contemporary

analysis to talk of differences between “normative” (Habermas, 1986; Jacobs & Hanrahan, 2005;

Peters, 2005) and “critical” (Alvesson & Willmott, 1992, 2003; Grey & Willmott, 2005; Parker, 2002)

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accounts, especially given the now established use of the latter term as an identifier for ideologically

Leftist analysis across several MOS traditions (Fournier & Grey, 2000).

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Insert Table 2 about here

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Based on ideological characteristics, therefore, we argue that our three paradigms reflect the

following analytical domains: normative structural; critical structural; normative anti-structural;

critical anti-structural; normative post-structural; and critical post-structural. In MOS the first four

domains have been accounted for regularly in terms of their theoretical positions and research

contributions (see Bottomore, 1975; Burrell & Morgan, 1979; Hassard, 1993; Jennings, Perren &

Carter, 2005; Lewis & Grimes, 1999). Indeed they basically reflect the four Burrell and Morgan

paradigms in terms of theory and method (i.e. normative structural = functionalist; critical structural =

radical structuralist; normative anti-structural = interpretive; critical anti-structural = radical

humanist). As discussions of the theoretical orientations and styles of research which characterize

these positions are manifold, we will not rehearse them here. All we would say is that the paradigms

identified by Burrell and Morgan are not static phenomena and have changed significantly in

constitution over time. Of the various schools of organizational analysis that Burrell and Morgan

suggest comprise their four paradigms (see 1979: 29-30) some have maintained a relatively steady

state, others declined significantly, while yet others emerged, seemingly to make novel contributions

to the literature.

Normative Post-structural Domain. We now unpack research domains that were not

accounted for in the Burrell and Morgan model or associated literature - normative post-structural and

critical post-structural. These domains reflect ideological differences in works regularly classified as

post-structuralist and postmodernist in terms of the kinds of MOS research conducted and analysis

produced.

For the Normative Post-structural domain we identify contributions that are recurrently

classified as post-structuralist or postmodernist, but which do not take explicit recourse to a traditional

ideology of the radical Left. In terms of the Burrell and Morgan model, this domain would represent

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the analytical heartland of post-structural theorising, albeit that its exemplars would form a natural

object for Marxist critique (see Detmer, 2003). The influential work of Michel Foucault, for example,

would represent a primary target in this respect. Although we would suggest that through his analysis

of social institutions, power and discourse Foucault (e.g. 1970, 1974, 1976, 1979, 1980) represents an

exemplar of critical thinking for MOS, we note also how, in ideological terms, his work has been

famously denounced as "crypto-normativist" by Jurgen Habermas (1984: 103; see also Habermas,

1987); that is, for relying on the kind of Enlightenment principles he is presumably attempting to

deconstruct (Ingram, 1994; Owen, 1995). Foucault's adoption of a philosophically "stoic gaze",

results in a treatment of human history that is, for Habermas (1984: 106), "frozen into an iceberg

covered with the crystals of arbitrary formulations of discourse"; for his Marxist critics, Foucault's

work is a mixture of "empirical insights and normative confusions" (Fraser, 1981: 283). Foucault's

theorising, a key MOS exemplar for the domain, operates, therefore, without the kind of substantive

Marxist ideological critique that, in Burrell and Morgan's terms, is a cornerstone for being described

as genuinely radical. This has seen Foucault's work readily contrasted with Habermasian critical

theory (Habermas, 1972), which attempts both to understand the world and to change it (Ashenden

and Owen, 1999; Kelly, 1994). Jean-Paul Sartre (1966: 88) similarly, saw Foucault's work ultimately

condemned as "the last rampart of the bourgeoisie".

A kindred, yet broader, critique is that of political theorist Frederic Jameson's (1991) famous

attack on postmodernism for being "the cultural logic of late capitalism". Jameson argued that post-

structuralist and postmodernist philosophies are politically problematic in that they refuse to engage

critically with the meta-narratives of capitalization and globalization, with such refusal rendering

them complicit with prevailing relations of capitalist exploitation and domination. In a similar vein,

Callinicos (1991) criticized the work of postmodernist writers such as Jean Baudrillard and Jean-

Francois Lyotard for failing to take account of related shifts in capital accumulation when

documenting the so-called historical turn from modernism to postmodernism. The tenor of such

critiques is neatly summed-up by Marxist historian John Molyneux (2010: 10) who suggests that the

lack of such economic and political sensibilities sees postmodernism ultimately "singing an old song

long intoned by bourgeois historians of various persuasions".

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If we extend this analysis to examine contributions to our running third order exemplar of

ANT, we note that despite its status as a so-called “alternative” (Hassard, Kelemen & Wolfram Cox,

2008) method for social and organizational research, ANT has regularly been charged with being

sociologically normative, apolitical and even conservative, especially with reference to the writings of

Michel Callon and Bruno Latour (see McLean & Hassard, 2004; Winner, 1993). Similarly ANT has

been accused of having relatively little to say about a critical or radical politics of a tangible or

“performative” kind (see Alcadipani and Hassard, 2010; Bowker & Star, 1999; Whittle & Spicer,

2008).

Critical Post-structural Domain. In contrast, work in the critical post-structural domain

directly reflects third order concerns with an ideologically Leftist, predominantly Marxist, agenda. In

terms of Marxist political philosophy, we can identify, for example, writing on feminism, patriarchy

and the body by Julia Kristeva, Donna Haraway and other socialist post-structuralist feminists (see

Weedon, 2004). Elsewhere Jones (2005) has brought to the attention of MOS the work of the

“practical Marxist-feminist-deconstructionist” Gayatri Spivak, and notably her analysis of post-

colonialism.

