On the Shoulders of Giants

On the Shoulders of Giants Timothy L. Wilson; Tommy Jensen Download free books at Tommy Jensen & Timothy L. Wilson On the Shoulders of Giants 2 Download free eBooks at bookboon.com On the Shoulders of Giants 1st edition © 2014 Tommy Jensen & Timothy L. Wilson & bookboon.com ISBN 978-87-403-0751-1 3 Download free eBooks at bookboon.com On the Shoulders of Giants Contents Contents Rediscovering intellectual efforts 8 Background to this book 11 Selection of contributors and giants 12 Acknowledgement 13 Contents of this book 14 1 Georges Bataille 19 On His Shoulders (And Other Parts of the Body of Knowledge) Alf Rehn and Marcus Lindahl 2 Zygmunt Bauman 31 The Holocaust and Organization Studies Tommy Jensen www.sylvania.com We do not reinvent the wheel we reinvent light. Fascinating lighting offers an infinite spectrum of possibilities: Innovative technologies and new markets provide both opportunities and challenges. An environment in which your expertise is in high demand. Enjoy the supportive working atmosphere within our global group and benefit from international career paths. Implement sustainable ideas in close cooperation with other specialists and contribute to influencing our future. Come and join us in reinventing light every day. Light is OSRAM 4 Click on the ad to read more Download free eBooks at bookboon.com On the Shoulders of Giants Contents 3 Reinhard Bendix 47 Work and Authority in Industry Markus Kallifatides 4 Marta B. Calás and Linda Smircich 60 Seductive Poststructuralist Re-readings of Leadership Ulla Eriksson-Zetterquist 5 Richard M. Cyert and James G. March 74 An Eye-opener and a Lifelong Love Affair Rolf A. Lundin 360° 6 Peter F. Drucker 85 Father of Management and Grandfather of Marketing Timothy L. Wilson 360° thinking. 7 Henri Fayol 95 The Man Who Designed Modern Management Karin Holmblad Brunsson thinking. 360° thinking . 360° thinking. Discover the truth at www.deloitte.ca/careers Discover the truth at www.deloitte.ca/careers © Deloitte & Touche LLP and affiliated entities. Discover the truth at www.deloitte.ca/careers © Deloitte & Touche LLP and affiliated entities. © Deloitte & Touche LLP and affiliated entities. Discover the truth5 at www.deloitte.ca/careersClick on the ad to read more Download free eBooks at bookboon.com © Deloitte & Touche LLP and affiliated entities. On the Shoulders of Giants Contents 8 Mary Parker Follett 107 An Almost Forgotten Giant who is Worth Remembering Ulla Johansson and Jill Woodilla 9 Erving Goffman 122 On the Underlife of Organizations Johan Sandström 10 Alvin Gouldner 137 The Three Faces of Bureaucracy Alexander Styhre 11 Jeff Hearn and Wendy Parkin 153 On Organization Sexuality Charlotte Holgersson 12 Rosabeth Moss Kanter 166 Men and Women of the Corporation Anna Wahl We will turn your CV into an opportunity of a lifetime Do you like cars? Would you like to be a part of a successful brand? Send us your CV on We will appreciate and reward both your enthusiasm and talent. www.employerforlife.com Send us your CV. You will be surprised where it can take you. 6 Click on the ad to read more Download free eBooks at bookboon.com On the Shoulders of Giants Contents 13 Gunnar Myrdal 181 Objectivity and Social Research Elisabeth Sundin 14 Maria Ossowska 193 These Shoulders so Elegant... Barbara Czarniawska 15 Chaïm Perelman and Lucie Olbrechts-Tyteca 209 Arguing and Organising Hervé Corvellec 16 David Silverman 225 Struggling with The Theory of Organisations Daniel Ericsson 17 Karl E. Weick 240 On Organizing Markus Hällgren 18 Authors 251 19 Endnotes 254 AXA Global Graduate Program Find out more and apply 7 Click on the ad to read more Download free eBooks at bookboon.com On the Shoulders of Giants Rediscovering intellectual efforts Rediscovering intellectual efforts Why stand on the shoulders of a giant? Tommy Jensen and Timothy L. Wilson One answer to the above question is provided by Sir Isaac Newton: “If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.”1 Thus, Sir Isaac was humble and wise enough to realize that new ideas do not come into being just like that; there is a past and connected to the past are certain dependencies regarding ideas. Some of the prevailing ideas today would simply not have been around if it weren’t for previous ideas. Newton’s ideas are today deemed as ground-breaking; an important step breaking with the pre-modern phase. However radical that might appear to us now, Newton himself paid tribute to his giants, appreciating that his work was preceded by many a scholar’s work. Even though radical breaks with previous past do occur and revolutionary ideas at times seem to evolve from nowhere (cf. Kuhn, 1996), developments in science are most often an incremental, slow process. Another reason for studying the foundations of our discipline is because “[t]hose who cannot learn from the past are condemned to repeat it”, a statement for which George Santayana is credited.2 In other