Organizing as Improvisations (Methodological Temptations of Social Constructivism)
31 Pages Posted: 5 Feb 2003
Date Written: 23 2002 9,
Abstract
Academic communities in social sciences are still dominated byneo-positivist paradigm, but communities of practice developing socialconstructivism have started to redress paradigmatic imbalances.According to the latter man-made organizational reality is processualand saturated with sensemaking (Weick). Social constructivistssucceeded in reconstructing complex organizational disasters andcontributed to organizational innovation and change (for instance inthe wake of ICT challenges). They belong to postmodernist critics ofmodernity's failure to regulate social development and contribute to abetter understanding of organizing (e.g. implementing a new technologyor managing knowledge production) as patchworking and improvising. Inspite of discriminating practices, they survive in academiccommunities.
Keywords: social constructivism, relativism, managerialism, critical theory, improvisation
JEL Classification: M, M10
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