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Understanding the Organization of Science

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Abstract

The questions to ask to science are the following: What is the spirit of science? What are the assumptions and beliefs in science? What is the essence of science? Are all sciences alike? What is science in relation to humans, society, and everyday life? What is good science? To raise those questions means that we enter the discussions of philosophy and philosophy of science, e.g., the discussions of ontology and epistemology. First of all what should science do and what is the meaning of science? Kjørup (1987: 35) thinks that initially, one may say that the tasks of science are:

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Notes

  1. 1.

    From Greek meros, part.

  2. 2.

    From Greek holos, whole.

  3. 3.

    cf. Arbnor and Bjerke (1981, 1997: 52–); Cuff and Payne (1982: 190).

  4. 4.

    Comte (1965: 125); cf. Burrell and Morgan (1980: 42), Cuff and Payne (1982: 36).

  5. 5.

    From Latin ratio – reason. See also Leibniz G W (1646–1716) Rationalism.

  6. 6.

    Næss (1991a: 456).

  7. 7.

    Nerheim and Rossvær (1990: 99).

  8. 8.

    See, for example, Alvesson and Sköldberg (1994: 25).

  9. 9.

    In Chap. 4 we will develop this discussion by looking at the history of the assumptions and the basic concepts of the Lifeworld tradition.

  10. 10.

    This is typical sociology and anthropology in a broad sense. The most well known in general social science are Goffman (1959), Berger and Luckmann (1966), Garfinkel (1967), and of course Blumer (1969/1986). With those as the theoretical background, scholars have made several different empirical investigations, and one can identify different methodological discussions as arising from the everyday of life thought (e.g., qualitative methods in general, action research).

  11. 11.

    That is, the general understanding of man, see Chap. 4.

  12. 12.

    But in many ways also back to the Greek philosophers, with statements and concepts like Socrates (470–399 B.C.) “I know that I know nothing”; “Know yourself” (to determine your own fate), his development of rhetoric and the dialogue as investigation approach; Plato (428–348 B.C.): that truth is something that we cannot once and for all determine and pass on in a lecturing form. Plato thought that truth is something that the single man must reach, disregarding his narrow and selfish view of things (cf. Lübcke 1994a: 338) and, partly, (the “father” of natural science) Aristoteles (384–322 B.C.), with discussion of knowledge, especially phronêsis (“practical ethical understanding” or practical rationality).

  13. 13.

    cf. Burrell and Morgan (1980: 228); Kjørup (1987: 95).

  14. 14.

    We shall later return to Burrell and Morgan and elaborate their discussion of the paradigm concept and of different paradigms in social science.

  15. 15.

    See Chap. 5 on Blumer for a more detailed discussion.

  16. 16.

    Morgan’s interpretation shall here be seen in relation to his interest in metaphors and their meaning to an understanding of theories and theorizing, cf. Morgan (1986).

  17. 17.

    cf. the introduction to this chapter.

  18. 18.

    For another classification of paradigms and perspectives, see, for example, Parsons et al. (1965), Eisenstadt and Curelaru (1976), Ingebrigtsen and Pettersson (1979), Van de Ven and Joyce (1981), Scott (1981, 1987), Cuff and Payne (1982), Pfeffer (1982), Astley and Van de Ven (1983), Silverman (1983), Habermas (1984), Reed (1985), Morgan (1986), Bradley (1987), Andersen (1990a), Knudsen (1991), and Reed and Hughes (eds.) (1992).

  19. 19.

    See, for example, Kjørup (1987), Nørreklit (1984), Flor (1982), Arbnor and Bjerke (1981).

  20. 20.

    See an amplifying discussion of this in Chap. 4.

  21. 21.

    cf. the discussion of methodology in Part II.

  22. 22.

    Nomothetic from Greek nomos – “law”.

  23. 23.

    Idiographic from Greek: idio – “personal,” “special,” or “particular”.

  24. 24.

    This dimension is somewhat problematic, which we will be discussed and criticized in section “Discussion of Paradigms”.

  25. 25.

    Examples of research workers and their theories which can be placed within this paradigm are Blau (1960), Thompson (1971), Child (1972), Williamson (1975), Pfeffer and Salancik (1978), Hofstede (1980a, b), Cavusgil (1982), Arndt (1983), French and Bell (1984), Cheng (1984), Dunning (1985), Winter (1986), Scott (1987), Johansson and Mattsson (1988), and Daft (1989).

  26. 26.

    See, for example, Heydebrand (1977), Bravermann (1978), and Baran and Sweezy (1966).

  27. 27.

    Understood as conceptual development in connection with the specific research project.

  28. 28.

    Examples here are Hedberg et al. (1976), Brown (1978), Weick (1979a), Silverman (1983), Bartunek (1984), Hennestad (1986), and Kallinikos (1989).

  29. 29.

    Examples here are Benson (1977a), Imershein (1977), Zeitz (1980), Alvesson (1983a, b), Heydebrand (1983), Kallinikos (1986), Neimark and Tinker (1987), Harste (1988), and McGuire (1988).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Pepperdine Graziadio Business School, Los Angeles and Malibu, California, CA, USA

    Woodrow W. Clark II

  2. Department of Business and Management, Aalborg University, Aalborg, Denmark

    Michael Fast

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Clark II, W.W., Fast, M. (2019). Understanding the Organization of Science. In: Qualitative Economics. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-05937-8_3

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