Cognitivism in Organization Studies

Abstract

One today discerns renewed interest in cognitivism among organizational analysts. As far as European scholars are concerned, mention should primarily be made of efforts by the Journal of Management Studies, which, in 1989 and 1992, devoted special issues to themes related to this approach to organizational study. But the interest is widespread, as the survey conducted by Susan Schneider and Reinhard Angelmar and published in Organization Studies (1993) confirms. It is with a passage from this essay (Schneider/Angelmar 1993, p. 348) that we wish to begin. The logic that apparently underpins and sustains the entire structure of organizational cognitivism is the following:

“people think (=cognitive psychology), managers are people (=organizational behaviour), therefore managers must think (= managerial cognition); and managers happen to think in organizations while they are engaged-in assorted organizational tasks (e.g. decision-making, strategic or otherwise, negotiations, performance appraisal, etc.) (= cognition in organization).”