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This chapter informs current research and practice in organization development and change (ODC) with an actionable knowledge of the social science philosophies. It adds value to the scholarship of ODC by charting the progression of philosophies of social science, by showing how researchers in ODC structure their inquiry based on the inherent philosophical dimensions, and by offering useful and actionable knowledge for research and practice. The aim of the chapter is to reflect on the practice of ODC as a social science and to consolidate its social science philosophies so to provide solid philosophical and methodological foundations for the field.

This essay is a review of the recent literature on the methodology of economics, with a focus on three broad trends that have defined the core lines of research within the discipline during the last two decades. These trends are: (a) the philosophical analysis of economic modelling and economic explanation; (b) the epistemology of causal inference, evidence diversity and evidence-based policy and (c) the investigation of the methodological underpinnings and public policy implications of behavioural economics. The final output is inevitably not exhaustive, yet it aims at offering a fair taste of some of the most representative questions in the field on which many philosophers, methodologists and social scientists have recently been placing a great deal of intellectual effort. The topics and references compiled in this review should serve at least as safe introductions to some of the central research questions in the philosophy and methodology of economics.

Describes how there are unsolved problems within the philosophy of the social sciences, which cannot provide a coherent account of a style of science which is based on either explanation or understanding. No easy combination of elements from the empiricist and hermeneutic approaches is possible because of radically different epistemologies. Shows how, against this background of philosophical insecurity, action science seems to offer new possibilities by incorporating a form of practice of research which is aimed at understanding meaning, while at the same time retaining enough of the characteristics of the ideal of scientific reliability (hard data, explicit inference, public testing) to free it from the danger of uncritically adopting the internal viewpoint of participants. It is free from commitment to empiricist epistemological principles, so that it can combine elements of the explanatory and interpretative poles in a coherent way. Argues that it is a valuable contribution which can advance the discussion within the philosophy of the social sciences.

To discuss systemic thinking in relation to the naturalistic and anti‐naturalistic position in the philosophy of social science. To develop the theme in two parts: I and II.

A cybernetic approach is taken and a discussion on what is the foundation for the philosophy of social science for systemic thinking is developed.

The findings for Part I are that the rationalistic view of knowledge is based on reflection and reason. The empirical viewpoint on knowledge based on observations. The realistic view of knowledge is based on the link between the rationalistic and the empirical point of view. The systemic viewpoint is based on the realistic view of knowledge.

Provided assistance to social scientists who study social systems from the systemic or cybernetic point of view. Gives researchers studying problems/phenomena in social systems a systemic viewpoint.

It positioned systemic thinking in relation to the philosophy of social science.

The purpose of this article is to chronicle the publication events in the 1980s and 1990s that framed the development of the series of controversies in marketing that are known as the “philosophy debates”.

The article uses a participant’s retrospective approach.

The article finds that seven publication events are key to understanding marketing’s philosophy debates. The seven are the publication of the “little green book” by Grid, Inc. in 1976; the philosophy of science panel discussion held at the Winter American Marketing Association Educators’ Conference in 1982; the special issue of the Journal of Marketing on marketing theory in 1983; three articles on the “critical relativist perspective” by the Journal of Consumer Research in 1986 and 1988; the “blue book” by South-Western in 1991; a trilogy of articles on truth, positivism and objectivity in the Journal of Marketing and the Journal of Consumer Research in 1990-1993; and an article on “rethinking marketing” in the European Journal of Marketing in 1994.

Chronicling the key publication events enables readers to understand what the debates were about and provides readers a starting point for further investigating the issues in the debates.

To discuss systemic thinking in relation to the naturalistic position in the philosophy of social science. To develop the theme in two parts: Part I: systemic thinking and the naturalistic position; and Part II: the systemic position.

A cybernetic approach is taken, and a discussion on what is the foundation for the philosophy of social science for systemic thinking and the systemic position is developed.

The findings of Part I have been given. Part II analyses the systemic position and considers the classical controversy in social science between methodological individualism and methodological collectivism (holism). The pre‐condition on which the systemic position is based is given. The ideal requirements set up by the systemic position are presented under the headings: espistemology/methodology; ontology; axiology; and the ethical position.

Provided assistance to social scientists who study social systems from the systemic or cybernetic viewpoint and give a practical analysis of the systemic position. Provides researchers and others working in this field with an investigation of the role and conduct of social scientists.

It positioned systemic thinking in relation to the philosophy of social science.

The purpose of this paper is to spell out the urgent need to correct structural rationality defects in academia as it exists at present, so that it may become actively and effectively engaged in helping us solve the grave global problems that confront us.

