Reflections on phronetic social science: a dialogue between Stewart Clegg, Bent Flyvbjerg and Mark Haugaard

Clegg, Flyvbjerg and Haugaard debate the strengths and weaknesses of a Foucauldian-Nietzschean critique of power compared to a tradition exemplified by Lukes and Habermas. Flyvbjerg and Clegg argue that the pursuit of universal normative principles and of rationality without power may lead to oppressive utopian thinking. Drawing on the Aristotelian tradition of phronesis, they propose a contextualist form of critique that situates itself in analysis of local practices to render domination transparent and open to change. While Haugaard accepts there cannot be a universal view that transcends the particularities of context, he argues that the phronetic approach is crypto-normative because it implicitly presupposes unacknowledged liberal normative premises; moreover, any use of 'truth' as a criterion follows Enlightenment principles of verification. © 2014 Taylor & Francis

The road not taken: international aid’s choice of Copenhagen over Beijing

A decade after the United Nations conferences on gender equality and social development, this paper explores their policy origins and discusses their differential impact on international aid since 1995. The author draws on her direct experience to consider why Copenhagen led to Poverty Reduction Strategies and the first Millennium Development Goal whereas Beijing has become largely invisible in the mainstream world of aid. She argues that the powerful influence of economic rational choice theory associated with bureaucratic modes of thought has meant that the central debate in development policy has remained that of growth versus equity. Beijing's agenda of societal transformation offered another paradigm of development that has remained marginal. The paper concludes with a proposal. If international aid policy could handle more than one paradigm and thus be more open to different ways of thinking about economy, society and politics, aid agencies would be better able to support transformative processes for social justice

The Resonance of Resonance: Critical Theory as a Sociology of World-Relations?

The main purpose of this paper is to examine Hartmut Rosa’s account of “resonance.” To this end, the analysis is divided into four parts. The first part focuses on the concept of resonance, including Rosa’s differentiation between horizontal, diagonal, and vertical “axes of resonance” and their role in the construction of different “world-relations.” The second part centers on the concept of alienation, notably the degree to which it constitutes an integral element of modern life forms and, in a larger sense, of the human condition. The third part grapples with the dialectic of resonance and alienation, shedding light on the assumption that they are antithetical to each other, while contending that their in-depth study provides normative parameters to distinguish between “the good life” and “the bad life.” The final part scrutinizes Rosa’s attempt to defend his outline of a sociological theory of resonance against objections raised by his critics and comprises a point-by-point assessment of his plea for a resonance-focused sociology of world-relations. The paper concludes by suggesting that, notwithstanding its limitations, Rosa’s approach represents one of the most promising developments in twenty-first-century critical theory

Appraising empirical applications of Structuration Theory in management and organization studies

There is an increasing interest in the application of Structuration Theory in the fields of management and organization studies. Based upon a thorough literature review, we have come up with a data-set to assess how Structuration Theory has been used in empirical research. We use three key concepts of this theory (duality of structure, knowledgeability, and time-space) as sensitizing concepts for our analysis. We conclude that the greatest potential of Structuration Theory for management and organization studies is to view it as a process theory that offers a distinct building block for explaining intra and interorganizational change, as exemplified through concepts such as routine, script, genre, practice, and discourse

Parenting practice, leisure experience, and substance use among South African adolescents

There is limited understanding of parents’ role in positive youth/adolescent development through leisure in developing countries. Using a sample of 6,626 eighth-grade students in South Africa, this study examined the interrelationships among parenting practice, adolescents’ leisure experience, and substance use. Results of structural equation modeling showed that parental leisure involvement was associated with less substance use, while parental leisure overcontrol was associated with greater substance use. The relationship of parental leisure involvement to substance use was mediated by healthy leisure engagement. The relationship of parental leisure overcontrol to substance use, on the other hand, was mediated by leisure boredom and healthy leisure engagement. The model path coefficients had little variation between genders and socioeconomic groups except that parental leisure overcontrol had a stronger positive relationship with leisure boredom for males than for females. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed

Conceptualizing historical organization studies

© 2016 Academy of Management Review. The promise of a closer union between organizational and historical research has long been recognized. However, its potential remains unfulfilled: The authenticity of theory development expected by organization studies and the authenticity of historical veracity required by historical research place exceptional conceptual and empirical demands on researchers. We elaborate the idea of historical organization studies-organizational research that draws extensively on historical data, methods, and knowledge to promote historically informed theoretical narratives attentive to both disciplines. Building on prior research, we propose a typology of four differing conceptions of history in organizational research: History as evaluating, explicating, conceptualizing, and narrating. We identify five principles of historical organization studies-dual integrity, pluralistic understanding, representational truth, context sensitivity, and theoretical fluency-and illustrate our typology holistically from the perspective of institutional entrepreneurship. We explore practical avenues for a creative synthesis, drawing examples from social movement research and microhistory. Historically informed theoretical narratives whose validity derives from both historical veracity and conceptual rigor afford dual integrity that enhances scholarly legitimacy, enriching understanding of historical, contemporary, and future-directed social realities