Search results

This Introduction gives a historical and theoretical overview of this volume on Fields of Knowledge: Science, Politics and Publics in the Neoliberal Age, which showcases original research in political sociology of science targeting the changes in scientific and technological policy and practice associated with the rise of neoliberal thought and policies since the 1970s. We argue that an existing family of field theoretic frameworks and empirical field analyses provides a particularly useful set of ideas and approaches for the meso-level understanding of these historical changes in ways that complement as well as challenge other theory traditions in sociology of science, broadly defined. The collected papers exhibit a dual focus on sciences’ interfield relations, connecting science and science policy to political, economic, educational, and other fields and on the institutional logics of scientific fields that pattern expert discourses, practices, and knowledge and shape relations of the scientific field to the rest of the world. By reconceptualizing the central problem for political sociology of science as a problem of field- and inter-field dynamics, and by critically engaging other theory traditions whose assumptions are in some ways undermined by the contemporary history of neoliberalism, we believe these papers collectively chart an important theoretical agenda for future research in the sociology of science.

Social space, the central construct in field theory, offers dialogic organization development a generative image similar to open systems for diagnostic OD. Social space imagery enables people to think, feel, and act in ways that exercise greater choice over the realities they construct and that construct them. This process is illustrated through a “transitional space” that enabled people with severe disabilities to overcome stigma and isolation. Social spatial imagery moves dialogic OD away from systems imagery and language, addresses ambivalence about self and mind, clarifies the meaning of reality, and reconnects it to its Lewinian roots.

This chapter shows that Mead has a field theory and that the explanatory method of symbolic interaction is that of a field. A field, in this sense, is a systematic network of meanings. When someone or something enters that field such as a protest rally or a cocktail party they are given the meaning that is characteristic of the field. This explanation is not one of causation but one of context. I show that a major field theory of Mead’s concerns the agent and how decisions or actions are made. He also has a developmental field theory based on the play-game-generalized other relation. With Mead’s agency model I then show how it can be applied, in macro fashion, to the recent rise in American minorities, especially that of women, African Americans, and gays. This example shows the macro or social structural power of Mead’s idea.

This chapter revisits social space and field theory, constructs foundational to the work of Kurt Lewin but largely abandoned by his followers. It describes the “mystification” surrounding these concepts in the work of Lewin and the sociologist, Pierre Bourdieu. It then attempts to demystify social space and field theory by looking at their roots in the idea of “relational thinking” – an idea set forth by the philosopher Ernst Cassirer, who had a powerful influence on both Lewin and Bourdieu. Finally, it suggests how these concepts can generate innovative thinking about organizational change and development.

It’s been thirty years since the original articulation of “Appreciative Inquiry in Organizational Life” was written in collaboration with my remarkable mentor Suresh Srivastva (Cooperrider & Srivastva, 1987). That article – first published in Research in Organization Development and Change – generated more experimentation in the field, more academic excitement, and more innovation than anything we had ever written. As the passage of time has enabled me to look more closely at what was written, I feel both a deep satisfaction with the seed vision and scholarly logic offered for Appreciative Inquiry, as well as well as the enormous impact and continuing reverberation. Following the tradition of authors such as Carl Rogers who have re-issued their favorite works but have also added brief reflections on key points of emphasis, clarification, or editorial commentary I am presenting the article by David Cooperrider (myself) and the late Suresh Srivastva in its entirety, but also with new horizon insights. In particular I write with excitement and anticipation of a new OD – what my colleagues and I are calling the next “IPOD” that is, innovation-inspired positive OD that brings AI’s gift of new eyes together in common cause with several other movements in the human sciences: the strengths revolution in management; the positive pscyhology and positive organizational scholarship movements; the design thinking explosion; and the biomimicry field which is all about an appreciative eye toward billions of years of nature’s wisdom and innovation inspired by life.

This article presents a conceptual refigurationy of action-research based on a “sociorationalist” view of science. The position that is developed can be summarized as follows: For action-research to reach its potential as a vehicle for social innovation it needs to begin advancing theoretical knowledge of consequence; that good theory may be one of the best means human beings have for affecting change in a postindustrial world; that the discipline’s steadfast commitment to a problem solving view of the world acts as a primary constraint on its imagination and contribution to knowledge; that appreciative inquiry represents a viable complement to conventional forms of action-research; and finally, that through our assumptions and choice of method we largely create the world we later discover.

