Abstract
The paper addresses the epistemological and theoretical assumptions that underpin the concept of Work and Organizational Psychology as idiographic, situated, and transformative social science. Positioning the connection between uniqueness and generalization inside the debate around organization studies as applied approaches, the contribution highlights the ontological, gnoseological, and methodological implications at stake. The use of practical instead of scientific rationality is explored, through the perspective of a hermeneutic lens, underlining the main features connected to the adoption of an epistemology of practice. Specifically, the contribution depicts the configuration of the applied research as a relational practice, embedded in the unfolding process of generating knowledge dealing with concrete social contexts and particular social objects. The discussion of a case study regarding a field research project allows one to point out challenges and constraints connected to the enactment of the research process as a social accomplishment.
Highlights
In 2011, Bartunek published in the British Journal of Management (BJM) a paper, whose title (“What has happened to Mode 2?”) questioned the extent of the diffusion and impact of Mode 2, a research approach proposed by Gibbons (Gibbons et al, 1994) for bridging the relevant gap between academic knowledge and practical knowledge, improving ways of knowledge production to link together rigor and relevance, research and action, and theory and practice
Whatever the considerations relating to the consistency of such comments and the necessary humility expected by each author in accepting criticisms and suggestions to improve a submitted work, at stake here are implicit and taken-for-granted concepts about understanding research, science, and the relationship between scientific knowledge and practical knowledge – even more so as the reference of the special issue is not to psychology in general but to the specific field of Work and Organizational Psychology (WOP)
We have explored the epistemological and theoretical assumptions related to the adoption of WOP as an idiographic, applied, and situated science, pointing out the ontological, gnoseological, and methodological implications concerning this orientation
Summary
PRODUCING RELEVANT KNOWLEDGE IN/ FOR ORGANIZATIONS THROUGH WORK AND ORGANIZATIONAL PSYCHOLOGYIn 2011, Bartunek published in the British Journal of Management (BJM) a paper, whose title (“What has happened to Mode 2?”) questioned the extent of the diffusion and impact of Mode 2, a research approach proposed by Gibbons (Gibbons et al, 1994) for bridging the relevant gap between academic knowledge and practical knowledge, improving ways of knowledge production to link together rigor and relevance, research and action, and theory and practice. Just to refer to diffused examples detectable by the articulated field of sentences and comments coming from reviewers that circulate among scholars through their narrative exchanges, we can Research as Situated Relational Practice observe that one should read Orlikowski (2000), acknowledge the related theoretical background, and know her concept of using technology through a practice lens before asking about the meaning of the word “use.” Or it could be asked why a professional report or a journal for practitioners should be inevitably categorized as pseudoscientific, preferring papers published in “A journals” and not on doing research that influences practice (Lawler, 2007); further, other good thoughtful reflections should be triggered by reading the chapter of Shotter and Tsoukas (2011) related to theory as therapy inside the theorizing in organization and management issues. We position the matching between uniqueness and generalization inside the debate around organization studies as applied science and the sought connection between theory and practice
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