Theodore Schatzki’s practice theory and its implications for organization studies

Emotional agency navigates a world of practices

Inspired by Theodore Schatzki’s ‘societist’ approach—in which he advocates a notion of ‘site ontologies’—in this article, we outline our theory of practice architectures (a theory about what practices are composed of) and ecologies of practices (how practices relate to one another). Drawing on case studies of four Australian primary schools, we examine how practices of leading relate to other educational practices: professional learning, teaching, student learning, and researching and reflecting. We find ‘leading’ not only in the work of principals and other formal leadership positions, but also in the activities of teachers and students. We show that changing leading practices requires changing more than the professional practice knowledge of individuals; it also requires changing the practice architectures (cultural-discursive, material-economic and social-political arrangements) in sites where leading and its interconnected practices are conducted. In order to study practices of leading, we adopt a philosophical-empirical enquiry approach, i.e. we conduct our research as a conversation between practice philosophy and theory and the empirical cases of leading we study. We study practices in the mode of research within practice traditions, sometimes described as ‘practical philosophy’, as a contribution to the self-reflective transformation of the practices we are studying.

The article addresses the complex relationship between practice theory and actor-network theory (ANT). It closely examines the similarities and differences between the two and asks how the ANT perspective can be beneficial for practice theory. Drawing on Pierre Bourdieu, Anthony Giddens and Theodore Schatzki’s work, this study briefly identifies the theoretical and methodological standpoint of practice theory. It then turns to Bruno Latour’s ANT, discussing his methodological approach towards the social. Next, it identifies the differences between the two approaches, offering a critique of ANT from the perspective of practice theory. In the conclusion, the contribution identifies the potential of ANT approaches for practice theory at the methodological level. It argues that the methodological principles of ANT can integrate with practice theory to form what I call a ‘transitive methodology’. This analytical perspective does not locate subjectivity and agency at a single spot. Instead, it situates them in a heterogeneous network of practices and materialities.

Schatzkian practice theory and energy consumption research: Time for some philosophical spring cleaning?

While musical practice is more often than not considered through musical repertoires, genres, and traditions, in higher music education, musical practices are further narrowed down to music profession-specific, craft-based competences and learning outcomes. This narrow understanding encompasses the intertwined social and material dimensions that—according to practice theories—constitute and determine all practices. This study seeks a new understanding for practice-based, relational, professional education in context. By “practice in context,” we refer to Theodore Schatzki’s practice theory, in which practices are understood as organized, materially mediated, spatiotemporal nexuses of activities, and in which human coexistence is inherently tied to a context and “sites” of events and entities— site-ness . The empirical material consists of interviews of 10 bigenerational, experienced contemporary composers in Finland, including both males and females. By thinking composing practice with Schatzkian practice theory, three intertwined site-nesses are unveiled, comprising emerging locations (such as small-scale venues and local festivals); wider scenes or nonspatial sites (such as digital platforms and the festival scene); and extended realms (political, economical, educational, and policy). In this theory, various elements of practice-arrangement bundles constitute the site-ness and the complex practice plenum for composing. The site-ness thus becomes part of contemporary composers’ professional practice and higher music education which challenges the musical autonomy discourse which disentangles music from people and society. By posing a critique toward higher music education as a merely transmissive mediator of musical craft, this study seeks for a new understanding for practice-based, relational, “music professionalism in context.” It advances theoretical underpinnings of Schatzkian studies in the arts, by arguing that practice theory can bridge the individualistic past- and competence-oriented higher music education with the present- and future-oriented social understanding of musicians’ changing “practice in context.”

The label “practice theory” refers to a group of approaches in late twentieth‐century social and cultural theory which highlights the routinized and performative character of action, its dependence on tacit knowledge and implicit understanding. Besides, these approaches emphasize the “material” character of action and culture as anchored in embodiment and networks of artifacts. Practice theory has its roots in anti‐intellectualist and anti‐dualist social philosophy, above all in Ludwig Wittgenstein and Martin Heidegger. In contemporary social theory, the works of Pierre Bourdieu, Theodore Schatzki, Anthony Giddens, Harold Garfinkel, and others contain diverse forms of practice theory. In a broad sense, the approaches of Bruno Latour and Judith Butler, and partly also that of Michel Foucault, comprise praxeological ideas as well. Currently, practice‐theoretical frameworks influence a wide range of empirical analyses in sociology and cultural studies, from gender studies to organizational and science studies, which analyze social structures from the point of view of “doing” culture (organization, gender, subjects, etc.).

Abstract. This paper develops three analytical categories – range, supporting capacity, exigency/notability – to capture how supra-individual phenomena affect the people studied by empirical research. Researchers face a tension between constructivist and realist perspectives as the examined phenomena are simultaneously social constructs, in the way people perceive and understand them, and social facts in their consequences. Taking a critical perspective on the notion of large social phenomena – popularized by Theodore Schatzki – the paper develops an explorative terminology that aims to facilitate practice-oriented field research. Examples of empirical research on transition and degrowth initiatives illustrate how research subjects estimate the range of a phenomenon by trying to grasp whether they are in or out of its reach; the supportive capacity of a phenomenon by exploring how far it carries certain processes; and they experience the exigency of a phenomenon and ascribe a certain notability to it. Taken together, this terminology grasps the way phenomena are matters of concern, rather than matters of fact, for the research subjects.

