R.

van der Pluijm

The organisational studies?

Solving the unification of the potential pluralistic concept of organisation
For thousands of years, man had to work for a living and therefore had to live in an organisation.
This fact hasn't changed a bit since. However, the type of work we have to do and the number of
people working together in a group have been increasing since the industrial revolution. Therefore,
it is not strange that people developed an academic discipline about people working, which is called
organisation theory or organisational studies. Still, even though the total labour force of the world
exceeds three billion people, there is little to few philosophical literature to be found on this topic.
Adam Smith, who is regarded as more of an economist than as a philosopher, wrote on the topic in
his hallmark “The Wealth of Nations”, in which he discusses the division of labour and suggests to
base a new form of organisational structure based on labour. Then, it took until the late nineteenth
century until Max Weber wrote on rational organisations.
From the 1920s onwards, organisation theory became a separate discipline. Although philosophers
of science haven't paid much attention to the field of organisation theory, this doesn't mean nothing
has been written on this topic. Especially since the 1970s, a lot of change has been brought to this
field of study. From functionalist theories, via ecological and institutional theories to postmodern
theories, a diverse field of methods to describe organisations have emerged. As within the
philosophy of science, there is a large debate regarding explanatory value and the nature of an
organisation within these theories. One important question within this debate is the paradigm
incommensurability thesis: it is possible to join these theories regarding organisations, even though
they seem to conflict with each other under some circumstances? I think philosophers of science
can bring new structure into the ongoing debate, which has developed from a wide range of
scholars, not in the least the continental, post-structural philosophers such as Michel Foucault and
Jacques Derrida (Clegg & Hardy, 1999). The discussion within the philosophy of social science
regarding interpretativism versus causalism (Kincaid, 2002), naturalism versus anti-naturalism and
holism versus individualism will help to realise the grave differences between these theories and
will help us to look at the paradigm incommensurability thesis, which is basically a question about
the unity of organisational studies.
My goal will be to, by placing the organisational debate within the framework of the philosophy of
science on explanation, show how we can unify the organisational studies by appealing to a
Wittgensteinian interpretation of the concept of organisation for a pluralistic conception of
organisation.

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R. van der Pluijm A short introduction into organisation theory

The article will follow the following structure. Before any analysis is made, there will be a
preliminary introduction into organisation theory, to insure the reader will be able to follow the
actual analysis. Here, I will not explain these theories in-depth, but will simply give an introductory
description in order to understand the existence of the paradigm incommensurability debate: how
can organisation theory as a discipline see multiple competing schools of thought all as valid
theories?
Second, I will be looking at each of the main focusses within the debate, drawing upon an
distinction of meta-narratives of Rationality, Integration, Market, Power, Knowledge and Justice.
When then the stage is set, it is time to move on towards an analysis of the discussion. I will place
the debate by the organisational studies within the framework of the philosophy of social science,
describing the position of the six meta-narratives into the debates on naturalism vs anti-naturalism,
interpretativism vs causalism and holism vs individualism. The strong theoretical differences and
aims will be shown by these debates.
To analyse the paradigm incommensurability debate, I will draw an analogy with the current
debates in the philosophy about causation. Within the debates of causation, there are interesting
points made about monism, pluralism and concept-pluralism, which are pretty much the same
positions as defended in the organisational studies.
Afterwards, I will suggest another conception of an organisation, drawing on Wittgenstein's notion
of family resemblance. This will enlighten why some of the theories are seemingly incompatible
and will also show why we should look at the domain of the question to determine which field is
appropriate.

A short introduction into organisation theory

I will largely base this introduction on the introductory article for “Studying organizations: theory
and method” by Stewart R. Clegg and Cynthia Hardy (Clegg & Hardy, 1999). Their article focusses
on the debates in organization theory from the last hundred years, paying most attention to the last
thirty. It will provide us with a basic notion of the debate and will set the stage enough to in order to
be able to discuss the basic conception of an explanation within the organisational studies.
Organisation theory is interested in determining the nature of an organisation, looks at factors
influencing this nature and tries to determine the most effective way to organise a group of people.
Nowadays, a number of these theories aim at commercial firms, but this is not necessary the case,
since it is possible to look at other types of organisations e.g. the organisation within prisons and
governments. Topics of study include (but are not limited to) the influence of leadership, the

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distribution of power, the influence of culture, the effectiveness of hierarchical structures, business
strategies and communication intra- and intercompany. One basic assumption in this theory is the
“orderly and unitary nature of the organisation”1. Here, the organisation is a rational decision
making system, based on consensus and coherence. The task of a researcher then is to “collect
objective data concerning the way organization functions around goal orientation and
maintenance. Typically, the research method follows the normal science model, in which the nature
of organizational reality is represented and expressed through a formal research design;
quantitative data facilitate validation, reliability and replicability; a steady accumulation and
building of empirically generated knowledge derives from a limited number of theoretical
assumptions.”2 Organisation theory tries to simulate the empirical sciences in a fashion comparable
to sociology and economy.
The paragraph I wrote above would be a standard description if we would currently be living in the
beginning of the 1970s. It is the method as ascribed by the so-called functionalist and normal
science research methods, under which population ecology, organisational economics and
contingency theory among others fall3. However, as noted above, academics in the organisational
studies have radically changed their view on their own field of study since then. From different
angles the rationality claims were attacked. The first attacks came from within the scientific
schools4 themselves, arguing for a 'bounded rationality' conception (Gigerenzer, 2006) and an
ecological view on organisation. Later attacks even attacked the scientific method itself. From one
side the socio-psychological attack from both the Marxist and the post-modernist (such as Foucault,
Derrida and Lyotard) attacked the rationality status of the individual (and the post-modernist on
their account also attacked the Marxist universal claim).
Clegg and Hardy after discussing the attacks described above, discuss how, by emphasising these
features of an organisation, it wasn't at all clear what organisation theory as an academic discipline
encompasses. One major consequence5 of these differences was the so-called 'paradigm
incommensurability' of the different theories. It meant that, while all these different theories have
different forms of explanations, in an ideal world all these theories should lead to the same advice
when used by consultants in social praxis. More specifically, paradigm incommensurability argues
that theories are by definition either subjective or objective in approach and researchers should
1 Clegg & Hardy 1999, p1.
2 Clegg & Hardy 1999, p2.
3 Ibid idem.
4 i.e. schools which argue for the same methods as within the sociological and economical sciences, i.e. 'number
crunching'.
5 Clegg & Hardy 1999, p5. Cf the 2005 paper by Michael Reed for an example (Reed, 2005)

