Breaking the Paradigm Mentality

Abstract

This paper reflects critically upon the core argument of Burrell and Morgan's highly influential Sociological Paradigms and Organizational Analysis and evalu ates responses to it. Although Burrell and Morgan were explicitly concerned to open up a wider field of vision to students of organization, their book simultan eously declared a new dogma: the mutual exclusivity of paradigms. The specific target of the paper is Burrell and Morgan's sharp division of 'subjectivist' and 'objectivist' forms of analysis. To challenge this dogma, attention is given to Kuhn's understanding that there is continuity as well as incommensurability in the process of theory development. In contrast to the 'pluralist strategy' favoured by Reed (1985) and the defence of paradigm incommensurability recently made by Jackson and Carter (1991), the paper follows Kuhn in commending a process of reflection committed to the identification and remedying of anomalies within existing theories. This argument is illustrated by examining the process of theoret ical development within one branch of organizational analysis: labour process theory, where anomalies within the orthodox formulation of the dynamics of social reproduction have been identified by Burawoy and others.