Abstract
In recent years there has been a growing discussion of the lack of impact of organizational studies and, amongst other comments, on a drift away from the public sector agenda. Taking as a starting point two recent key addresses by James March and Jean-Claude Thoenig, both directed to organizational studies scholars, this paper seeks to contribute to this debate both in terms of focus and in terms of methodological approach. It argues in favor of a mid-range territorial focus on organizational affairs and to a place based action-investigation approach to methodology. In doing so it draws on the experience of the Center for Public Administration and Government of the Getulio Vargas Foundation in São Paulo with local level innovation during 1995 – 2008 and on a current project on urban vulnerabilities which has been largely shaped by these conclusions.
Highlights
At the recent 1st International Colloquium of Organizational Studies held in São Paulo (FGV-EAESP), Rafael Alcadipani asked why was it that the area of public administration had drawn away from organizational studies
Public sector questions were very present in the earlier studies on which the field was built; where would the current debate on institutionalism be without TVA and the Grass Roots (SELZNICK, 1949)? Secondly there was never any significant ideological or epistemological rupture
The final part takes the theme of public action languages back to the initial argument about the repositioning of organizational studies and Revista Brasileira de Estudos Organizacionais v. 1. n. 1, p. 30-54, jun. 2014, eISSN: 2447-4851 Sociedade Brasileira de Estudos Organizacionais argue for the importance of an alternative insertion in ongoing events, that recovers and connects the field station and extensionist approach of the fifties with the action-research approach of more recent years to produce an ethical posture of democratic and placed based investigation-action
Summary
At the recent 1st International Colloquium of Organizational Studies held in São Paulo (FGV-EAESP), Rafael Alcadipani asked why was it that the area of public administration had drawn away from organizational studies. There seems to be support for the drifting apart thesis; at least when taking into considerations observations of those who have considerable authority in the field (James March, 2007, from a US perspective and Jean-Claude Thoenig, one of the founders of EGOS, the European Group for Organizational Studies in 2007) As to whether it is worth the trouble learning how to talk to each other, I would suggest – thinking from Brazil and within the wider Latin America – that the answer is yes. The final part takes the theme of public action languages back to the initial argument about the repositioning of organizational studies and argue for the importance of an alternative insertion in ongoing events, that recovers and connects the field station and extensionist approach of the fifties with the action-research approach of more recent years to produce an ethical posture of democratic and placed based investigation-action. I draw on an ongoing project in the area of urban vulnerabilities where multiple communities that were – for all practical effects – made invisible to the public eye and forced back onto their own resources in order to provide a minimum of services, are facing the complex dynamics of being rediscovered by the local state
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