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R. van der Pluijm A short introduction into organisation theory

therefore choose between these theories (Willmott, 1993). Three different standpoints were
defended. One group found this incommensurability unacceptable, and tried, “through the use of
sophisticated philosophical and linguistic discourse”6 to solve the issue. The second group argued
for high standards, even called “quasi-religious” in the literature7, for any bridge over the paradigm
gap, while the third saw this as an argument against the new interpretative accounts of organisation
theory: if they cannot be matched with the conventional accounts, they are simply wrong.
These new theories about organisations own their existence upon three main changes within
organisations that Clegg and Hardy discuss. First, they emphasise the transition from bureaucracy to
networks or clusters. No longer large companies have a centralised hierarchy8, but they choose for
cooperation, building intra-organisational networks to ensure demand and supply, but also ensuring
growth and quality control in order to enter the network itself. Specialised tasks are often
outsourced at companies within the network itself. Even great firms have to choose to decentralise
in order to ensure the knowledge base and total quality management. Second, due to this
decentralisation, new technologies become essential to handle the large amount of information,
which is to be distributed along the internal network. Last, the importance of the hierarchy changes:
“These organizations are characterized by openness, trust, empowerment and commitment [...]
collaborative, open decision-making eliminates the inefficiency of traditional hierarchical styles of
secrecy, sycophany and sabotage.”9
As shown above, organisation theory is a large landscape of different theories, all emphasising
certain aspects of organisations. Now that we've seen the general history of organisation theory and
a description of the incommensurability debate, we can have a closer look at the prominent theories
in the organisational studies themselves.

Six groups of organisation theories

In order to group the different organisation theories, I will draw on an interesting paper by Michael
Reed (Reed, 1999), in which he divides the theories in six different narratives 10: Rationality,
Integration, Market, Power, Knowledge and Justice. But first, Reed introduces a preliminary
discussion in which the importance of historical and social contexts is stressed. These contexts were
also discussed above where new insights from other disciplines was influential on the forming of

6 Ibid idem.
7 Ibid idem. But see also Willmott 1993, p 681, who maintains that this group actually wanted to keep the paradigm
incommensurability alive.
8 Clegg & Hardy 1999, p10.
9 Ibid idem.
10 Reed 1999, p28.

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new theories. These contexts are essential to understand the development of these theories. Reed
even goes further, stating that “[I]n short, theory making is a historically located intellectual
practice directed at assembling and mobilizing ideational, material and institutional resources to
legitimate certain knowledge claims and the political projects which flow from them.”11 His
argument is that theory making is strongly rhetorical in nature. There is no link to conceptual
appropriateness or truthfulness. However, Reed stresses that this doesn't mean we do not have any
method to analyse all these theories, since we would lack a “recognized, collective basis”12 Instead,
although we only have a “grounded rationality” of “negotiated rules and norms” which do not
have the same universal claim which we think to have in the natural sciences, “but it nontheless
establishes a identifiable framework of procedures and practices 'that provide for their own
relevant discourse about proof'13. What remains then are “shared, although revisable,
methodological procedures” by which the meta-narratives and their theories can be discussed and
negotiated14.

After these preliminaries, it is time for the qualification Reed and others (Morgan and Stanley) use
to divide the discipline in six meta-narratives.
Historically, the first theories that developed focussed on rationality. In this classical organisation
theory model, developed around the 1900s, organisations are rational human constructs which
should be able to control human social uproar. The main thought behind this is that organisations
place individuals into a framework of “socio-economic location, authority and behaviour”15. In
other words, dividing workforce is what an organisation consists of. The solution for this division is
an effective administration, which is researched using empirical tests to determine social laws.
Here, social research is modelled after the natural sciences: through controlled environments, we
can establish rules about the effectiveness of various forms of bureaucracy which should lead to
higher efficiency. This view takes the concept of 'Human Resource' quite literally and thereby
dismisses any questions regarding emotions or values of the workforce16. More specifically, these
morals will have to be “[...] transformed into engineering tasks amenable to technical solutions
[...].”17
11 Ibid, p27, emphasis added.
12 Ibid idem.
13 Ibid idem.
14 Reed 1999, p27.
15 Ibid, p29.
16 Herbert Simon paraphrased this in the following way: “[The] rational individual is, and must be, an organised and
institutionalized individual.” (Reed, 1999, p29)
17 Reed, p29

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Another striking fact of this theory of organisation is its strong anti-democratic tendencies. Once the
basics of the organisation are established based on the scientific laws which are grounded on
research, no political or moral debate can amend this theory to make it more adapted to the values
we have.
While newer forms of organisation theory within this meta-narrative attacked the rationalising
methods by introducing the concept of 'bounded rationality', this doesn't mean that certain features
of an organisation which were dismissed by the classical organisation theories, such as culture,
morality and emotions, were rehabilitated. According to the bounded rationality thesis, these are all
“[...]random, extraneous variables beyond the influence, much less control, of rational cognitive
processes and organizational procedures”18. It did change the role for experts interpretations: any
role for these results is taken over by 'heuristics', rules by which an bounded rational agent should
act. The organisation structure should be formed to accommodate these heuristics. Since all humans
use some package of heuristics, these are enough to explain behaviour and to structure the
organisation. In short, this type of organisation theory took away the “intuitive craft” and changed
it into a “codified and analyzable body of knowledge that traded on the immensely powerful
cultural capital and symbolism of 'science'.”19

