Search results

To explore possible innovations that constructivism and its epistemological participatory position offer to philosophy, in particular to the age‐old problem of grounding epistemological assumptions.

The paper follows von Foerster's account of the participatory position as an epistemological stance. It tries to explain why it is called a “position” rather than “insight” or “theory”. Constructivist (participatory) concepts are explored and related to “classical” philosophical debates such as the “Münchhausen trilemma”. In the conclusion the paper sketches possible ways of how to apply the answers of the participatory position to the philosophical discourse.

The paper points at the possibility to go beyond the insurmountable boundaries dividing different epistemological positions one continuously encounters when searching for the appropriate epistemological starting point. As a result, one cannot expect answers to be universally valid. The paper takes that into consideration. It argues that most philosophical attempts are first order changes (revolutions) as they seek truth and exclude alternative views at the same time. Following von Foerster, the paper suggests second order changes that lead from truth to trust. This transition allows a peaceful coexistence of all philosophical systems. Turning from truth (and belief in analytical clarity) to trust and, consequently, from objectivity to responsibility, it may become possible to transcend the epistemological barriers.

The paper contributes to finding a possible direction for the future of discourses in philosophy and many humanities in order to overcome the incompetence of philosophy of finding final answers.

The purpose of this paper is to review extant accounting research combining institutional and critical theories to examine whether the paradigmatic tensions associated with such research can be alleviated whilst engendering politically engaged scholarship aimed at facilitating processes of emancipation in organisational fields.

The paper provides a review of relevant accounting research and offers recommendations for how to combine institutional and critical research approaches in a paradigmatically consistent way.

Extant accounting research combining institutional and critical theories has not dealt effectively with the partly inter-related problems of ontological drift (i.e. misalignment of ontological assumptions and epistemological commitments) and the conflation of notions of agency and structure. If such problems remain unaddressed institutional research aimed at generating politically engaged scholarship and human emancipation is unlikely to progress in a paradigmatically consistent direction. Recommendations for how to address these issues, grounded in recent advances in critical realism, are elaborated upon. This results in a contingent view of the ontological possibilities of emancipation in organisational fields as well as the epistemological premises that need to be filled to engender processes of emancipation.

The paper reviews an emerging body of research seeking to radicalise institutional accounting research and enhance its contributions to democratic debate in organisations and society. It also outlines how some pertinent paradigmatic tensions associated with such research may be addressed.

The purpose of this systematic narrative review is to discourse on vision and organizational performance. By analysing work-life and organization studies journals, the authors respond to a call to view the process of visioning more holistically.

The methodological approach is a discourse-oriented qualitative content analysis. The authors explore visioning through an epistemological lens, which emphasizes both the connections and differences between “traditional” philosophical approaches.

The findings show how the different interpretations of vision and related concepts are tied to the following themes: clarity, causality, embodiment and sensory experiences and actionability.

Through the frameworks of scientific realism and relativism, the authors illustrate novel insights into the ways in which visioning occupies a place in knowledge management.

In this chapter, I present the philosophical pillars of a Southern green criminology. I develop this work by asking ultimate questions. First, I argue that green criminology has yet to establish and develop the most important fundamental premises that every inquiry must have – ontological, epistemological and methodological premises. To fill that gap, I examine the philosophical beliefs that guide, sustain and legitimise environmental discrimination as well as its preventive practices. Building on that analysis, I present two major philosophies – atomistic and Gestalt – that are overarching worldviews that guide our interactions with nature. I establish a Gestalt philosophy as an inquiry paradigm that can serve as the basis of a Southern green criminology.

This paper develops and provides insights on how researchers can use ANTi-History with a focus on one of its constitutive facets, relationalism. The purpose of this paper is to, first, develop a central facet of ANTi-History called relationalism and to outline how researchers interested in doing organizational history can use ANTi-History insights to undertake relational histories.

The authors propose four phases of the historic turn literature and situate ANTi-History and relationalism as an outcome of the fourth phase. The facet of relationalism is then explained and explored through five types of relations that the authors suggest act as sites of oscillation, where the past becomes (an immutable) history.

A central implication of the paper involves disrupting conceptualizations of the past and history as fixed. Instead, history is explained as a relational outcome of its constitutive social and political relationships.

