Questioning and Organization Studies Kelemen, Mihaela; Rumens, Nick; Vo, Linh Chi
Organization studies,
10/2019, Letnik:
40, Številka:
10
Journal Article
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In organization studies, there is a cleavage in the literature that separates ‘questions’ and ‘questioning’ at a very fundamental philosophical level. On the one hand, the objective notion of ...‘questions’ has already been well addressed. On the other hand, the process of ‘questioning’ remains under-researched. Although questioning the process of questioning is challenging, this is precisely where American pragmatism can be helpful. As we explore in this essay, the forward-looking quality of pragmatist inquiry is what motors the process of questioning. Our pragmatist-inflected argument is that questioning does not always have to serve critique and position building in the organization studies field. Rather, questioning out of curiosity can build new dialogue and open up new methodological avenues. This will help change the habitual ways in which we explore ideas, problems and situations in organization studies as well as lead to more democratic forms of organizing.
Rorty, qui a fortement contribué à la redécouverte de Dewey en le présentant comme l’un des philosophes majeurs du XXe siècle, avec Wittgenstein et Heidegger, a également cherché à réévaluer les ...sources hégéliennes de sa pensée, en la présentant paradoxalement comme une synthèse de Darwin et de Hegel. Il a soutenu en outre que l’actualité de la philosophie pragmatiste tient à sa capacité à critiquer les impasses de la philosophie analytique en rééditant la critique hégélienne de Kant. Il a donc contribué à établir un lien paradoxal entre pragmatisme américain et hégélianisme et proposé une conception originale de ce qui pourrait constituer aujourd’hui l’actualité de l’hégélianisme et du pragmatisme. C’est ce paradoxe et cette originalité que cet article examine.
The purpose of this paper is to provide a constructive criticism of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) standards. After pointing out a number of benefits and limitations in the effectiveness of ...CSR standards, both from a theoretical point of view and in the light of empirical evidence, we formulate and discuss a Paradox of CSR standards: despite being well-intended, CSR standards can favor the emergence of a thoughtless, blind and blinkered mindset which is counterproductive of their aim of enhancing the social responsibility of the organization. We analyze three problems that might underlie the Paradox—namely the problem of deceptive measurements; the problem of responsibility erosion and the problem of blinkered culture. We apply the philosophical tradition of American Pragmatism to reflect on these issues in relation to different types of existing standards, and conclude by suggesting a number of considerations that could help both CSR standards developers and users to address the Paradox.
ABSTRACT
This essay overcomes the division between “principled” and “strategic” approaches to nonviolence studies by demonstrating that ethical analysis is key to understanding movement strategy. I ...show how the moral phenomenologies of Martin Luther King Jr. and Emmanuel Lévinas, figures usually treated by scholars of principled nonviolence, possess genuine insight for nonviolent strategists. With reference to each thinker and supporting evidence from the #BlackLivesMatter movement, I argue that nonviolent resistance makes a moral appeal through the medium of the body to the conscience of those bearing witness. Analysis of the way King combined moral reflection and strategic action recovers his legacy for the pragmatic tradition of social thought, while Lévinas's theory of the face offers additional considerations for nonviolent practitioners aiming for moral transformation at the local level. Studies that elucidate the complex moral dynamics by which nonviolent movements either succeed or fail will make the field a greater asset to practitioners.
Pragmatist responses to skepticism about empirical justification have mostly been underwhelming, either presupposing implausible theses like relativism or anti-realism, or else showing our basic ...empirical beliefs to be merely psychologically inevitable rather than rationally warranted. In this paper I defend a better one: a modified version of an argument by Wilfrid Sellars that we are pragmatically warranted in accepting that our perceptual beliefs are likely to be true, since their likely truth is necessary for the satisfaction of our goal of effective agency. On the version of the argument I defend, the great good for human life of control over our empirical circumstances renders our goal of effective agency reasonable. But only if our perceptual beliefs are likely to be true—and only if we accept that this is so, assuming it as a premise for inference and a guide for action—will the success of our actions be due to our effective agency, not mere luck. Since we’re warranted in taking the necessary means to our reasonable ends, we’re warranted in accepting that our perceptual beliefs are generally justified, and so that skepticism about empirical justification is false.