Another ideological position that can be classified within this domain is autonomism and,

specifically for MOS, autonomist writing associated with CMS (Bohm, 2005; Fleming, 2009; Harney,

2006, 2007; Wright, 2007; see also Rowlinson, 2008). Autonomism represents a tradition of Marxism

which places at its centre the self-activity of the working class. Its most developed contemporary

expression arises out of the struggles of Italian workers, students and feminists during the 1960s and

70s, as formulated in the work of revolutionary intellectuals such as Francois Beradi, Sergio Bologna,

Mariorosa Dalla Costa, Raniero Panzieri, Mario Tronti, and especially Antonio Negri (see notably

Hardt & Negri, 2000). These writers and activists address debates about the prospects for a

contemporary revolutionary Left, and in particular the view that we are encountering a distinctive new

era of capitalist development, “postmodern capitalism”, characterized by the extensive deployment by

capital of information technologies in order to achieve unprecedented levels of workplace automation,

societal surveillance and global mobility. Such analysis is distinctive in the insights it offers on new

forms of knowledge and communication, not merely as instruments of capitalist domination, but also

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as potential resources for working class struggle. It is in this respect that the writings of Negri and his

colleagues represent a significant Marxist counter-interpretation of the “information society”.

If we extend this domain to our running exemplar of ANT, we can identify recent work

promoting a Leftist political agenda. Alcadipani and Hassard (2010), for example, argue that despite

ANT’s popularity within a range of social science fields it appears to lack substantive political

critique, a problem they suggest is particularly apparent in ANT’s “translations in MOS”. On

reviewing the ANT literature, however, they claim that the potential for such critique can be detected

within writing on “ANT and After” (see Law & Hassard, 1999), which "de-naturalizes

organization(s)", has the ability to "deliver critical performativity", and at the same time "offer[s] a

reflexive approach to management and organizational knowledge" (Alcadipani & Hassard, 2010:

419). Using organizational examples, they describe how this approach represents a new direction for

ANT research, primarily through a developing a “political ontology of organizing”.

CONCLUSION

In the three decades since Burrell and Morgan produced their four paradigms model the world

of MOS has changed significantly, with arguably the major theoretical development being the

articulation of post-structuralism and more broadly postmodernism. A quasi-Kuhnian analysis has

been developed to assess meta-theoretically the major intellectual communities of MOS, which has

benefitted previously from developments in pluralistic methodology and, for example, to ‘locate’

debates within CMS. In addition, we hope that our model may assist the production of a new form of

multiple paradigm research. Similar in strategy to earlier approaches to paradigm interplay (Shultz &

Hatch, 1996) and meta-triangulation (Lewis & Grimes, 1999), and based on a philosophy of

highlighting areas of overlap as well as sites of contradiction (Okhuysen & Bonardi, 2011), this

method would draw upon a range of paradigms and associated research domains to explain

contemporary organizational phenomena (e.g., hybrid organizational forms and institutional logics;

new professions and identities; new geographies of work) that occur in theoretical edgelands.

Theoretically this article represents a first step toward defining the possibilities for such an approach

in MOS.

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Structural Paradigm

Post-structuralParadigm

Anti-structural Paradigm

FIGURE 1

Relational Metaphors for MOS Paradigms:

Communal Spheres, Liminal Zones and Tensional Forces

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TABLE 1

Research Meta-theories of Contemporary MOS Paradigms

Structural Anti-structural Post-structural

Ontology Realist Nominalist Relativist

Epistemology Positivist Constructionist Relationist

Human nature Determinist Voluntarist Deconstructionist

Methodology Deductivist Interpretive Reflexive

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TABLE 2

Paradigms and Domains: A Typology of Theory, Theorists and Research

Paradigm Research Domain Theories Key Theorists (e.g.) MOS Research (e.g.)

Structural Normative structural Institutional theory

Population ecology

Social systems theory

Philip Selznick

Eugene Odum

Vilfredo Pareto

Scott (1995)

Hannan & Freeman (1989)

Roethlisberger & Dickson

(1939)

Structural Critical structural Labour process theory

Radical feminism

Radical Weberianism

Karl Marx

Cynthia Epstein

Max Weber

Braverman (1974)

Acker & Van Houten

(1974)

Mouzelis (1975)

Anti-structural

Normative anti-

structural

Discourse analysis

Ethnomethodology

Phenomenology

A N Whitehead

Harold Garfinkel

Edmund Husserl

Chia (2000)

Bittner (1967)

Zimmerman (1971)

Anti-structural

Critical anti-structural Anti-organization theory

Critical discourse

analysis

Critical theory

Herbert Marcuse

Norman Fairclough

Jurgen Habermas

Parker (2002)

Phillips, Sewell & Jaynes

(2008)

Clegg (1975)

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Post-structural

Normative post-

structural

Actor-network theory

Archeo-genealogy

Post-structural feminism

Bruno Latour

Michel Foucault

Luce Irigaray

Hardy, Phillips & Clegg

(2001)

Hodgson (2000)

Oseem (1997)

Post-structural

Critical post-structural Autonomism

Critical post-structural

feminism

Post-colonialism

Antonio Negri

Julia Kristeva

Gayatri Spivak

Harney (2007)

Thomas & Davies (2005)

Jones (2005)

i In this paper, and due to space limitations, we concentrate on debates concerning Actor-Network theory. However, the boundaries between critical structural, critical anti-

structural and critical post-structral research domains have been sites of active contestation within CMS (references available on request). ii References omitted due to paper length restrictions but available on request from the authors.

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