Chapter 1

a great deal of research is simply being ‘wasted’, because academics may not be skilled at translating their theories in a language that appeals to practitioners, or indeed, because there are no institutional incentives to do so (Keleman and Bansal, 2002, p. 104)

<Pretty much sums up my attitude towards my textbook>

Important parts:

Each school of thought is underpinned by different philosophical assumptions about epistemology and ontology.

Epistemological! 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8keZbZL2ero

Epistemology -  the study of the criteria we deploy and by which we know and decide what does and does not constitute a warranted claim about the world or what might constitute warranted knowledge. Useful link : (http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/epistemology/). Epistemological objectivists and epistemological subjectivists. The first claim that one can observe "the truth" or "knowledge" with techniques that  will not influence it and therefore obtain a proof of theory. The latter claim that any knowledge observed will be influenced by our perception, which is different for everyone(because of cultural background, etc etc). 

Ontology raises questions regarding whether or not a phenomenon we are interested in actually exists independently of our knowing and perceiving it. The realist assumptions suggest that there exist a social reality that is independent of out perceptual or cognitive structures and attempts to know, while subjectivists argue that a reality is a projection or a creation of our consciousness and cognition(or in simple words In knowing the social world, one creates it.

The relationship between organization theory and human activities: relationship between people and theories is problematic. Theories are part of human domain: they are created by it, investigated by it and they can change it. For natural scientists relationship is not problematic. People have subjective capacities and they have the ability to attempt to purposively and self-consciously change their behaviours in the light of knowledge. Double hermeneutic- the social sciences are themselves aspects of the social world and they are affected by it, but they are also causal forces that can act upon and shape that which they are trying to explain. Double hermeneutic relationship is also between the organization theory and the organizational practices

Positivist protagonist – the truth is out there and we can objectively know it.

 Type 1 positivists: explanations of behaviour according to mainstream positivism. Human behaviour is best understood as a necessary response or effect directly caused by an external stimulus

 Type 2 positivists: explanations of behaviour- human behaviour is best understood as an outcome of the culturally derived meanings, interpretations and understandings human actors attach to what is going on around them.

 Epistemological and ontological disputes, how can we ever know the truth and is there an out there? Epistemological subjectivists argue that notions of truth and objectivity are impossible. The key disagreement between critical theorists and postmodernists is centred upon the ontological implications of their shared subjectivist epistemological commitments. Where as critical theorists believe there is an out there, postmodernists do not. Critical theory adopts a phenomena list position in which, influenced by culturally derived interpretive processes, human knowing shapes our realities. We cannot reality as it is away. Critical theory is a combination of realist ontology and subjectivist epistemology. The truth about the social world may be out there but we can never know it because we lack a neutral observational language. Therefore we are always stuck in the subjective socially constructed reality for us. Postmodernism adopts subjective ontological and epistemological approach- what we take to be reality is itself created and determined by out subjective acts of perception. Both critical and postmodernism reject positivism as naïve and dangerous. Everything is relative to the eye of the beholder and the subjective means by which we organize what we perceive.  Postmodernists use the term discourse to refer to the subjective means by which people organize what they perceive. By creating a phenomenon discourses influence our behaviour. A dominant discourse (taken for granted) excludes alternative ways of knowing and behaving, alternative discourses are always possible but they are suppressed.  If we change the discourse we change the reality (hyper reality). All there is are discourses and nothing beyond them hence the truth cannot be out there because there is no out there, just different social constructions that appear to be real.  The result is that hyper realities are mistaken for an independent external reality. Postmodernism- the truth cannot be out there because there is no out there. By remembering our role we can challenge the discourses which have come to be dominant and taken for granted.  Sometimes postmodernism can be used to describe the period or epochal view.