As a reaction to the deterministic character of the classical organisation theory, a more evolutionary
or organicistic theory, focussed on integration, was presented in the 1940s and 1950s. Also, it was
again a reaction to the rationalistic character as presented in the classical organisation theories. For
the organicists, an organisation can be seen as a bridge law(Kincaid, 1997) between mass sociology
and the individual. It was again seen as a method “[...] to address the problem of social integration
and the implications for the maintenance of social order in a more stable and uncertain world.” 20
The organicists sought not to develop a theory from outside or above, but instead in accordance
with the wishes and the needs of the working class. It strived actively for a feeling of community21.
This communal feeling is also emphasised by Reed when he talks about what is understood by an
organicist as an effective organisation: “The 'good' society and the effective organisation are
defined in relation to their capacity to facilitate and sustain the socio-psychological reality of
spontaneous cooperation and social stability in the face of economic, political and technological

18 Ibid, p30.
19 Reed 1999, p30.
20 Reed 1999, p30.
21 Ibid idem.

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changes that threaten the integration of the individual and the group into the wider community.” 22
This meant that the organisation was actually seen analogous to an organism. The organisational
structures where therefore not strict and determined, but rather spontaneous. Just as in evolutionary
theory an animal adapts to its environment, the structure of the organisation changes in order to
preserve the equilibrium, which is the situation in which there is social stability and spontaneous
cooperation. The focus of empirical research is therefore put on these “spontaneous emergent and
normatively sanctioned structures in the organisation.”23
From the combination of both classical organisation theory and this organicist theory came about
the most dominant theory probably until now: the functionalist theory. Structural functionalism
argued for two approaches, one internalistic which was focussed on organisational design and one
externalistic which was focussed on environmental uncertainty 24. The correct combination of these
two factors should lead to stability and growth. This method makes it possible to explain and
control 'both its internal dynamics and its institutional consequences” 25. Note that within
functionalist theory, other than the organicist theory, still the old assumptions regarding morals and
values reside: functionalist theory assumes that it is possible to reduce these feelings to technical
problems which can be solved through effective organisational design. Underneath this lies an
assumption of “value homogeneity”: as all people within an organisation have the same morals and
values, these can be incorporated as one value into the system 26. The above named contingency
theory is a development of the functionalist theory, which focusses on managerial ethics, which
should be able to solve any of the political or institutional issues left.27

Where the classical organisation theory tried to calculate in terms of workload, the market
perspective tries to explain how the assumption of neo-classical economics, in which, due to the
rationality of individual agents and the market mechanisms itself (such as supplies and demand),
why organisations exist as they have no role in a system with such mechanisms and agents.
However, it was realised that this was an ideal realisation. The new role for organisations was
placed in the reduction of transaction costs: organisations are seen in this view as mediators for
naturally inclined suspicious trade partners28. As Reed notes, the conception of agents is still

22 Ibid, p31.
23 Ibid idem.
24 Ibid idem.
25 Ibid, p32.
26 Reed 1999, p32.
27 Ibid idem.
28 Ibid, p33.

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'boundedly' rational here. So, the only striving for individuals in an organisation is cost
effectiveness and efficiency, and organisations are seen as 'organically' in the sense that they try to
adapt to their environment. In sum, “[O]rganisations are an automatic response to[...] the need for
formally free and equal economic agents to negotiate and monitor contracts in complex market
transactions which cannot be accommodated in existing institutional arrangements.”29
Like the structure theory, market theories do pay attention to social power struggles, albeit highly
abstract. More specifically, the whole organisation has the same values and social order, which
means that there can be no internal moral or power struggles.

All the former theories choose to either neglect social and moral values, to reduce these values to
marginal uncertainty factors or to control them by designing a power distribution. The following
theories reject the view that power struggles and / or social and moral values can be reduced or
neglected. The first of these theories focus on power and are mostly based on the social theories on
dominance and distribution of power by Weber and Machiavelli and later by Foucault30. The neo-
Weberian analysis is aimed at describing the interaction between societies and organisations and
their role in producing power structures. The Foucaultian influence can be seen when looking at the
micro-political processes which compete with established regimes, which is illuminating in its
perspective on detailed processes. However, it isn't as fit to describe existing, broadly based
organisational mechanisms, should these be incorporated in the existing rhetorics. One of the aims
of these theories is to give a typology of the different forms of power. One example is the difference
between 'manipulative power' and 'hegemonic power'. The former is the use of 'backdoor politics'
by already powerful groups, which is meant to remove from the agenda items which are against the
interest of the group in question. The latter aims at protecting the existing values in consulting,
which limits the interests and thus choices which can be made31.
One specific problem with which these theory have to deal with is the relation between power
struggles on organisational level and the power struggles on individual level. This has been
attempted by focussing on the middle level, by which sectoral levels mediate between governmental
policies and the implementation on local domains. What still remains is the “[...] explanatory
range of a power framework with limited capacity to deal with the material, cultural and political
complexities of organizational change.”32

29 Ibid idem.
30 Ibid, p34.
31 Reed 1999, p35.
32 Ibid idem.

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Based on the works of the French postmodernists, the knowledge meta-narrative focusses on the
'totalitarian' claim by the first three theories. They attack the universal claim both by these theorists
and by theories interested in power such as Marxism. Instead, they see organisations as susceptible
to internal decay, seeing them as contingent and unstable institutional practice. Universality is
replaced by contingency in both the knowledge about our organisations as for the organisations
themselves. No ontological status is reserved for both of them. The modern organisations are seen
as the result of temporary negotiations. Further, explanation is not aimed at traditional powers such
as class and state, but instead cultural and technical mechanisms are emphasised.
In total, “[...] 'organization' becomes a portable carrier of the socio-technical knowledge and skills
through which particular patterns of social relationships emerge and reproduce themselves in
specific material and social circumstances.”33
It should be noted that many different forms of postmodernist theories exist. Roughly, two
categories can be distinguished (Kildutt and Mehra, 1997). The first, called the 'sceptical
postmodernists' focus on critiquing the other theories instead of offering an alternative to the
empirical sciences. The second, more moderate form, called the 'affirmative postmodernists', think
one can distinguish between good and bad theories. It “[..] would underscore novelty and reflexity
as it looks to the richness of difference and concentrates on the unusual, the singular and the
original.”

