University of St. Thomas, Minnesota UST Research Online Education Doctoral Dissertations in Organization School of Education Development 2012 A Bricolage of Critical Hermeneutics, Abductive Reasoning, and Action Research for Advancing Humanistic Values through Organization Development Practice Daniel J. Shuster University of St. Thomas, Minnesota Follow this and additional works at: https://ir.stthomas.edu/caps_ed_orgdev_docdiss Part of the Education Commons Recommended Citation Shuster, Daniel J., "A Bricolage of Critical Hermeneutics, Abductive Reasoning, and Action Research for Advancing Humanistic Values through Organization Development Practice" (2012). Education Doctoral Dissertations in Organization Development. 13. https://ir.stthomas.edu/caps_ed_orgdev_docdiss/13 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the School of Education at UST Research Online. It has been accepted for inclusion in Education Doctoral Dissertations in Organization Development by an authorized administrator of UST Research Online. For more information, please contact [email protected]. A Bricolage of Critical Hermeneutics, Abductive Reasoning, and Action Research For Advancing Humanistic Values through Organization Development Practice by Daniel J. Shuster A dissertation submitted to the faculty of the School of Education in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Doctor of Education degree. University of St. Thomas Saint Paul, Minnesota June 2012 A Bricolage of Critical Hermeneutics, Abductive Reasoning, and Action Research For Advancing Humanistic Values through Organization Development Practice by Daniel J. Shuster University of St. Thomas We certify that we have read this doctoral dissertation written by Daniel J. Shuster and approved it as adequate in scope and quality. We have found it complete and satisfactory in all respects, and that any and all revisions required by the final examining committee have been made. Stephen Brookfield, Ph.D., Committee Chair Alla Heorhiadi, Ph.D., Ed.D., Committee Member Eleni Roulis, Ph.D., Committee Member June 18, 2012 © Daniel J. Shuster 2012 i Acknowledgements I sincerely thank my friend Jan Blake, Ed.D. for her many hours of feedback and critique on drafts to this work. Several years of deep dialogue with my good friend Bill Hannon, M.B.A., M.S.O.D. is also present in this work. I thank friends Tony Blake, M.S. and Sharon Walbran, M.S. for their very generous technical assistance. I am especially indebted to my dissertation committee for seeing this long process through. Thank you to committee members Stephen Brookfield, Ph.D. (Chair), and Alla Heorhiadi, Ph.D., Ed.D., and Eleni Roulis, Ph.D. Dr. Brookfield worked through several drafts with me and held me to a very high standard of writing for which I am grateful. I also wish to acknowledge the support I have received, throughout the entire UST doctoral process, from John Conbere, Ed.D., my academic advisor, and Liz Knight, our OD Department Manager. The very capable UST librarians have also been enormously helpful to me. I shall always remember the late Sharon Gibson, Ph.D. and be grateful for her vigorous encouragement and validation of my work. © Daniel J. Shuster 2012 ii Dedication I dedicate this work to my wife, Cynthia L. Hummel, and to our son, Thomas A. Shuster who have inspired and sustained me for precious decades of life; and to the memories of my mother, Ruth Hinman Shuster, and my grandmother, Clara Mead Hinman, who always believed in me and loved me unconditionally throughout the difficult and all too brief time we shared life together. © Daniel J. Shuster 2012 iii Abstract This is an emergent and auto-ethnographic study to find ways for the practice of organization development (OD) to recover and sustain humanism in the workplace. It begins with a literature review hermeneutically exploring the history and relevance of three modes of inquiry—hermeneutics, abductive reasoning, and action research—paratactically, which is to say, separately without overlap or reference to each other—to future OD practice. These three modes were selected from an extended literature search for non-reductive modes of inquiry that could address the range of human interests and workplace dis-ease as I understand them. I combined my strong background reading on hermeneutics with the abductive reasoning of C. S. Peirce as two of the modes for review and also reflexively as part of my own methodology. The third mode, action research, is borrowed from the work of Kurt Lewin and his tradition in OD, known for its humanistic and democratic aims. Also included in the literature review is a report on the some of the more salient challenges and opportunities currently confronting the practice of organization development (OD) to provide a context for practical expression