Introduction

Introduction

In the first version of this Handbook we stated our intentions to provide a map for researchers to navigate their way around organization studies. In so doing, we used various criteria to help us decide which subjects to include in the volume: both old and new, mainstream and peripheral, normal and ‘contra’ science, and from established authors and relative newcomers. We hoped that the original edition would be a reaffirmation of the dominant streams of thought in organization studies as well as a celebration of some newer modes of inquiry (Clegg and Hardy 1996a). We also wanted to stimulate conversations within and between the different approaches to organization studies. In fact, we conceptualized organization studies as a series of multiple, overlapping conversations that reflect, reproduce and refute earlier conversations:

In this regard, our objectives have not changed in this second edition - we still wish to provide an overview of research in organization studies, using the metaphor of conversations to guide our selection of topics and ground our introduction to them.

Our interest in academic conversations is widely shared. Controversy and disagreement have played helpful roles in academic circles for centuries and, while it may not always appear so, such conversations have represented important contributions to the development of organization studies. Recently, however, some researchers have expressed concern that debates in our field have become too heated, such that people may have stopped listening and, hence, stopped learning from each other. This frustration has led to calls for more measured, respectful conversations, as in the 1999 special issue of the Journal of Management Inquiry devoted to theory development, whose subtitle was ‘Moving from Shrill Monologues to (Relatively) Tame Dialogues’ (Elsbach et al. 1999); in an essay by Calás and Smircich (1999) calling upon their colleagues to write in friendship; and in Weick's (1999) call for reflective conversation. We hope that the contributions to this Handbook reflect these calls, demonstrating respectful and reflective (if not always tame) dialogues.

In this introductory chapter we, therefore, review the conversations that constitute this Handbook and reflect on some of the themes that characterize them. In so doing, we provide a way of making sense of the book although, of course, at the outset we must acknowledge that the contents of this book are the product of the judgements of its editors and authors and, as such, they represent partial and personal accounts of the field. Nevertheless, we hope that most scholars in organization studies would agree that this book contains useful insights about important topics that yield interesting information and ideas regarding the nature of organizations and organizing.