In a reaction on this decentralised postmodern position, new institutionalists reacted by stressing the
organisation as an institutional structure where power and authority resides. They also attack the
'rationality myths', lay focus on cognitive and cultural explanations, and have “[...] an interest in
properties of supraindividual units of analysis that cannot be reduced to aggregations or direct
consequences of individuals' attributes or motives.”34 Next to these cultural explanations,
structural, historical and contextual positioning of the groups values and interests instead of the
microlevel practices are being stressed. Still, we do have to account for the personal level interests.
The analytical and the political, the local and the global aspects of organisation have to be
connected in order to do justice to the complex of organisations present in the uncertain world. In
Reed's words, “The analytical structured narrative of organizational justice and democracy seeks
to reconnect the study of locally contextualized discourses and practices with institutionalized
orders of power, authority and control which have a societal rationale and historical dynamic that

33 Ibid, p36.
34 Ibid, p37.

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cannot be understood, much less explained, through a limited focus on 'everyday' interaction and
event. It forces us to rediscover the vital link between practical demands and intellectual needs of
the study of organisations […]”.
This last sentence is interesting, while it implicitly raises an objection against organisation theories
which focus only on the theoretical demands of the academic. As organisations are social practices
we not only encounter in everyday life, but which we also try to manipulate and make perfect, this
can be read as some sort of moral request that we should try not to lose the connection with the
practical.

In the above, a description is given of the large number of theories which comprise the discipline of
organisation theory. It is now time to look at the debates in the philosophy of science an link the
meta-narratives to these debates. One thing that we should keep in mind are the radically different
approaches which have been argued for. The paradigm incommensurability which was mentioned in
the last paragraph can be very well understood when one looks at these different approaches. This
surely will influence the debates on reductionism, but also the other discussions which are prevalent
in the philosophy of social science.

Paradigm irreductionism
Let us first look at some of the general discussions going on in the philosophy of social science,
which has been done by Kincaid in his 2002 paper (Kincaid, 2002). In this paper, Kincaid
distinguishes four different issues which are currently discussed in this discipline35:
• Naturalism versus. antinaturalism: can and should social science use the same criteria as the
natural sciences for explanations, and, related, may we give social science the same status as
the social sciences?
• Interpretativism versus. causalism: when the social sciences try to explain phenomena, can
they do this the same way as the natural sciences do, i.e. 'causal explanation' or 'quantitative
explanation' or should we opt for another method, such as interpretations?
• Instrumentalism versus. realism: do the concepts and models in the social sciences refer to
objective features in the real world or is this connection rather loose, i.e. do these models
have but an illuminating value?

35 Kincaid 2002, p291.

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• Holism versus. individualism: is it possible to have the same explanatory value when we
speak in terms of individuals instead of in irreducible social entities?

I will discuss three of these as they are relevant to the paradigm incommensurability debate. These
are the naturalism versus anti-naturalism, the interpretationalism versus causalism and the holism
versus individualism debate. While the instrumentalism versus realism debate is interesting, it
focusses mainly on the role of social science for researchers and doesn't as much tell us anything
about the content of explanations and the requirements we should have for an explanation. Instead,
it questions whether social science thinks explanation is relevant at all (and whether it should
actually focus on prediction). As this essay focusses on explanation content, this quesiton, however
interesting, falls outside the scope of this article. Moreover, I want to introduce an extra point of
discussion which is prevalent in the discussions in the philosophy of science and which I find to be
of far more importance in the discussion of the organisational studies, especially the paradigm
incom;mensurability debate:
• Monism versus pluralism: When we are talking about our concept of discussion, in this case
an organisation, are we talking about one concept or multiple concepts?

Let us now look at the discussions within the philosoophy of social science. What becomes apparent
is that the different meta-narratives take in different positions within these fundamental debates.
This shows why the paradigm incommensurability debate is such an active debate as such strong
differences create strong obstacles regarding both the unity of the meta-narratives into
organisational study and the potential commensurability of the meta-narratives.

Mimic physical science: naturalist causalism versus anti-naturalist

interpretationism
The naturalism versus antinaturalism debate and the interpretationism versus causalism debate are
closely intertwined. The first debate is aimed at the scientific status of social research, the second on
the contents of explanations in social research. The basic premise remains the same: natural
sciences have an inherent virtue, because they have objective methods to enquire about the value-
neutral contingent facts of the world. If the social sciences want to confirm to these supposedly
high standards, then social sciences should develop methods which give us ordinary causal
explanations, just as the natural sciences. Any other explanation, i.e. which are 'biased' by
interpretations, would not suffice for this standard, since its interpreted data would by definition

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include human values.

