ORGANIZATION THEORY AND DESIGN

Organization Theory and Design

Organization Theory and Design

Introduction

The term organizational theory is used in two senses. For one, it is taken to mean an academic specialty. It is also understood as referring to theories and theorizing about organization(s). Claims that there might be a separate subject of organizations as an academic specialty began to be laid in the 1950s and the 1960s in North America as a part of a broader project of scientizing the study of and education for business. The accompanying hope at the time was that a general theory of organization(s) could develop. This was not to happen, however. Neither did a consensus emerge as to the contours of the field. Instead, what happened was that conceptions about what the field is and what its goals should be, as well as views on the nature of what it studies and how it should be studied, unfolded into a fragmented state replete with divergent perspectives.

Organization Theory and Design: A Discussion

The plurality that was engendered can nevertheless be captured in terms of two rather disparate trajectories of evolution demarcated by fundamental differences in the approach to the social scientific enterprise. Of the two strands, one can be characterized by a predominant scientistic orientation, though not in the sense of developing toward a normal science route as described by Thomas Kuhn (though that was and still is the hope for some), but rather in the form of an allegiance to the natural scientific model in studying organizations. The second developed in opposition to the former through upholding a subjectivist approach to knowledge production. Over time, both these broad orientations have undergone change as each has bred a range of perspectives on the identity of the field and on organizational phenomena. The scientistic project has served as a stage for contests around whether organizational theorizing was to be a subfield of management or a part of sociology or even of economics. The subjectivist slant has been more inclined toward claiming a distinct identity as a branch of social science or, even more broadly, as a separate intellectual field, closer, perhaps, to humanities, which could accommodate different forms of knowledge production. The two trajectories have had some regional underpinning, too; the scientistic orientation has taken more hold in North America, whereas subjectivist commitments have been more dominant in Europe, particularly in the United Kingdom.

The initial attempts in North America to carve out a disciplinary space emerged in opposition to earlier writings of engineers and executives on management and organization and their academic followers. The challenge was not to the ambitions of these practitioner-theorists but rather to the basis of their knowledge claims. The aim of the new movement was expressed as creating a science of administration that would rely on natural scientific methods and generate knowledge that could be put to use in running business and public sector organizations more effectively and that could be taught to their prospective managers and administrators. It was thus to be a professional science and ...