This book provides an alternative perspective on organization studies, introducing an approach that draws on narratology, literary theory, cultural studies, and anthropology, contrasting it with the assumptions of the positivist social science. It reflects on such issues as possibility of combining narrative and scientific knowledge, the presence and absence of plot in organization studies, the dominance of the realistic stylization in organization studies, the relationship between organization studies and detective stories, and the challenge of polyphony in organization studies. The aim of th ... More

This book provides an alternative perspective on organization studies, introducing an approach that draws on narratology, literary theory, cultural studies, and anthropology, contrasting it with the assumptions of the positivist social science. It reflects on such issues as possibility of combining narrative and scientific knowledge, the presence and absence of plot in organization studies, the dominance of the realistic stylization in organization studies, the relationship between organization studies and detective stories, and the challenge of polyphony in organization studies. The aim of the book is to demonstrate how the art of persuasion (as opposed to the simple presentation of facts) can be deployed in social sciences in general and in management and organization studies in particular. Management and organization studies confront the world that is polyphonic and polysemic. The task of the discipline is to render this state of affairs in adequate texts.