A prime example of an attempt to 'give a naturalistic standard' to the social sciences is the
'behaviouristic school of thought' which was dominant in especially psychology in the 1950's and
1960's, but also has its branches in economics and other social sciences, of which some of its ideas
are found attractive by structural functionalism and contingency theory. The basic idea behind
behaviouristic analysis is an input and output analysis, a thought which is easily understood when
we look at animal psychology. One of the problems of animal psychology is the 'other minds'-
problem: we cannot know an animals needs and desires nor its feelings and pains. Therefore, the
only way to research animals is by looking at their behaviour: by placing a cat between vegetable
food and meat, we can infer that a cat is a carnivore, since it will eat the meat. We do not conclude
anything about its feelings (e.g. that it is hungry), since this belongs to the black box between the
input and the output. Similarly, instead of trying to explain by looking at the black box of processes
which disturb an organisation from good functioning, instead one could look at how organisations
respond to certain changes and look at influences that bring about positive changes.
On the other hand, philosophers have given two reasons for the impossibility for such causal
explanation. The first reason denies causal explanations because social phenomena are not tightly
connected to their physical counterparts, as we have the problem of multiple realisation: the same
social phenomenon can be realised by different physical phenomena. Therefore, we do not have
conclusive evidence that the same type of laws existing in the physical realm will also exist in the
social realm, as it is possible these multiple physical instantiations have nothing else in common
than being associated with the same social phenomenon. As social phenomena still supervene on
physical, they can only have analysable laws if these laws supervene on the physical laws, which is
exactly what is denied by the multiple realisation problem 36. The second argument, first given by
Charles Taylor, argues that the social sciences can only use interpreted data, because they are not
about behaviour but about action. For him, to follow the natural sciences standard is like suggesting
that there is a metaphysical existence of 'raw' or 'brute' data in the social sciences, i.e. data which
isn't affected by human interpretation. However, as actions are always intended in themselves, and
exactly these actions are the subject of social scientific research, how is it then possible to arrive at
uninterpreted knowledge, since the field itself is value-laden? Therefore, we should use
interpretations as our explanation content37.

36 Kincaid 2002, p292.

37 Ibid idem. See also Taylor 1994, p186-187.

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One final remark here is necessary. The distinction I made above between naturalist causalism and
anti-naturalist interpretationism is of course stereotypical. Some of the theories do not fit into this
description. However, I believe these couples are often if not always agreed upon within the current
debates in the philosophy of science. I think Kincaid would agree here as he argues that both are
different arguments against the same scientific status for both natural and social sciences38.
The meta-narratives of Rationality, Integration and Market all take in the naturalistic causal
position. These theories strive for a normal science theory, with two organisational proposals and
one economic proposal as its candidate which has a mathematical system and the possibility of a
testing environment. This focus on main science theories is strongly linked to the ontological
commitment by these theories. Within the Rationality meta-narrative, it was argued that
organisation theory should give an objectively determined most effective configuration which
should be forced upon the organisation itself. It suggests that this 'objectively determined most
effective configuration' should be obtained by empirical research and is universally applicable, i.e.
applicable to any organisation. Here there is a similarity with the natural sciences: the Rationality
meta-narrative searches for 'universal social laws' which ground a certain organisational
configuration. Within this narrative, there is no discussion about this presupposition.
Within the Integration narrative, objective research is possible due to the organicist nature of an
organisation. The main assumption here is that actions by organisations are effectively the same as
made by an individual who struggles for survival within an unknown and uncertain world. Due to
these uncertainty factors, individuals (and more generally organisms) use another method, called
'heuristics', which are analogous to rules of thumb. Humans, as an organism, constantly use
heuristics, which can be examined. As mentioned above, organicists suggest that we should analyse
organisations by looking at these spontaneously generated methods. More precisely, it rejects any
suggestions that we could analyse an organisation in terms of individuals and instead propose that
we cannot designate any component which of the single processes is more essential for the
existence of the organisation than another.
Structural functionalism, the most dominant approach until today, can be analysed as a form of
'organisational pluralism': while it handles external factors similarly to the Integration meta-
narrative as it acknowledges the uncertainty of the outside world, internal factors are handled by
organisation design as with the Rationality meta-narrative. This also means that cultural factors and
power struggles are reduced to a technical problem solvable by the internal system. This also leads

38 Ibid, p291.

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to the assumption that an organisation culture, when established, will never change again, except
when initiated by a change in organisation design by the expert in question. This is the
behaviouristic theory at work: organisation culture is a part of the behaviouristic 'black box',
therefore we may only look at changes brought about by the system, not at the phenomenon itself.
Within the Market meta-narrative, cultural influences are still assumed to have either no impact or a
'fixed impact' on calculation of extra costs: in the latter case it is translated into a quantitative value
which represents the cultural factor within models as one of the 'random uncertainty factors' where
in the former case the organisation theory is thought of as able to handle such cultural influences,
where it is assigned a certain value to be able to fit it into the calculation. As such, it tries to
subsume everything into the mathematical theoretical framework in order to infer causal claims. As
with neo-classical economics, of which it is a specialisation, it aims at holding the high standards by
offering an abstract, but strong mathematical framework which has great causal explanatory power.
Often these organisational proposals appeal to statistical research to measure objectively
effectiveness. As shown above, all three meta-narratives also reduce organisation culture and power
struggles to marginal issues, which can be handled inside the system. The result is almost always a
static conception of these aspects which seem to be susceptible to change over time. As both are
characteristics of human relations which are partially bound to cultural, social and historical
contingencies39, we cannot find uninterpreted figures (or 'brute data', as Taylor calls it (Taylor,
1971)) within the culture and power issues. As these three proposals search for this brute data, they
are struggling with incorporating these items into their explanatory framework.

