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agenda

• pragmatism

• reflections and course conclusion

Nasser Alajmi

pragmatism

https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/ap-art-history/later-europe-and-americas/modernity-ap/a/ frank-lloyd-wright-fallingwater

Nasser Alajmi

• anti-foundationalism

• anti-representationalism

• experience

• knowledge is action

- Dittrich & Seidl (2018)

• inquiry (Martela, 2015)

Nasser Alajmi

anti-foundationalism

• foundationalism in philosophy of science

• “the view that there are firm, unchangeable foundations to knowledge”

and, thus science; the “essence of science” (Baert, 2005, p. 192)

• positivists, Popper, critical realism

• anti-foundationalism

• no unity of methodology, even in the natural sciences

• no unity of methodology within disciplines

• no clear demarcation between scientific and non-scientific knowledge-

creating activities

Nasser Alajmi

anti-foundationalism & fallibilism

“Most pragmatists take an anti-foundationalist stance. They believe that philosophical reflection cannot achieve this position of neutrality because it is, like other intellectual accomplishments, a human activity; and as a human activity, a social activity; and as a social activity, a situated activity” (p. 4).

“[In pragmatism] anti-foundationalism goes hand in hand with a genuine fallibilist attitude whereby people are willing to question entrenched beliefs and replace them with more useful ones” p. 5).

(Baert, 2011)

Nasser Alajmi

‘pragmatic maxim’

“Consider what effects, which might conceivably have practical bearings, we conceive the object of our conception to have. Then, our conception of those effects is the whole of our conception of the object”

(Peirce, 1992, p. 132; in Legg & Hookway, 2019)

Nasser Alajmi

consequence 1: knowledge and action

• anti-representationalism

• against the spectator theory knowledge

• Dewey: knowledge vs. experience

• experience: passive and immediate sensation

• knowledge: outcome of an active process of reflection

• knowledge as process and action

• knowledge is a tool for coping and acting

Nasser Alajmi

consequence 2: centrality of inquiry

“Inquiry is the controlled or directed transformation of an indeterminate situation into one that is so deter- minate in its constituent distinctions and relations as to convert the elements of the original situation into a unified whole”

(Dewey, 1938, pp. 104-05; in Martela, 2015, p. 544)

Nasser Alajmi

pragmatist understanding of action

• “action ... is the way in which human beings exist in the world.

(Joas, 1999)” (Martela, 2015, p. 539)

• rejection of the dualism of ends and means

• action and means-to-ends relationships are situated and

enacted

Nasser Alajmi

intentionality in routines

“...we can distinguish between the ends-in-view in performing a routine (i.e., the specific ends that participants pursue in their concrete actions) and the goals involved in patterning (i.e., the goals associated with the enacted patterns constituting the routine...)”

(Dittrich & Seidl, 2018, p. 114)

Nasser Alajmi

model of intentionality in routines

© albrecht becker. 12 performances of two other routines. It generated both new questions and new assets for further actions in these routines, as a result of which the actors de- veloped a different sense of purpose in patterning. What is interesting in Narrative 2 is that, although the participants did not experience any change in the pattern of the newsletter routine (e.g., “we would again like to offer a special end-of-year promotional event in the newsletter”; see Table 3, Performance 1), performing this routine substantially changed how the actors performed and patterned the sales and shipping routines. Narrative 2 thus shows how the unfolding situation connecting the performances of interdependent routines can drive change across multiple routines.

Toward a Process Model of Emerging Ends-in-View in Routine Dynamics

Based on the analysis above, we integrate the four main insights from our field study at CellCo into a process model of continuous routine change (see Figure 1). Whereas means–ends dynamics generate routine stability and change in many different ways, in our model, we zoom in on the means–ends

dynamics that go beyond existing routine theory. In particular, we focus on the new mechanism that is the focus of our paper—the foregrounding of means and the emergence of new ends-in-view. To keep the model as parsimonious as possible, we do not include all possible aspects that influence means–ends dynamics (e.g., actors’ background and experience, power relations, etc.). Starting on the left side (arrow 1), the model illustrates how the unfolding situation can open up various possibil- ities for action in the continuous process of per- forming routines, thereby generating questions about what to do next. Routine participants engage these questions by exploring different means–ends relationships in performing. In particular, they foreground new means, leading them to conceive of new ends-in-view that might be unrelated to the routine’s initial goals (arrow 2). This mechanism constitutes a form of emerging intentionality be- cause foregrounding means results in ends-in- view that go beyond the goals that actors might initially have brought to the performance. In other words, the end-in-view emerges through perform- ing the routine. In patterning actions that involve new means–ends relationships, actors can gain

FIGURE 1 A Process Model of Emerging Intentionality in Routine Dynamics

action patterning patterning patterning

(4) routine change (8) continuous routine change

(10) ongoing means–ends

dynamics

routine A

routine B

routine C

(1) unfolding situation: generating questions

(5) progressive means–ends cycles: generating additional

questions and new assets ongoing means–ends

dynamics (9) progressive means–ends

cycles across routines: generating questions and new

assets for performances of other routines

(7) updating goals for the routine

(3) updating goals for the routine

(6) continously foregrounding means(2) foregrounding means

emerging ends-in-view

performing performing performing

relating to the routine’s goals

performing

128 FebruaryAcademy of Management Journal

(Dittrich & Seidl, 2018, p. 128)

Nasser Alajmi

consequence 2: centrality of inquiry

(Dewey, 1938, pp. 104-05; in Martela, 2015, p. 544)

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14© albrecht becker.

