Rumbling on performativity_Frits Simon

ding organizational reality as the way organizational reality evolves. “What is required
to research organizations … are methods that are consonant with the continuous
processes of mutual adaptation, mutual anticipation and meaning making that occurs
when people come together to achieve things.” (Mowles, 2011: 85). The way you perceive
has consequences for what you see, and what you see has consequences for
what will be. Because the methodological implications of not distinguishing between
ontology and epistemology have far reaching consequences for the way relevance, the
external and internal validity of the research is established, I will come back to when
discussing these topics (see 2.3).
Starting from this quite radical point of view and its consequences, my appropriation
of a complex responsive process-approach is a logical part of the research-process and
is described as such in the chapters 3, 4, 5 and 6. I simultaneously reflect on subjects
being researched and the way of doing this kind of research as such. Moreover, if what
one knows is connected to how one knows, reflecting upon ‘the how’ should be an
ethical obligation for a researcher because every epistemological perspective is connected
to a specific set of knowledge claims (Verschuren, 2009), therefore bound to a
specific way of interpreting (social) reality, the position and responsibility of the researcher,
and the purpose, value and consequences of the research. For instance when
it is claimed that research brings forth objective knowledge it should go without
saying that a researcher accounts for the consequences of this claim. One cannot deny
that there are strong, almost organic connections between ‘what is’ and ‘what ought’.
In line with this ethical obligation I endorse that methods should be “…forged around
questions; the methods … (should be) the servants not the executive directors. It is the
questions that are important.” (Thomas, 2012: 38). Methods as such should not be the
predominant factor in research. In this context Verschuren (2009) pleas for a methodological
relativism. According to Verschuren problems should be leading for which
research method to choose instead of the (unconscious) preferences or the convenient
routines of the researcher and his research community.
Key aspects of a complex responsive process-approach
The key aspects of a complex responsive process-approach are recapitulated by Stacey
and Griffin (2005). Within a complex responsive process-approach an organization is
thought as “… an evolving pattern of interaction between people that emerges in the
local interaction of those people, with its fundamental aspects of communication,
power and ideology, and evaluative choices.”(Stacey and Griffin, 2005: 19). An organization
is not to be interpreted as a thing– a system, a structure, an object - which
exists independent from its members. The organization as an evolving and social
pattern exists because of the ongoing interactions of people involved, construing and
thereby establishing and sharing a mutual understanding of what they are doing to
what purposes. Thus an organization is approached as a conversational phenomenon,
which emerges as a pattern and is produced and sustained in local communicative
interactions. As such what happens is uncertain and unpredictable, due to the ongoing
2. Research from a complex responsive process-approach | 27