Through a Glass,Darkly

Abstract

Aiming to undermine the terra firma of organization theory, Sandelands and Drazin's paper 'On the Language of Organization Theory' at first sight provides a potentially important case of foundational criticism. On closer scrutiny, serious flaws become apparent. The authors' general notion of science proves to be far too narrow excluding, per definition, alternative methodological perspectives such as the idiographic one. Their recommendation that organizational research be confined to perceptions of individual actions emerges as mistaken on meta- scientific grounds, and unrealistic in practice. According to a central idea in the paper, the concepts of organization and environment are 'hypostasized', and so are fallacious. Yet, while misunderstanding the meaning of hypostasization, Sandelands and Drazin themselves make ample use of the supposedly erroneous concepts. Finally, the theories of natural selection and strategic choice are squeezed by force into an analytical dichotomy taken from linguistic philosophy, with the result that the authors confuse achievement and process aspects. In actual fact, however, the theories involve both aspects, as do theories of decision processes.