of my emerging discoveries. Following the literature review, I hermeneutically surfaced submerged, tacit (hidden-from-consciousness) generative connections from the confluence (flowing together) of the three modes, as they abductively emerged from within my expanding hermeneutic experience (known as a horizon) with the literature review. I then interpret the tacit relevance of that confluence through my life experience, for illuminating those OD challenges and opportunities. Finally this study integrates a sequence of critical hermeneutic and abductive processes in a participatory action research (PAR) pathway leading to plateaus of discovery and renewal through facilitation by humanistically oriented OD praxis. I conclude with five abduced interventions hypothetically drawn from personal case studies. My audience are OD practitioners inclined to develop wholistic humanism in the workplace through facilitative immersion with small groups and micro-cultures. Here they may find enlarged conceptual frames to reconceptualize OD, engage clients in transformative dialogue, and create actionable knowledge in their practice. © Daniel J. Shuster 2012 iv Key words: a priori experiential horizon, abductive reasoning, action inquiry, action learning, action research, action science, actionable knowledge, agency, alienation, ampliative inference, assumptive world, attunement of workgroups, belief, bricolage, categorical, category notes, centrally controlled cooperation, certainty, change management, choice, circularity and suppressed nucleation, co-generative learning, cognitive dissonance, collaboration, colonization, communitarian, communities of practice, concatenation, constructionism, constructivism, Consulcube, corporate tyranny, covert processes, critical hermeneutics, Dasein, defeasible hypotheses, democracy, depth hermeneutics, diagnostic OD, dialogic OD, dialogical-dialectical mediation, dialogue, difference and distance, digestible consequences, dignity, directive change management, diversity, dogma, domination, doubt, emancipation, emergent approach (power and politics), emergent research, empiricism, end to itself sphere and means to an end sphere, epistemologies, erklären (to explain), evaluation, evidence- based research, exegetical tradition, existentialism, explicative-nomothetic, explicit and implicit culture, facilitation, fascism, focal attention, foreknowledge, foundational critical thinking skills, foundational language skills, Fourth Generation evaluation, freedom, free- market, fusion of horizons, Gadamer, general semantics, grounded theory, hegemony, Heidegger, hermeneutic circle/spiral, hermeneutic phenomenology, hermeneutics, hermeneutics of suspicion, hermetic drift, holons, horizon, hubris, human finitude, humanism, idiographic-nomothetic duality, inadequate social institutions, individualism, inductive probability, inference to best explanation, innate human drives, integrative, interpretive-idiographic, interpretivism, intersubjectivity, intertextuality, knowledge management, Lewin, liberty, linguisticality, lived experience (Erlebnis), logical empiricism, long-term sustainability, material-instrumental dimension, mergers and acquisitions, methodological pathway, modus ponens, modus tollens, Naturwissenschaften, neopragmatism, new social order, noetic, normative behavior, objectivism, ontological, ontological facticity, ontological finitude, oppression, organization development (OD), overt and covert culture, participatory action research, Peirce, philosophical hermeneutics, polymodal inquiry, positivism, post-modern, post-positivism, pragmaticism, pragmatism, prejudice, presuppositions, private narrative and public narrative, private spheres and public spheres, propositional and tacit knowledge, psychoanalysis, punctuated equilibrium, qualitative and quantitative research, radical hermeneutics, rapid iterations, ratiocination, reductionism, reflection, researchers-as-bricoleurs, retroduction, rhetoric, rhizomatics, segregation, semiotic, Geisteswissenschaften, socio-economic approach to management (SEAM), socio-technical systems, syllogistic logic, time-binding, totalitarianism, value-based perspectives, verstehen, Weltanschauung, Wittgenstein, Zusammenhang © Daniel J. Shuster 2012 v Table of Contents Chapter 1–Preliminary Material............................................................................................1 Overview of the Study………………...………………………………………………3 Background Statement...................................................................................................8 Problem Statement.........................................................................................................9 Purpose Statement........................................................................................................16