This chapter discusses the import of philosophical discussions of ontology for organisational studies. It analyses the ontological presuppositions of positivism that still permeate much of sociology and organisational studies. These ontological presuppositions are then discussed from philosophical perspectives that propose or presuppose different ontologies: interpretivism; Heideggerian ontology; negative ontology and realism. The chapter then traces how these philosophical debates are reflected and extended in the field of organisational studies. The following approaches are discussed: positivism, Marxism, critical realism, post-foundational approaches, actor network theory, process perspectives, postcolonial critique, ethnomethodology and symbolic interactionism. We conclude by highlighting promising developments at the intersection of ontology and organisation studies: encouraging multiple methods of enquiry; asking ‘what is’, ‘how did’ and ‘what does it do’ questions; reflecting on ontology’s ethical and political implications; and refining the sensitivity and coherence of future studies of organisations.

What makes an employer decide in a graduate’s favour when applying for a new job? This question is urgent and important for many graduates who are hoping to get the upper hand in competing for their first job, yet research can tell us little about how to answer it. In an effort to inquire into this question, the following chapter outlines an understanding of graduate employability based in workplace practices. Practice theory is an umbrella term for a number of theories and concepts focusing on the importance of activity for understanding the social world. ‘The practice turn’ in social science seeks to bridge some problematic dualisms (such as actor-structure) in other theories. In the version of practice theory that will be presented below, we draw upon the theorisation presented by Theodore Schatzki (2001, 2005) and our previous work within this framework (Lindberg and Rantatalo 2015), in an effort to translate practice-theory concepts into research tools for examining graduate employability.

This is the first of two chapters that introduce seven approaches of international practice theory. We discuss four approaches, that have their origins in the writing of a major intellectual figure: Pierre Bourdieu, Michel Foucault, Etienne Wenger, and Theodore Schatzki. We provide a concise introduction to the conceptual vocabulary and strategies for the study of practice outlined for each of these approaches, and discuss ways of using them in IR. Together, they give us a theoretical repertoire for the study of practice. We consider Bourdieusian research, which has been most directly associated with the label of practice theory, and continue in discussing the work of Foucault by introducing his major concepts, such as governmentality. Although Foucault’s body of work is often not directly associated with the term practice theory, our discussion intends to correct this misunderstanding in arguing that he is first and foremost a practice theoretical thinker who allows us to conceptualise and study historical practices and configurations of very wide scope. Our third approach, community of practice, foregrounds the importance of community structures and learning processes. Finally, we turn to Theodore Schatzki, whose definitions have become quite influential in the debate, and review his practice theoretical outline.

Abstract. Conceptualised from a practice theory perspective, "landscape" can be employed as an overarching term encompassing otherwise divergent perspectives within geographies of memory: landscape of memory can denote social practice, meaningful materiality, individual experience, and collective imaginations as constituent of localised memory. Using Theodore Schatzki's practice theory, landscapes of memory are described as a social phenomenon: practices of memory contextualise certain places as meaningful in relation to the past. In turning to small Cold War munitions bunkers, by way of example, it is demonstrated how this perspective broadens the scope of geographies of memory to include everyday practices and their relation to collective memories.

How do we change social orders to deliver a sustainable future? A growing literature in organization studies argues that meta-organizations are part of the answer. Meta-organizations have been shown to be well equipped for tackling grand challenges, yet paradoxically they also tend to resist change due to their inertia. In this paper, we move beyond the question of whether and how meta-organizations act as vectors of transition to address the question of how some of the defining organizational attributes of meta-organizations – which we call ‘meta-organizationality’ – create tensions for sustainability transitions. We argue that these tensions result from frictions between the imperatives of transitions, i.e. conditions for achieving broad socio-technical transformations for sustainability, and the imperatives of meta-organizations, i.e. the implications resulting specifically from their meta-organizationality. We unpack four tensions, which we frame as ‘multi-referentiality–directionality’, ‘layering–diffusion’, ‘dialectical actorhood–coordination’, and ‘multi-level decidedness–reflexivity’. We argue that transformative meta-organizations are those that successfully navigate these tensions to produce sociotechnical system changes. This work has several implications for organization studies, meta-organization studies and transition studies, and offers several avenues for research.

This paper develops the concept of psychomateriality which is adapted from A.N. Whitehead's process metaphysics. Psychomateriality is applied to organization process studies and is illustrated by an extended reference to fire department operations. Implications for organization studies are presented and discussed.

In this article, we posit that a cross-scale perspective is valuable for studies of organizational resilience. Existing research in our field primarily focuses on the resilience of organizations, that is, the factors that enhance or detract from an organization’s viability in the face of threat. While this organization level focus makes important contributions to theory, organizational resilience is also intrinsically dependent upon the resilience of broader social-ecological systems in which the firm is embedded. Moreover, long-term organizational resilience cannot be well managed without an understanding of the feedback effects across nested systems. For instance, a narrow focus on optimizing organizational resilience from one firm’s perspective may come at the expense of social-ecological functioning and ultimately undermine managers’ efforts at long-term organizational survival. We suggest that insights from natural science may help organizational scholars to examine cross-scale resilience and conceptualize organizational actions within and across temporal and spatial dynamics. We develop propositions taking a complex adaptive systems perspective to identify issues related to focal scale, slow variables and feedback, and diversity and redundancy. We illustrate our theoretical argument using an example of Unilever and palm oil production in Borneo.

Jurgen Habermas is one of the most important authors in contemporary philosophy. In this chapter, we analyse his contribution to the philosophical debate on universalism and relativism and consider its implications for organization studies and organizations operating in an intercultural environment. We briefly describe the critique of a universal concept of reason that has been forwarded by sceptical and postmodern philosophers. As a response to this critique, we outline the contribution of discourse ethics and analyse the theories of Jurgen Habermas and his colleague Karl-Otto Apel. We explore the justification of discourse ethics and point out some problems in its argumentative logic. In the light of this critique, we outline some characteristics of an intercultural ethics that is based on constructivist philosophy and point to some encouraging prospects on the consolidation of the debate between relativistic and universalistic philosophers.