The paper spells out an argument for the urgent need to bring about a revolution in academic inquiry so that the basic aim becomes social wisdom and not just specialized knowledge, problems of living being put at the heart of the academic enterprise.

Natural science needs to become more like natural philosophy; social science needs to become social methodology or social philosophy; and a basic task of academia needs to become public education about what our problems are and what we need to do about them. Almost every part and aspect of academia needs to change.

The implication is the urgent need to bring about an intellectual/institutional revolution in academic inquiry, so that the aim becomes wisdom, and not just knowledge.

There are substantial practical implications for natural science, social inquiry and the humanities, education, social, economic and political life.

There is a need for a new kind of academic inquiry rationally designed and devoted to helping us make social progress towards as good a world as possible. The social implications are profound.

In the author’s view, bringing about the academic revolution, from knowledge-inquiry to wisdom-inquiry, is the single most important thing needed for the long-term interests of humanity.

Concepts such as “the social,” “sociality,” and even “society,” must be viewed “in time and space,” simultaneously as malleable, as representing national and regional differences, and as reflective of concrete sociohistorical conditions. Importantly, particular societal and historical circumstances exert specific kinds of gravity on efforts to clarify the meaning of the above concepts in general and for specific contexts, and to deploy them for purposes of both illuminating and examining the social phenomena they refer to, and their concrete content and form. It is also necessary to establish how and to what extent such efforts themselves are bound to be symptomatic and expressive of the distinctive features (social, political, cultural, economic, geographic, climatic, etc.) they are intended to illuminate and examine. In the United States, related challenges are especially pronounced, for a range of reasons, including the fact that as a comparably “young” nation that was created under very unique conditions, the character of “the social” and the historical foundations of sociality are discernibly different from other societies on Earth. For this reason, as far as social theory is concerned, before it is possible to assess the status and character of “the social,” of “sociality,” and of “society,” in general and abstract terms, it is important to circumscribe what is unique or “exceptional” about a particular society in whose context the status and nature of “social” is being assessed and characterized. Against the neoliberal trend of pitting the social sciences and humanities against each other, and the natural and engineering sciences against both, the former must learn to collaborate and complement each other in ways that secure the independence and autonomy of the social dimension of increasingly complex and contradictory, yet seemingly cohesive societal reference frames.

The purpose is to forward systems theory one more step towards social theory and integrate problem-solving and theory-building, and search for the integration and unity of science by revealing the nature and role of critical systems thinking (CST).

This article describes relations between systems theory and social theory in three parts. First, it examines the links of systems methodologies with three social science approaches as well as the role of CST. Second, the focus of theory and the form of explanation are discussed from critical social science (CSS) perspective. Third, the direction of theorizing of a CST-based systems theory is investigated.

First, CST is a hidden assumption of system dynamics (SD)/systems thinking (ST). Second, systems theory is positioned in CSS. Third, CST integrates traditional and soft systems methodologies (SSM), and connects systems science and social science. Fourth, this article reveals hidden links between systems approaches and three corresponding social science approaches. Fifth, the theoretical focus of a CST-based systems theory could be formal/structure theory and/or substantive/content theory. Sixth, the form of explanation could be structural/mechanismic explanation combining causal and interpretive explanations. Seventh, a CST-based systems theory may adopt abduction, which complements a defect in deduction and induction in a difficulty of nonlinearity.

It illustrates a graph of the competing approaches in systems science corresponding to paradigms in social science.

The burden social theorists must be willing to accept, respond to, and act upon pertains to the difficulties that predictably accompany all efforts to convey to nontheorists the unwelcome fact of heteronomy – that as actors, we are not as autonomous as we were told and prefer to assume – and to spell out what heteronomy in the form in which it has been shaping the developmental trajectory of modern societies means for professional theorists. I introduce the concept of “vitacide,” designed to capture that termination of life is a potential vanishing point of the heteronomous processes that have been shaping modern societies continuing to accelerate and intensify in ways that prefigure our future, but not on our human or social terms. Heteronomy pointing toward vitacide should compel us as social theorists to consider critically both the constructive and destructive trajectory that social change appears to have been following for more than two centuries, irrespective of whether the resulting prospect is to our liking or not. In this context, the classical critical theorists of the early Frankfurt School, especially Max Horkheimer and Theodor W. Adorno, pursued what turned out to be an evolving interest in rackets, the authoritarian personality, and the administered society – concepts that served as foils for delineating the kind of theoretical stance that is becoming more and more important as we are moving into an increasingly uncertain future.