Rumbling on performativity_Frits Simon

varying from social constructionism, critical realism, grounded theory, hermeneutics,
critical theory, post structuralism, postmodernism up till discourse
analysis, feminism and genealogy. Common is that reflexive research should
enable to express what really would matter or matters for people, about their
daily worries and felt pressure, and about how people can be helped to cope
with (potential) inequality, exclusion, alienation and repression. Research being
reflexive intends to give voice to the local against the boasting broadcasting of
post-war modernity.
Textbox 3: A practice turn
From the 1950s a recurring theme - which came to be labelled as the practice
turn - within OMS is that research is of little consequence for management
practice in everyday (Aldag, 2012; Bansal et al., 2012; Bartunek and Egri, 2012;
Ireland, 2012; Mohrman and Lawler, 2012; Pearce and Huang, 2012; Sandberg and
Tsoukas, 2011; Simpson, 2009; Suddaby et al., 2011; Walsh, 2011). Questions are
asked how to augment the relevance of research for practice. Accessible writing
is suggested (Bansal et al., 2012; Pearce and Huang, 2012; Walsh, 2011) next to
effective communication about results (Stewart and Barrick, 2012). Or research
should be done near the practice (Aldag, 2012; Pearce and Huang, 2012) as “…
organizational researchers must ask questions with organizational practioners,
not about them.” (Mohrman and Lawler, 2012: 45; italics authors). From a radical
perspective there is doubt about the usefulness of research. “People do not need
social scientists to pick their way through the organizational world. They already
have methodic ways of doing this.” (Llewellyn and Hindmarsh, 2010: xii).
Within OMS a tradition of practice-based research evolved as a response to the
recurring lack of practicality of conventional research. A tradition with its roots
in the concept of phronesis of Aristotle (384 - 322 B.C.), in the critical work of
Marx (1818 - 1883), in the philosophy of language of Wittgenstein (1889 - 1951), in
the phenomenology of Heidegger (1889 - 1976), in the existentialism of Sartre
(1905 - 1980) and in the American pragmatism and symbolic interactionism
(Nicolini, 2013; Simpson, 2009). Practice-based research is a return to being-inthe-world
as the ontological point of departure for research; to do research into
what occurs in practice instead of developing or testing a hypothetical model.
According to Nicolini (2013) OMS-practice-based research is oriented on the
activities within organizations. The focus is on activities - what is done - instead
on the individual acting of actors. Activities are approached as expressions of
providing meaning, identity and order in situations, focussed on the accomplishments
of actors. Activities are considered within their immediate backgrounds
as social, discursive and bodily appearances in which habits, interests, power and
artefacts emerge. An organization is approached as a dynamical and ongoing
(re)produced relational network.
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