Why would decision makers (DMs) adopt heuristics, priors, or in short “habits” that prevent them from optimally using pertinent information—even when such information is freely-available? One answer, ...Herbert Simon’s “procedural rationality” regards the question invalid: DMs do not, and in fact cannot, process information in an optimal fashion. For Simon, habits are the primitives, where humans are ready to replace them only when they no longer sustain a pregiven “satisficing” goal. An alternative answer, Daniel Kahneman’s “mental economy” regards the question valid: DMs make decisions based on optimization. Kahneman understands optimization not differently from the standard economist’s “bounded rationality.” This might surprise some researchers given that the early Kahneman, along with Tversky, have uncovered biases that appear to suggest that choices depart greatly from rational choices. However, once we consider cognitive cost as part of the constraints, such biases turn out to be
occasional
failures of habits that are otherwise optimal on average. They are optimal as they save us the cognitive cost of case-by-case deliberation. While Kahneman’s bounded rationality situates him in the neoclassical economics camp, Simon’s procedural rationality echoes Bourdieu’s “habitus” camp. To abridge the fault line of the two camps, this paper proposes a “two problem areas hypothesis.” Along the neoclassical camp, habits satisfy wellbeing, what this paper calls “substantive satisfaction.” Along the Bourdieu camp, habits satisfy belonging, love, and bonding with one’s environment, what this paper calls “transcendental satisfaction.”
Despite the striking affinities of classical Greek and Latin rhetoric with the pragmatist/interactionist analysis of the situated negotiation of reality and its profound relevance for the analysis of ...human group life more generally, few contemporary social scientists are aware of the exceptionally astute analyses of persuasive interchange developed by Aristotle, Cicero, and Quintilian. Having considered the analyses of rhetoric developed by Aristotle (384-322 BCE) and Cicero (106-43 BCE) in interactionist terms (Prus 2007a; 2010), the present paper examines Quintilian’s (35-95 CE) contributions to the study of persuasive interchange more specifically and the nature of human knowing and acting more generally. Focusing on the education and practices of orators (rhetoricians), Quintilian (a practitioner as well as a distinctively thorough instructor of the craft) provides one of the most sustained, most systematic analyses of influence work and resistance to be found in the literature. Following an overview of Quintilian’s “ethnohistorical” account of Roman oratory, this paper concludes by drawing conceptual parallels between Quintilian’s analysis of influence work and the broader, transcontextual features of symbolic interactionist scholarship (Mead 1934; Blumer 1969; Prus 1996; 1997; 1999; Prus and Grills 2003). This includes “generic social processes” such as: acquiring perspectives, attending to identity, being involved, doing activity, engaging in persuasive interchange, developing relationships, experiencing emotionality, attaining linguistic fluency, and participating in collective events. Offering a great many departure points for comparative analysis, as well as ethnographic examinations of the influence process, Quintilian’s analysis is particularly instructive as he addresses these and related aspects of human knowing, acting, and interchange in highly direct, articulate, and detailed ways. Acknowledging the conceptual, methodological, and analytic affinities of The Institutio Oratoria of Quintilian with symbolic interactionism, an epilogue, Quintilian as an Intellectual Precursor to American Pragmatist Thought and the Interactionist Study of Human Group Life, addresses the relative lack of attention given to classical Greek and Latin scholarship by the American pragmatists and their intellectual progeny, as well as the importance of maintaining a more sustained transcontextual and transhistorical focus on the study of human knowing, acting, and interchange.
Heterodox economics emerged because of dissatisfaction with the high level of abstraction of neoclassical economics and its excessive reliance on mathematical modelling. Instead of ontological and ...epistemological references to the natural sciences, heterodox economists turn their attention to the social sciences and biology. The article aims to contribute to the discussion of methodology of heterodox economics and original institutionalism in particular. It explores the potential of content analysis for empirically oriented research in heterodox economics. Content analysis is widely used in the social sciences (sociology, linguistics, political sciences, legal studies) to analyze qualitative data (texts, images, videos) but is relatively unknown to heterodox economists. Content analysis takes several forms: qualitative, quantitative and mixed methods. It is argued that content analysis is not only compatible with the methodology of heterodox economics through critical realism but has a potential to contribute to its further development. With the help of content analysis, heterodox economists would be better equipped to collect and process qualitative data that prevail in social realms. A content analysis of a sample of articles published in Journal of Economic Issues (N = 763) in 1967-1969 and 2010-2019 informs the discussion of applications of content analysis to heterodox economics.
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