The meta-narrative of Power holds an ambiguous position when we look at the distinction between
naturalistic causalism and anti-naturalistic interpretativism. The Neo-Weberian theories do not fall
into this stereotypical distinction. Weber thought he could give an objective analysis of “socially
produced organisational factors”(Bellamy, 2003), without resorting to only a descriptive analysis,
instead leaning on “a special method of sympathetic understanding, commonly labelled with the
German term Verstehen”40. This call for Verstehen bears resemblance with Gadamers (and therefore
with Taylor's) idea of an hermeneutic circle, in which the researcher tries to interpret the
phenomenon in question into its 'intersubjective meaning' (Taylor 1994), with a researcher whose
research also is comprised of intersubjective meanings. For Weber, however, this does not mean that
objective evidence is impossible. Even though it might be so that human values are personal choice,

39 Clegg & Hardy 1999, p1-2.

40 Kincaid 2002, p291.

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R. van der Pluijm Paradigm irreductionism

it is still an empirical fact that some of these values become realised in organisational practice.
Weber clearly embraces the naturalistic view, but does not hold that we need to cite causes as our
explanation content in order to hold the same standard of the natural sicences. More strongly, for
Weber it would be a fundamental mistake to cite causes, as this does not recognize that human
actions are based on personal choice.
The second position of which the Power meta-narrative consists of, the Foucaultian view, clearly
chooses an interpretative, anti-naturalistic standpoint. One of the main points in these postmodern
theories, and therefore also of the meta-narrative of Knowledge, is that within all social sciences we
have some historical, social or cultural presuppositions which decide on whether we choose on or
another option and that we cannot prevent these presuppositions from entering our theoretical
frameworks. Therefore, all the results we get from our research are by definition historically,
socially or culturally contingent, especially within the social sciences, as the researchers themselves
have a historical, sociological and cultural background. It may seem that the Foucaultian theory
about power struggles and the Knowledge meta-narrative presented by Derrida and Lyotard as
described here take in more or less the same position as Taylor with his argument for
interpretativism which is described above. The main difference between these two positions is that
while Taylor, following Gadamer, suggests that it at least in theory is possible to understand one's
own assumptions41, the postmodernists do not see any reason to believe that we will discover our
own assumptions as we will always try to look at the system while we are still in the system itself.
Moreover, this view also means that organisations themselves are just socially and historically
contingent practices, which factors need to be made explicit (Kilduff & Mehra, 1997). These
differences seem to be more ontological than epistemological, however, as both encourage radical
research of one's own presuppositions in order to create awareness of the contingent factors which
played a role in the analysis (Taylor 1994; Kilduff & Mehra, 1997).
The last meta-narrative, Justice focusses on interpretative analysis. This is especially true of the
organisational level, on which it tries to explain the influences of cultures of the higher (societal)
level on the current level. While they focus on the role of organisation structures, this focus is based
on the political and social factors causing the optimal organisation structures, making again “[...]
the historical structural and contextual positioning of actors[...]” 42 the main object of focus, which
need the interpretative focus. However, as with the Neo-Weberian theories, this may lead to
objective knowledge about effective ways of organisation design. When the meta-narrative of

41 Taylor 1994, p198-199.

42 Reed 1999, p37.

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R. van der Pluijm Paradigm irreductionism

Power may be associated with the (continental) post-modern tradition in philosophy, the meta-
narrative of Justice may be associated with the (American) pragmatist tradition.
What is important to learn from these two debates is that, as these theories tend to focus on
particular aspects of the organisation, each of them has to either make abstract one or more aspects
of an orgnanisation in order to incorporate these aspects into the theory or has to ignore them
completely. Where the Market perspective focusses on the economical action, it has to abstract the
cultural and sociological aspects of the organisation. This is especially true for those perspectives
which aim at holding the high standards of the natural sciences, as the social and cultural practices
are too diverse to incorporate into the framework. On the other hand, those narratives who focus on
interpretations tend to loose sight of the economical and technical administrative design aspects of
an organisation, as they tend to emphasise on the cultural and sociological aspects. This is most
apparent within the Foucaultian theories, as they only aim at small scale social practices. There is
one caveat here, though. One of the main points of some of the postmodern theories is exactly that
any organisation design is socially and historically contingent and would therefore argue that any
technical description is inadequate to describe the this contingent nature.

Reductionism: the individualism versus holism versus collectivism debate

The individualism versus holism debate has already been firmly debated within the organisational
studies themselves43. The basic premise of the individualism position is one of theory
reductionism44: One theory can be reduced to another if it can subsume all explanatory value of the
other theory under its own without using technical terms used which refer to entities from the other
theory. With individualism, the main question is whether it is possible to describe individual
behaviour without resorting to social concepts.
There are two important differences between the debate within the organisational studies and the
debate within philosophy of social science in general. First, the organisational studies attach a moral
component to this debate, arguing that individualism promotes the status of human autonomy 45.
Second, next to the individualism and holism position, the organisational studies have an even more
radical position on the 'non-individual' side of the debate, which is collectivism. This position
denies any individual factors as components of the organisation; these simply become some form of
figure into the calculation46.

43 Ibid, p41.
44 Kincaid 1997, p5.
45 Reed 1999, p41.
46 Reed 1999, p41

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R. van der Pluijm Paradigm irreductionism

The individualist position is argued for most strongly by the market perspective. The Market meta-
narrative has some similarities with neo-classical economics. A basic assumption with both is that
they need to idealize in large proportions some incalculable aspect of their research topic in order to
be able to predict within the mathematical framework. Within neo-classical economics, one of these
aspects is human rationality47. Calculations are based on a so-called optimalisation strategy, which
suggests that people always calculate where e.g. one should buy a product. Should there be a lack
of information (e.g. not all prices are known) or lack of resources (limited amount of time), instead
people optimise their usage of the lacking resource, e.g. by calculating the number of shops which
can be visited before a decision has to be made. This condition is called 'optimalisation under
constraints'. Also, neo-classical economics assume some basics regarding markets, which are
focussed on full competition and equilibrium outcomes (e.g. law of supply and demand) and are
often assumed to have freely available information, although this information still may be lacking
due to constraints as above. It is assumed that it is this framework that can give the strongest
explanatory power48. Within the Market meta-narrative, the aspects which are reduced to single
variables are culture and human rationality. The Market meta-narrative tries to position the role of
organisations in the neo-classical economical framework. As noted above, this is problematic, since
in the ideal situation, there would be no need for organisations within the economy. However,
within the Market meta-narrative, it is acknowledged that this ideal situation does not hold in all
situations. It is not just the human rationality claim that is rebutted; often, it is taken into account
that not all parties give full information regarding their products. Put more strongly, the human
rationality claim is the last claim that is often still silently acknowledged, generally supported by
the 'as if'-argument: even though people do not act rationally, the results are still corresponding to
the results in another close metaphysical world in which people do indeed behave rational.
The Integration narrative is on the other end of the spectrum. Here, the organisation is referred to as
an organism itself and research aims only at the relation between organisations and the outside
world. Little to no attention is paid to the individual components, as organisation development and
functioning is researched without looking at them. The organisation design is effectively enforced
on the individuals, who can just 'sit back, watch and endure'.
All of the other meta-narratives fall under the holism debate. Some of them focus more on the role
of the individual within the organisational practices (such as the Neo-Weberian power struggles and
the Foucaultian individual practices), but all need the social, historical and cultural terminology and

