Rumbling on performativity_Frits Simon

7.8 Concluding remarks: a reconstructive methodology
As mentioned before I can speak of a social realistic point of departure (Lewis and
Smith, 1980). A definition of reality becomes true in its consequences because “the
meaning of what we are saying is the tendency to respond to it” (Mead, 1934: 67).
Something real emerges all the time. A realness which is real in the emerging social
objects or cult values, however exists and changes due to different perspectives. One
can speak of an ongoing reconstruction of the past in the present. For researching the
living present a reconstructive research methodology as practised within a complex
responsive process-approach seems to be appropriate (Wagner, 1999). The foregoing
research is to be read as a reconstruction of what happened in a UAS in connection
with a reconstruction of the taken for granted assumptions of me as the researcher
and adviser who works there. From that the reconstructive approach even obtained a
radically reflexive character.
A complex responsive process-approach helps to understand the present by placing
itself within a social realistic and dynamic perspective on reality and by offering opportunities
to reflect and reconstruct the present and the past. In doing so this approach
can be placed somewhere in the middle between post-modernistic relativism and
modernistic objectivism.
Further methodological reflection seems appropriate because a complex responsive
process-approach works from quite a specific perspective on management studies,
shortly: on evolving patterns through local interactions and the other way around.
Given the fundamental critique on objectifying OMS at first sight it is striking that
Stacey states that “it is necessary to take up any insights psychology, sociology and
philosophy have to offer us on the nature of local interaction between human agents.”
(Stacey, 2012b: 22). As far as traditional management sciences are a mixture of psychology,
sociology, economy and to a lesser part political science (Devinney and Siegel,
2012; Ireland, 2012) it appears contradictory to criticize the methodological and philosophical
basic assumptions of these sciences and at the same time to use their insights.
However, at the same time it is appropriate to take into account many insights.
Partly because these other insights enable to clarify one’s own position, partly because
from a complex responsive process-perspective it is unthinkable not to not engage
with what is instead of to engage with what should be.
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