Inquiry into social and organizational life has been characterized predominantly by a structural-functionalist orientation, following the influence of sociologists such as Talcott Parsons. While this orientation has produced a great deal of knowledge and insight in the field of organizational theory, there are ways in which this orientation has led to unintentional consequences. The structural-functionalist orientation tends to generate a snapshot approach to research by focusing on the givenness of social structures and in so doing, adds to a sense of reification of organizational processes. Organizational life is a socially constructed reality. This is easily forgotten because by nature, social institutions begin to degenerate into recipe knowledge for its members, and original meanings and intentions that once guided social arrangements get lost. This paper proposes that we need a methodology which attempts to capture the historicity and continuity of organizational life, and the contingencies and decisions made through time. We need to pay attention to the human cosmogony, the human creation of the world through contingencies, accidents, and choices, to attempt to re-discover the original intentions and choices of predecessors. A brief review of historians and historical philosophers' views of methods for studying human action is investigated.
ARENDT, H.The human condition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1958.
2.
BARRETT, F. J. The development of the cognitive organization. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio, 1990.
3.
BECKER, C.What are historical facts? In L. M. Morsak (Ed.), The nature of human inquiry. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1970.
4.
BERG, D., & SMITH, K. (Eds.). The self in social inquiry. Beverly Hills, California: Sage Publications, 1985.
5.
BERGER, P., & LUCKMAN, T.The social construction of reality. New York: Anchor Books, 1967.
6.
BERGER, P., & PULLBURG, S.Reification and social critique of consciousness. History and Theory, IV(2), 1965.
7.
BERLIN, I.Historical inevitability. London: Oxford University Press, 1957.
8.
BERLIN, I.The concept of scientific history. In L. M. Morsak (Ed.), The nature of historical inquiry. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1970. (a)
9.
BERLIN, I.The hedgehog and the fox. In L. M. Morsak (Ed.), The nature of historical inquiry. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1970. (b)
10.
BULLOCK, A.The historian's purpose: History and metahistory. In L. M. Morsak (Ed.), The nature of historical inquiry. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1970.
CARR, E. H.What is history?New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1962.
13.
COLLINGWOOD, R. G.History as re-enactment of past experience. In P. Gardiner (Ed.), Theories of history. Glencoe, Illinois: The Free Press, 1959.
14.
COLLINGWOOD, R. G.The ideas of history. In L. M. Morsak (Ed.), The nature of historical inquiry. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1970.
15.
COLLINS, R., & MAKOWSKY, M.The discovery of society. New York: Random House, 1978.
16.
COMTE, A.The positivist philosophy, I(translated by H. Martineay). London: Chapman, 1853.
17.
COSER, L. A.Masters of sociological thought. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1977.
18.
CROCE, B.Historical determinism and the philosophy of history. In P. Gardiner (Ed.), Theories of history. Glencoe, Illinois: The Free Press, 1959.
19.
CROCE, B.History and chronicle. In L. M. Morsak (Ed.), The nature of historical inquiry. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1970.
20.
DILTHEY, W.The understanding of other persons and their life expressions. In P. Gardiner (Ed.), Theories of history. Glencoe, Illinois: The Free Press, 1959.
21.
DURKHEIM, E.The division of labor in society (translated by G. Simpson). Glencoe, Illinois: The Free Press, 1938.
22.
FISCHER, D. H.Historians' fallacies. New York: Harper & Row, 1970.
23.
FREIRE, P.Pedagogy of the oppressed. New York: Continuum, 1984.
24.
GADAMER, H.Truth and method. New York: Seabury, 1975.
25.
GARDINER, P.Theories of history. Glencoe, Illinois: The Free Press, 1959.
26.
GARDINER, P.The nature of historical explanation. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1961.
27.
GERGEN, K.Toward transformation in social knowledge. New York: Springer-Verlag, 1982.
28.
GOULDNER, A. W.The coming crisis of Western sociology. New York: Basic Books, 1970.
29.
GREENBLATT, S.Renaissance self-fashioning. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980.
30.
HAZELRRIGG, L.Claims of knowledge (Vol. 2). Tallahassee, Florida: University of Florida Press, 1989.
31.
HEANEY, S.Death of a naturalist. London: Faber & Faber, 1966.
32.
HEIDEGGER, M.Being and time. New York: Harper & Row, 1962 (originally published 1927).
33.
HOOK, S.From Hegel to Marx. New York: Humanities Press, 1950.
34.
ILLICH, I.Tools for conviviality. New York: Harper & Row, 1973.
35.
KATZ, D., & KAHN, R.The socialpsychology of organizations. New York: John Wiley, 1966.
36.
KIMBERLEY, J., & MILES, R. (Eds.). The organizational life cycle. San Francisco: JosseyBass, 1980.
37.
LAWRENCE, P., & LORSCH, J.Organization and environment. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1967.
38.
LEFF, G.History and social theory. University of Alabama: University of Alabama Press, 1969.
39.
MARCH, J. G., & SIMON, H. A.Organizations. New York: John Wiley, 1958.
40.
MILLER, E. J.Making room for individual autonomy. In S. Srivastva and Associates (Eds.), Executive power. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1986.
41.
MORGAN, G.Images of organizations. Beverly Hills, California: Sage Publications, 1986.
42.
MORSEK, L. LM.The nature of historical inquiry. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1970.
43.
ORTEGA Y GOSSET, J.History as a system. In L. M. Morsak (Ed.), The nature of historical inquiry. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1970.
44.
PARSONS, T.The structure of social action. Glencoe, Illinois: The Free Press, 1949.
PIRENNE, H.What are historians trying to do? In L. M. Morsak (Ed.), The nature of historical inquiry. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1970.
47.
RICOUER, P.Symbolism of evil. Boston: Beacon Press, 1969.
48.
SCHUTZ, A.The phenomenology of the social world. Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1967.
49.
SELZNICK, P.Leadership in administration. New York: Harper & Row, 1957. 253-253
50.
SIMMONS, V.Reconstructing an organizational history: Systematic distortions in retrospective data. In D. Berg and K. Smith (Eds.), The self in social inquiry. Beverly Hills, California: Sage Publications, 1985.
51.
SPENCER, H.The study of sociology. London: Kegan Paul & Tench, 1873.
52.
ST. SIMON, H.Social organization and other writings. New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1964.
53.
THOMPSON, J. D.Organizations in action. New York: McGraw Hill, 1967.
54.
UNGER, R.Social theory: Its situation and its task. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1987.
55.
WHITE, T.In search of history. New York: Warner Books, 1978.
56.
WOODWARD, J.Industrial organization: Theory and practiceLondon: Oxford University Press, 1965.
