Towards an epistemology of collective action: management research as a responsive and actionable discipline

Abstract

Abstract Critics simultaneously question the relevance of academic knowledge about management, the scientific unity of the field and the performance of business schools. They signal the lack of an adequate epistemology for management research. This paper explores the possible nature of such an epistemology. Classic epistemology looked for universal truth but ended up accepting a model of action: the experimental method. Contemporary critiques of classic epistemology offer relativist views about truth but focus on metaphysics of action, that is, false universals of collective action. Truth being dependant of models of action, a useful epistemology can be defined as the research-based revision of these models. It is quite different from pragmatism and relativism: applied to the ‘knowing observer’ it led to important discoveries in physics and mathematics. Management research should similarly recognize that each knowing method gives access to different truths and corresponds to a different conception of responsiveness and actionability. The identity and value of management research is also clarified as opposing metaphysics of action and developing a research process for the identification and revision of new models of action. Four examples of management research leading to such revision are discussed: the theory of management instruments vs the metaphysics of social control; the theory of prescribers vs the metaphysics of markets and hierarchies; the theory of collective knowledge production vs the metaphysics of expertise; the theory of innovative design vs the metaphysics of R&D projects. Within an epistemology of collective action, management research can be defined as a basic discipline and not as an applied one.