Realist Perspectives On Management And Organisations

Realism has been one of the most powerful new developments in philosophy and the social sciences and is now making an increasing impact in business and management studies. This is the first book-length treatment of critical realism in business and management. It pulls together a wide range of material which is all explicitly or implicitly rooted in philosophical realism, and combines theoretical writing with substantive contributions addressing issues such as the nature of the firm and the labour process which together demonstrates that realism is a powerful alternative to postmodernism and positivism.

Realism has been one of the most powerful new developments in philosophy and the social sciences and is now making an increasing impact in business and management studies. This is the first book-length treatment of critical realism in business and management. It pulls together a wide range of material which is all explicitly or implicitly rooted in philosophical realism, and combines theoretical writing with substantive contributions addressing issues such as the nature of the firm and the labour process which together demonstrates that realism is a powerful alternative to pos.

Critical realism has become increasingly important in the way organization and management is studied. This innovative book argues for an alternative to the prevailing ontology, and shows how positivism and its empirical realist ontology can be abandoned without having to accept strong social constructionism. Critical Realist Applications in Organisation and Management Studies applies critical realism in four ways. First, in the removal of meta-theoretical obstacles that hinder the development of fruitful theoretical and empirical work. Second and third, as a meta-theoretical tool with which to develop appropriate methodological and theoretical frameworks which can then be used to inform appropriate empirical work, and finally, all of this is applied across a broad range of subject areas including critical management studies, accountancy, marketing, health care management, operations research, the nature of work, human resource management, labour process theory, regional analysis, and work and labour market studies. Ideal for postgraduates and professionals, this key book will be a valuable resource across a wide range of subjects.

′[A] textbook specifically aimed at organizational misbehaviour. ...it certainly fills a gap... containing a large survey of academic literature on the subject. The book is good: it brings to light subjects which are too often negleced, and it provides an understanding of phenomena which are so common in organizations, but at the same time so vague and incomprehensible′ Organization Studies From `soldiering′ and absenteeism to humour in organizations and the emergence politics of sexuality, this book explores the latest forms of organizational subversion and offers fresh insights of the underlying dynamics of management and organizational processes. The book opens with a critique of orthodox organizational analysis and maps out the wide terrain across which organizational `misbehaviour′ occurs. The authors go on to examine the interconnections between identity formation, the pursuit of autonomy and organizational misbehaviour, and explore how clearly the tendency to misbehave is deeply embedded in organizational life.

The development of Critical Realism (CR), as a philosophy of science, is generally attributed to a series of books by Roy Bhaskar. It has proven to be influential, not least because it has an affinity with many people's views about the way the world fits together, both within and outside of academia. Whilst there are numerous contributions outlining CR theory in sociological and organizational research, as well as general texts about realist ontology, work delineating the consequences of these views for research practice is an emerging area of interest. This book aims to fill a significant gap in the literature by providing a practical guide to the application of CR in empirical research projects. More specifically, it explores the methodological consequences of committing to a CR ontology—the assumptions that researchers from this tradition make about the nature of reality. These assumptions are important because ontological commitments, which relate what we believe exists, often affect our epistemological concerns, which relate to our beliefs about how whatever exists can be studied and known. Thus, for a researcher, ontology and epistemology are important because they have consequences for the possibilities and limits of the research methods, techniques, and analyses that they employ. The book explains what CR is and outlines the logic of research design. In a series of chapters on major social science research methods, purpose-written by experts in the relevant technique, the book contains extended illustration of how to conduct inquiry using CR.

This book extends critical realism by showing how it has been applied to topics in critical management studies, accountancy, marketing, health care management, operations research, the nature of work, HRM, labour process and more.

From `soldiering' and absenteeism to humour in organizations and the emergence politics of sexuality, this book explores the latest forms of organizational subversion and offers fresh insights of the underlying dynamics of management and organizational processes. The book opens with a critique of orthodox organizational analysis and maps out the wide terrain across which organizational `misbehaviour' occurs. The authors go on to examine the interconnections between identity formation, the pursuit of autonomy and organizational misbehaviour, and explore how clearly the tendency to misbehave is deeply embedded in organizational life.

The book provides a practical guide to the application of Critical Realism (CR), an increasingly popular philosophy of social science, in empirical research projects. Each purpose-written chapter reviews major social science research methods and contains extended illustration of how to conduct inquiry using CR.