The paper theoretically develops ANTi-History and relationalism while providing practical implications and tools for researchers to use it. Researchers are introduced to the notion of the site of oscillation. They are encouraged to focus their attention on five sites of oscillation: past-history, actor-network, human-nonhuman, researcher-traces of the past, and historical inscription-reading formation. These sites of oscillation are places where politics is at play and history is shaped or transformed.

This is a rejoinder to Hoque et al. (2013) previously published in this journal. The purpose of this paper is to further elucidate and extend some of their key arguments related to the use of theoretical triangulation in accounting research.

This is a conceptual discussion focusing on how the understanding of the notion of theoretical triangulation can be enhanced from a critical realist perspective.

The author draws attention to some ambiguities in Hoque et al.’s (2013) reasoning and advance a critique of their rather under-developed conceptions of the relationship between ontology and epistemology, the epistemic premises influencing the choice of theories and the role of theories in conditioning empirical observations and scholarly knowledge claims. To address these issues the author advances a critical realist approach and discusses its implications for theoretical triangulation in accounting research.

The paper contributes to the ongoing debate about theoretical pluralism in accounting research by explicating how critical realism may further such pluralism and the inter-disciplinary accounting research project more generally.

This work examines assumptions of positivism and the traditional scientific method.

Insights from quantum mechanics are explored especially as they relate to method, measurement and what is knowable. An argument is made that how social scientists, particularly sociologists, understand the nature of “reality out there” and describe the social world may be challenged by quantum ideas. The benefits of utilized mixed methods, considering quantum insights, cannot be overstated.

It is the proposition of this work that insights from modern physics alter the understanding of the world “out there.” Wheeler suggested that the most profound implication from modern physics is that “there is no out there” (1982; see also Baggott, 1992). Grappling with how modern physics may alter understanding in the social sciences will be difficult; however, that does not mean the task should not be undertaken (see Goswami, 1993). A starting point for the social sciences may be relinquishing an old mechanistic science that depends on the establishment of an objective, empirically based, verifiable reality. Mechanistic science demands “one true reality – a clear-cut reality on which everyone can agree…. Mechanistic science is by definition reductionistic…it has had to try to reduce complexity to oversimplification and process to statis. This creates an illusionary world…that has little or nothing to do with the complexity of the process of the reality of creation as we know, experience, and participate in it” (Goswami, 1993, pp. 64, 66).

Many physicists have popularized quantum ideas for others interested in contemplating the implications of modern physics. Because of the difficulty in conceiving of quantum ideas, the meaning of the quantum in popular culture is far removed from the parent discipline. Thus, the culture has been shaped by the rhetoric and ideas surrounding the basic quantum mathematical formulas. And, over time, as quantum ideas have come to be part of the popular culture, even the link to the popularized literature in physics is lost. Rather, quantum ideas may be viewed as cultural formations that take on a life of their own.

The work allows a critique of positivist method and provides insight on how to frame qualitative methodology in a new way.

The work utilizes popularized ideas in quantum theory: the preeminent theory that describes all matter. Little work in sociology utilizes this perspective in understanding research methods.

Quantum insights have rarely been explored in highlighting limitations in positivism. The current work aims to build on quantum insights and how these may help us better understand the social world around us.

This paper proposes a way of reflexing on how we think within critical disaster studies. It focuses on the biases and unthought dimensions of two concepts – resilience and development – and reflects on the relationship between theory and practice in critical disaster studies.

Premised on the idea of epistemic reflexivity developed by Pierre Bourdieu, and drawing on previous research, this theoretical article analyses two conceptual biases and shortcomings of disaster studies: how resilience builds on certain agency; and how development assumes certain political imagination.

The article argues that critical disaster scholars must reflect on their own intellectual practice, including the origin of concepts and what they do. This is exemplified by a description of how the idea of resistance is intimately connected to that of resilience, and by showing that we must go beyond the capitalist realism that typically underlies development and risk creation. The theoretical advancement of our field can provide ways of thinking about the premises of many of our concepts.

The paper offers an invitation for disaster researchers to engage with critical thought and meta-theoretical reflexions. To think profoundly about our concepts is a necessary first step to developing critical scholarship. Epistemic reflexivity in critical disaster studies therefore provides an interesting avenue by which to liberate the field from overly technocratic approaches and develop its own criticality.