Organization development is often mourned as stagnant or perhaps dead, but most of these declarations seem to be insular, being supported primarily by anecdotal or survey research among organization development scholars and practitioners. This exploratory study seeks a more objective understanding of the state of organization development by examining big data from the social media platform Twitter. Drawn from over 5.7 million tweets extracted through Twitter's Application Program Interface (API) during 2 months in 2018, this research approaches the state of organization development through a quantitative, abductive study utilizing social network analyses. Organization development is examined through its characteristics as a social network on Twitter and how it relates to and interacts with other familial networks from management and organization studies. Findings show that organization development is relatively inactive as a social network on Twitter, as compared to other familial networks, and the relationships between the organization development network and these familial networks tend to be ones of inequality. Organization development references familial networks much more than any of the familial networks reference organization development. This inequality in social media presence is particularly surprising since several of these familial networks were founded from the field and principles of organization development. We locate organization development's generalist status, as compared to familial networks' specialist status, as generating this interaction disparity drawing on recent research that suggests specialized fields fare better in times of rapid change compared to generalist fields. We discuss the potential for greater specialization of organization development with a reemphasis on its process philosophy and focus.

This paper develops an argument about how contentious changes unfold in organizational fields, focusing on the role of uncertainty – and the networks people use to address uncertainty. We propose that as controversial practice gains traction and spreads, the nature of uncertainty facing organizational decision makers also evolves. This dynamic has important implications for how different actors and networks can influence change. We illustrate our argument with a mixed-methods case study on the diffusion of domestic partner benefits across US Fortune 500 companies. Our findings shed light on how – and when – social activists, corporate elites, and middle managers can influence the corporate decision-making process.

This chapter reviews 30 years of Advances in Group Processes. Its primary purpose is to study the part the series has played in the advances in the study of group processes that have taken place between 1984 and 2014.

This chapter places the 30 years of Advances in Group Processes in the context of the changes that took place between small groups research in the 1950s and group processes research in the 1980s and beyond.

Analyzing the policies of Advances in Group Processes and its contents, this chapter reflects on its role in the advances in group processes that have taken place since the 1980s. Between 1950 and 1980, small group research reinvented, reconceptualized, and reinvigorated itself as group process research. Between the two periods, small group research, its applied research, and its research programs became increasingly theory-driven and its concept of the group and its levels increasingly analytic. As a consequence of these changes, the concept of the field itself became increasingly analytic. The changes between the two periods in its theory, research, application, programs, and in its concept of the group and the way the field was conceptualized led to marked advances in group process research in the 90s and beyond – to more theory, more impact of it on application, and more, and more cumulative, growth of it. Advances in Group Processes was at once a reflection of the changes that took place between the two periods and a driving force in the advances in group processes research that have taken place ever since.

Advances in Group Processes is a fundamental resource for the development of theory and research on small groups and group processes. This chapter provides an overview of its contributions and places them in the context of the development of the field as a whole.

It’s been nearly 30 years since the original articulation of Appreciative Inquiry in Organizational Life was written in collaboration with my remarkable mentor Suresh Srivastva (Cooperrider & Srivastva, 1987). That article generated more experimentation in the field, more academic excitement, and more innovation than anything we had ever written. As the passage of time has enabled me to look more closely at what was written, I feel both a deep satisfaction with the seed vision and scholarly logic offered for Appreciative Inquiry (AI), as well as well as the enormous impact and reverberation. Following the tradition of authors such as Carl Rogers who have re-issued their favorite works but have also added brief reflections on key points of emphasis, clarification, or editorial commentary we have decided to issue a reprint the early article by David L. Cooperrider and the late Suresh Srivastva in its entirety, but also with contemporary comments embedded. To be sure the comments offered are brief and serve principally to add points of emphasis to ideas we may have too hurriedly introduced. My comments – placed in indented format along the way – are focused on the content and themes of furthermost relevance to this volume on organizational generativity. In many ways I’ve begun to question today whether there can even be inquiry where there is no appreciation, valuing, or amazement – what the Greeks called thaumazein – the borderline between wonderment and admiration. One learning is that AI’s generativity is not about its methods or tools, but about our cooperative capacity to reunite seeming opposites such as theory as practice, the secular as sacred, and generativity as something beyond positivity or negativity. Appreciation is about valuing the life-giving in ways that serve to inspire our co-constructed future. Inquiry is the experience of mystery, moving beyond the edge of the known to the unknown, which then changes our lives. Taken together, where appreciation and inquiry are wonderfully entangled, we experience knowledge alive and an ever-expansive inauguration of our world to new possibilities.

This article presents a conceptual refiguration of action-research based on a “sociorationalist” view of science. The position that is developed can be summarized as follows: For action-research to reach its potential as a vehicle for social innovation it needs to begin advancing theoretical knowledge of consequence; that good theory may be one of the best means human beings have for affecting change in a postindustrial world; that the discipline's steadfast commitment to a problem solving view of the world acts as a primary constraint on its imagination and contribution to knowledge; that appreciative inquiry represents a viable complement to conventional forms of action-research; and finally, that through our assumptions and choice of method we largely create the world we later discover.