words, our scholarly activities should represent meaningful attempts at progress and not reinventions of the wheel. Newton’s and Santayana’s wisdom might at first appear as something perfectly obvious. They are truisms; of course we should pay attention to past ideas so as to assist us in creating new ones today and to avoid the repetition of history. Furthermore, it is simply a matter of intellectual honesty to rightly refer to and understand the originators of an idea. We could add other reasons. First, as the professionalization of social science has taken a turn towards specialization, there is a risk that the discipline of organization studies will lose sight of broader issues such as environmental degradation, global warming, social injustice, globalization that require interdisciplinary approaches. As Adler (2009: 4) states; “organization studies suffers from increasing intellectual insularity.” Going back to giants, then, helps us to develop the kind of professionalization that provides us with a preferred starting point. As giants, and their seminal work, are more often than not holistic in nature, they could serve as “signifiers, allowing us to refer parsimoniously to whole world- views” and appreciate that “they encapsulate what were and remain unusually deep and compelling insights into human nature and social order” (Adler, 2009: 5). 8 Download free eBooks at bookboon.com On the Shoulders of Giants Rediscovering intellectual efforts Secondly, knowing the DNA of ideas also facilitates a critical appreciation that ideas have been generated within certain contexts and at certain times. Consequently, as ideas travel in time and space, perhaps translated into new areas of research and practice, being aware of the origins of the idea is important in order to appreciate the possible extensions or limitations of such an attempt. Phrased differently, the idea relied upon might at the outset capture a good portion of what seems to be relevant today, but might also leave out a number of important aspects of contemporary organization studies, such as gender issues, human impact on ecological systems or how the rapid development of information technology affects human decision-making. The opposite can also be true. Many ideas that we live by today would have been heavily criticized by historic giants and their societies, and quite often, we believe, rightly so. So, for us, evaluating our society by picking up on the giants and appreciating the context in which they lived offers meaningful possibilities. Against this wisdom stands a good deal of history, e.g. modernity and ideas of progress. Simply put, we like to think that progress means that things past are inferior to things present. In other words, we tend to assume that today we are morally, politically, economically, socially, technically and scientifically superior in terms of individual development in comparison to the level of civilization of, let’s say, 2,300 years ago at the time of Aristotle, 350 years ago at the time of Sir Isaac Newton, or 15 to 60 years ago at the times of the giants referenced in this volume. An example of this presumed sense of progress is when we find ourselves confronted with student writings in which the reference list is ‘brand new’. Students adapt to what they think is the appropriate thing to do and tend to read about the latest developments in journal publications. A ‘best after date’ seems to be set by both undergraduate and PhD students; that date is approximately ‘a couple of years’ but not later than the late nineties. Students acquire this notion from somewhere and established academics play a significant role in keeping it alive. Keeping the reference list fresh is a simple, yet effective, way of ensuring that the completed written product will have a good shelf life. As this matter is subject to scrutiny, we suggest a precautionary principle: change does not necessarily represent progress. It may be the case that new ideas do not actually mean improvement and that older ideas can prove helpful. This reflection is not nostalgia; it is simply important to avoid becoming a-historic. There are several reasons for combating the false idea of progress and starting to dig in the bookshelves of the past to spend time with historic giants in the field of organization studies. Being familiar with the DNA of a discipline increases the capability of understanding the development of the field in question, i.e. knowing which ideas have been used and which have been dumped is essential to an academic appreciation. 9 Download free eBooks at bookboon.com On the Shoulders of Giants Rediscovering intellectual efforts Further, there is essentially no God-given solid proof that current ideas are superior to past ideas. Ideas might run the risk of being watered down by new generations of scholars so that all that remains are concepts depleted of relevance and meaning.

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