47 Kincaid 1997, p93.

48 Ibid idem.

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R. van der Pluijm Paradigm irreductionism

concepts in order to explain how the individual positions itself within the society. Others focus
more on the role of the organisation itself, such as the Knowledge and Rationality meta-narratives,
but both need the conception of the individual, either to argue for the 'unusual' and contingent
changes within organisations (Knowledge) or to have a rational object which is the main building
block or resource of the organisational framework. Note that the main difference between
Rationality and Integration is that while Rationality imposes a strong rationalised and abstract
picture of an individual, individuals and their labour are still taken into account when designing an
effective organisation strategy; within Integration the organisation itself is the individual which is
studied.

The last two paragraphs shows a strong distinction between the different meta-narratives. What's
more, there are no narratives which position themselves continually on the same location within the
debate. This suggests that the discussions which are dominant in the organisational studies are
fundamental discussions on how we should interpret the status of the social sciences and their
explanations.
The most interesting position are the naturalistic holists, since when a theory is wanting to hold the
same status and obey to the high standards of the natural sciences, these sciences are often marked
as a candidate for reduction (and thus for individualism), as it is easier to relate the higher level
explanation to the lower level explanation. If organisation theory would hold the same standards
and would produce the same law-like causes as e.g. individual psychology, it would be an ideal
candidate for reduction, since it would appear that these law-like causes are supervening on
individual causes. It could be used as an empirical argument against the thesis that organisational
studies would be too open ended to behave in law-like ways, although the problem of multiple
realisation would have to be tackled.

Now that the differences between the meta-narratives are placed into the fundamental debates into
the philosophy of social science, we can finally look at the paradigm incommensurability debate
itself.

Monism versus pluralism: comparison with the causality debate

The paradigm incommensurability debate is an important debate because of the apparent inability to
join explanations from different meta-narratives, as it is possible that they conflict, which would
pose a problem for the unity of organisational studies. Perhaps one of the problems of answering

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R. van der Pluijm Paradigm irreductionism

this question, and thereby offering a solution to the paradigm problem of organisation theory, is
located within the question for the concept of the organisation. What is at stake here is whether we
should opt for a pluralistic view on the nature of an organisation theory. I think we can make an
analogy here with another discussion in the philosophy of science which is the discussion on
causation. Let us therefore make a short sidestep to the philosophical debate of causation.
One of the currently defended views on causation is a pluralistic conception of causation: ever since
Hume introduced his regularity account of causation, all monist theories have failed to grasp the
account of causation in terms of necessary and sufficient conditions, mostly due to sophisticated
counterexamples. A number of philosophers have argued that all these monist theories fail is
because there is no the account of causation and have given conceptual reasons for this (Reiss,
2009): theories of causation were all based on the methodology by which they were presumably
discovered. There were probabilistic accounts of causation, since statistic correlation suggests that
there was a relation between the cause and the effect. The regularity account is basically the
common sense way we learn about causation: always close in space-time, each time in the same
way with each time first the cause and then the effect. However, our methods of discovery tell us
nothing about the concept itself. Also, Reiss argues against methodological pluralism, the view that
we can have multiple ways to discover causes, but only one concept. According to Reiss, it is
methodologically possible to have cases in which two theoretical components give both other
intuitions: according to rule A there is no causation, but according to rule B there is. This would
mean that the theory contradicts itself. Therefore, he argues, we need concept pluralism. Another,
more practical test for concept pluralism is this: if we would have concept pluralism, this should
mean that our ordinary language would suggest that we have multiple uses for cause. Compare our
usage of 'cause' with our usage of 'hot'. We can certainly ask “Do you mean 'hot' as in very warm or
do you mean 'hot' as in very sharp?”, but some philosophers argue that this isn't the case with
causation (Godfrey-Smith, 2007).

The pluralist debate on causation, an certainly the discussion between conceptual pluralism and
methodological pluralism is a debate which we recognise within the discussion on organisation
theory as the paradigm discussions. Recall our three different standpoints within the paradigm
discussion. There was one group who rejected all other theories and only accepted conservative
views, mostly contingency theory, on organisation theory. This position within the debates on
causation is held by monist theories of causation: both hold that the concept in question is but one

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R. van der Pluijm Paradigm irreductionism

concept and there is only one preferred method to determine this concept.
A second group tries through philosophical and linguistic analysis to try to bridge the gap. This
position is comparable with methodological pluralism. Both visions hold that, although we use
different methods, all these methods tell us something else about the same concept. By
philosophical analysis we can determine how these theories relate and which theory is applicable in
which situation.
The third and last group wanted to retain the diversity, arguing that it “[...]emancipates
organizational analysis from 'the necessity for interminable justifications of different ontological,
epistemological and methodological approaches' [(Jackson & Carter, 1991)]:110.”49 This position
is comparable to the concept-pluralism in the debates on causation. Both see the concept in question
as irreducibly plural, having multiple concepts. However, instead of giving conceptual arguments as
the philosophers of conceptual causal pluralism do, the quoted sentence emphasises the
consequences for social praxis. It is as if these authors are saying: discussion is pointless, let us just
keep using our plural concepts, as they all have merits, each showing the discussion from another
approach. We would otherwise just have discussions which would continue unendlessly. Also, it is
argued, that each of these different approaches should have the ability to continue to develop on
their own, instead of being pushed away by the more prominent theories50.
Before I will evaluate these discussions in the organisational studies, it is important to realise that,
although a comparison with the debate on causality is quite easy to show, there are a number of
fundamental differences between these two debates.
First of all, causation is a far more abstract concept as an organisation is. Although we can say of
both that we never have seen an empirical proof of an organisation, we are certain that organisations
exist and, given any description of a number of persons working together under certain rules, we
will surely all have the same intuition about what an organisation is. With causation however, this is
a wholly different story. There are numerous counter-examples in which we either aren't sure
whether it is a case of causation or we have competing intuitions (Hitchcock, 2003).
Second, an organisation is an institutional practice, determined by conventions, and thus has a
distinct humanistic nature. Most people will grant that causation has a human component, i.e. that
part of the meaning we address to causation is not part of the world, but only a few philosophers
have defended that causality is only humanistic in nature51.