M artela

545

Figure 1. Three elements of pragmatic scientific inquiry: organic proto-inquiry, inquiry with scientific attitude, and collective scientific inquiry. (Martela, 2015, p. 545)

Nasser Alajmi

15© albrecht becker.

M artela

545

Figure 1. Three elements of pragmatic scientific inquiry: organic proto-inquiry, inquiry with scientific attitude, and collective scientific inquiry. (Martela, 2015, p. 545)

“Finally, science, as a human enterprise, is restricted by the

same fallibilism as other forms of human inquiry. Despite its

sophisticated methods it cannot offer any royal route to truth.

So even scientific theories can ultimately be judged on nothing

else but their bearing on the pragmatic challenges of our

everyday life” (Martela, 2015, p. 547)

Nasser Alajmi

ontology of pragmatism

tending towards nominalism, but ... ontology of pragmatism (Dewey) social reality is created by subjects through their interactions and interpretations

ontological experientialism (Martela, 2015) • “the insistence that knowledge emerges from our

actual living” ” (Martela, 2015, p. 542) • “In this experiential sense some theories are better

than others. Whether or not these theories correspond to some ‘reality’ is a meaningless, unsolvable and irrelevant question from the point of view of pragmatist experientialism” (Martela, 2015, p. 552)

• “For pragmatists, questions about inner essences or ontology are such scholastic enterprises because answering them in one way or another makes no practical difference” (Baert, 2011, p. 3)

knowledge about social reality is always dependent on subjects and social relations

facts are constructed through categorizations

actors influence structures and regularities

Nasser Alajmi

epistemology of pragmatism

constructivism epistemology of ANT

scientific knowledge is an interpretation of interpretations and thus created by the researcher

fallibilistic instrumentalism (Martela, 2015) • scientific knowledge is result of the ongoing process

of inquiry • warranted assertability • concepts are derived from the researchers’ interaction

with the field • research follows an abductive logic scientific explanations aim at improving mastery of the situation and improving the human condition (Baert, 2005)

concepts are grounded in the field’s perspectives

scientific ‘explanations’ aim at understanding the field’s reality constructions (‘Verstehen’)

Nasser Alajmi

a word on methodological pluralism

• anti-foundationalism in the social sciences

• multiple cognitive interests in research

- explanation; prediction; critique of society; understanding; self-understanding

• multitude of methodological options in social sciences creates self-

awareness

• possibility of dialogical encounter between different schools,

methodologies

(Beart, 2005)

Nasser Alajmi

self-understanding and the hermeneutic circle

pre- understanding understanding understanding

pre- understanding

Nasser Alajmi

implications

• “that people cannot obtain a view

of the world that does not in some way

reflect their interests and values”

• “it becomes problematic to judge different accounts

of social reality based on which of them best mirrors the outer world”

• ”that 'understanding' is closely linked to 'self-understanding': encountering

new social settings can allow us to re-describe and re-conceptualize our

selves, our culture and surroundings”

pre- understanding understanding understanding

pre- understanding

(Baert, 2005, p. 196)

Nasser Alajmi

encountering difference

• ‘conceptualising effect’

“that the encounter with different forms of life may allow people to articulate and

conceptualize their own culture”

• ‘emancipating effect’

“that encountering difference may allow people to question some of their deep-seated

beliefs about their own culture or about some cultural artefacts in general”

• ‘imaginative component’

“in that facing difference may allow people to envisage alternative futures”

(Baert, 2005, pp. 196-7)

Nasser Alajmi

conclusion

“The picture that emerges is one in which social research is seen as an encounter with otherness, potentially facilitating or encouraging a community to reflect on its presuppositions, including those that underlie the research”

(Baert, 2011, p. 14)

Nasser Alajmi

break

critical rationalism

critical realism

social constructionism

pragmatism

governmentality studies

Nasser Alajmi

References

Baert, P. (2005). Towards a pragmatist-inspired philosophy of social science. Acta Sociologica, 48(3), 191-203. Retrieved from www.jstor.org/stable/20059943

Baert, P. (2011). Neo-pragmatism and phenomenology: A proposal. European Journal of Pragmatism and American Philosophy, III- 2. Retrieved from http://journals.openedition.org/ejpap/816

Dittrich, K., & Seidl, D. (2018). Emerging intentionality in routine dynamics: A pragmatist view. Academy of Management Journal, 61(1), 111-138. doi:10.5465/amj.2015.0010

Legg, C., & Hookway, C. (2019). Pragmatism. In E. N. Zalta (Ed.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2019 Edition ed.). Retrieved from https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2019/entries/pragmatism/

Martela, F. (2015). Fallible inquiry with ethical ends-in-view: A pragmatist philosophy of science for organizational research. Organization Studies, 36(4), 537-563. doi:10.1177/017084

http://www.jstor.org/stable/20059943

http://journals.openedition.org/ejpap/816

https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2019/entries/pragmatism/

Nasser Alajmi