Production of Managerial Knowledge and Organizational Theory (PDF)

As organizational scholars, we are accustomed to using theoretical lenses to understand organizational practices and outcomes. That is, we conceptualize what people do, feel and think in their everyday organizational interactions through the use of theoretical language and models to uncover individual and/or social antecedents and outcomes. We tend to ignore, however, how our own day-to-day work as scholars - doing research - is subjected to the same pressures, affected by similar factors, and should be accounted for through similar modes of analyses. We treat our studies and theories as solid anchor points and as objective truths rather than as constructions embedded within individual, organizational, field and societal contexts. This volume is a must read for all researchers interested in understanding our own craft. Building on established traditions in the sociology of knowledge, we direct a reflective and critical gaze towards the structures, practices and meaning systems that ground and shape how we produce and consume managerial knowledge and organization theory. The volume includes both empirically-based papers and reflective essays that explore theoretical concepts and analytical reasoning to explain, critique and advance the ways in which we write about, produce, and consume theory.