The embrace of hermeneutics : implications for organization and management studies

The notion that the natural sciences should be our guide for forms of enquiry in the social sciences has produced a reaction such that a proliferation of 'alternative' paradigms have emerged. In the context of this proliferation of alternative and competing paradigms, the field of organization studies has become something akin to a battle-ground. The proliferation of paradigms seems to undermine the possibility of a single unambiguous voice to guide administrative and management practice. Many have suggested that this cacophony will remain as synthesis is impossible. Each of the voices come from different epistemological, ontological, and methodological choices that are ‘on offer’ — thus putatively making them irreconcilable or ‘incommensurable’. Within different paradigms even the same words have different meanings, which would also seem appear to make bridging the various paradigms impossible. A relatively small group of theorists see virtue in putative diversity and incommensurability, as it mitigates against hegemonic takeover. However, a significant majority within the field of organizational studies appear to be anxious about these developments as they feel the field is struggling to maintain credibility and perceive a need for rescue before it gets dismissed as a bewildering collection of ‘bric-a-brac’.