49 Willmott 1993, p681-682.

50 Reed 1999, p26.
51 Menzies & Price have defended such an opinion, but it has not been well-received.

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R. van der Pluijm Paradigm irreductionism

With these remarks in mind, let us now look at the three alternatives in the paradigm
incommensurability debate. The 'monist option', in which we simply disregard the other theories as
unscientific, looks unconvincing. When we look at contingency theory, one of the prime candidates
according to its defenders (Donaldson, 1999) to fulfil the role of all other theories, it reduces
cultural and power struggle issues to simple technical issues. This theory then fails to give an
analysis of multiple power sources and cultural influences influencing each other. Moreover, it takes
for granted some strong assumptions regarding human rationality and the homogeneity of value
means52.
The second option, the sophisticated philosophical analysis to bridge the gap I have identified with
methodological pluralism looks more promising. Within the philosophy of causation, this position
has been seen as problematic, as it is hard to see that we have a priori (and therefore conceptual)
reasons to argue that no counter-example exists in which some of the theoretical components yield
different results than other. Simply put, philosophers of causation argue that the project which is
attempted by these organisational theorists will fail for this reason. I am not certain that this also
holds for organisation theory, however, and this is due to the less abstract nature of an organisation.
Still, it is epistemically undesirable that we have multiple theories of which we do not know when
which theory holds, as this would suggest that we sometimes cannot determine which theory to use.
Finally, the arguments given for the third theory, concept-pluralism, may have practical importance,
but is not strong, again on practical grounds. On practical grounds it can be problematic that we
have no grounds to reject theories, since it allows unscientific and pseudo-theories to emerge for
which we lack the tools to refute them. Moreover, without debates with other competing theories,
these theories cannot develop to their fullest. A more theoretical argument is that we do think there
are better and worse theories. When introducing such relativism, which almost looks as
isolationism, it suggests that we have no reason to assume that these differences exist, albeit on a
contextual scale.

Organisation as a 'family resemblance'; stressing the question

Of the three theories described above, the second one, arguing for methodological pluralism, seems
to have the strongest position. However, this would suggest a singular conception of an
organisation, something which does not seem to coincide with the strong fundamental differences
shown in the discussions within the philosophy of science. But if this singular conception is wrong,
how then can we 'save' the organisational studies from falling apart?

52 Reed 1999, p32.

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R. van der Pluijm Paradigm irreductionism

I want to suggest one idea which was put forward by Godfrey-Smith in his discussion of causal
theories. His idea is that we could analyse the concept of causation by looking at it as an family
resemblance concept, meaning that, even though some of the aspects of causality have nothing in
common, they can have relation to each other via a third theory with which they do have something
in common (Godfrey-Smith, 2007)(Wittgenstein, 1963). Please look at the following table to
illuminate this concept:
Rationality Market Power
Type of explanation Causal Causal Interpretations
explanation explanation
Individualism/ Holism Individualism Holism
Holism
Focus of practice Organisational Individual Individual
practices practices practices

Here, while these three meta-narratives do not have any singular aspect in common, all share some
aspect with all the others. Should organisation theory be a family resemblance concept, each of
these theories should have one of these points in common with each other, but there would be no
point which is common by all.
The positive side of this conception is that it does explain why there are differences between each of
the theories in question. Each of them focusses on one aspect, a characteristic which we already saw
in the discussion regarding naturalism/anti-naturalism and interpretativism/causalism, but lacks
some of the other. The major drawback is that it also doesn't bring us any closer to a unification of
organisational studies. Within this conception of organisation, although it is clear why we have such
different thoughts about how we should look at an organisation, it does not tell us which theory we
should use at any given time.
I think we should opt for a more pragmatic view here. All of these theories emphasise different
aspects of an organisation. While some of these may conflict, this can easily be explained: some use
strong abstractions on a certain level, which may inflict inconsistencies on a lower level, but will
not be apparent on another level. However, we do have a mechanic to tell what theory we should
use: it is dependent on the question we ask ourselves and the information we would like to receive.
When we want to ask ourselves about the financial consequences for reorganising, we should op for
a Market meta-narrative, which will transform any data into financial figures. If we want to know
the cultural problematic, we should use a theory from the power or knowledge meta-narrative, or
perhaps the justice meta-narrative.

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R. van der Pluijm Paradigm irreductionism

It may seem that this position is utterly relativistic. However, I do not feel that this is the case. First,
utterly weak theories will always have another theory which is able to give a more informing
explanation then the weak theory, making its applicability zero. Second, we may still appeal to
(likeliness of) truth-conditions; a theory which is unable to give a reasonable answer in the current
organisational situation is simply useless(Van Fraassen, 1977).

One thing we should learn about the short suggestion above is the importance for organisational
consultants and researchers to firmly establish the context and scope of the research they are about
to begin. As the field of organisational study is a wide and diverse field, full of different tools, we
should first determine whether we are looking at a nail or a screw before picking out our toolbox.

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