Response to MintzbergAuthor(s): Gareth MorganSource: Administrative Science Quarterly, Vol. 24, No. 1 (Mar., 1979), pp. 137-139Published by: Sage Publications, Inc. on behalf of the Johnson Graduate School of Management,Cornell UniversityStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2989881 .

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Letter to the Editor RESPONSE TO MINTZBERG Professor Mintzberg's letter (Mintzberg, 1978) on the use and abuse of the term "paradigm" has performed a needed service in drawing attention to the somewhat flippant way in which the paradigm concept has been employed in much recent social science literature. In choosing to write in a humorous style he has no doubt consciously sought to en- sure that his conclusion, that we should forget about the concept altogether, will notbe taken seriously. However, his strategy is risky. It is always dangerous to underestimate the attraction which social scientists may find in adopting a "head-in-the-sand" posture to problematic concepts, particu- larly when there is a real and desperate need to face the problems involved fairly and squarely. Professor Mintzberg's views extend an invitation to such ostrich-like indifference in relation to the concept of paradigm. This is unfortunate since, when appropriately understood and utilized, the notion of paradigm appears to offer many penetrating insights re- garding the problems and issues of debate in many social science disciplines at the present time. The problems of interpretation and use of the paradigm concept start with Kuhn's work (1962, 1970). As Masterman (1970) has noted, Kuhn (1962) himself used the concept in no less than 21 different ways, consistent with three broad senses of the term. First, there is the concept of paradigm in a metatheoretical or philosophical sense, where the term is used to capture a complete view of reality, or "way of see- ing." Second, there is the concept of paradigm relating to the social organization of science in terms of schools of thought built around a set of scientific habits connected with particular kinds of scientific achievements. Third, there is the concept of paradigm relating to the concrete use of specific kinds of tools and texts for the process of scientific puzzle solving. The relationships and distinctions between these three kinds of paradigms were confused in Kuhn's work, and have remained so in most of the literature which has utilized the paradigm concept. Yet an understanding of these relationships would seem to offer an important means of appreciating the nature of social science at a very funda- mental level. There is a connection between the conceptions of reality to which social scientists adhere, the schools of thought to which they belong, and the kinds of "tools" which they use as a basis for their puzzle-solving enter- prises. It is because Kuhn provided a means of grasping this basic issue, albeit in a somewhat rambling and confusing way, that his work stands as such an important contribution to the sociology of knowledge and to our understanding of the social organization and construction of scientific activity.

Viewed in this context, then, it is clear that paradigms within social science, particularly at the metatheoretical and philosophical level, can and do stand as perspectives which are adopted as virtual articles of faith. Social scientists can and do tend to operate within the context of world views which are rarely questioned or systematically examined, merely contenting themselves with the lesser debates and puzzle-solving activities that characterize the process of what Kuhn describes as "normal science." Most social sci- entists are engaged in "normal science," subscribing to the

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second- and third-level paradigms implicit in Kuhn's use of the term, subscribing to the views of particular schools of thought and particular methods of puzzle solving as a means of conducting their socioscientific enterprise Once we recognize the importance of paradigms operating at the metatheoretical or philosophical level within social science, then it also becomes clear that a change in paradigm can and does often involve a "conversion" akin to some form of religious experience for changes in paradigm at this level involve a complete change in world view. Metatheoretical paradigms define alternative realities, alter- native ways of seeing the world, and it is in this sense that a paradigm change can have a truly revolutionary effect since it involves a redefinition of reality. Kuhn's description of this type of paradigm change in terms of "revolutionary science" is thus well chosen.

Confusion inevitably arises when these ideas are indiscrimi- nately applied at the second and third paradigmatic levels, and it is with this misuse that Professor Mintzberg seems so justifiably annoyed. All too often changes at these levels are heralded as "revolutionary" and radically new when, in point of fact, they represent but minor variations on old and familiar themes. The trend toward empiricism in social sci- ence has tended to carry with it a dominant concern for techniques and puzzle solving and an underplaying of the importance of "theory," particularly at the sociophilosophical level. As a result, researchers are not always fully aware of their academic heritage and the nature of the metatheoreti- cal paradigm to which they implicitly subscribe. It is for this reason that they are often inclined to regard trivial change as revolutionary. As has been argued in detail elsewhere (Burrell and Morgan, 1979), contemporary social theory can be seen as being based upon four mutually exclusive paradigms - Radical Humanist, Radical Structuralist, Interpretive, and Functionalist

- each of which defines radically different views of social reality. Organization theorists have only really developed the implications of but one of these four paradigms - the Functionalists - and in terms of the possible range of as- sumptions which are open to investigation, their subject must be viewed as being extremely narrowly founded. An appreciation of the existence and role of metatheoretical paradigms opens the way to new vistas of insight and un- derstanding as far as the study of organizations is con- cerned. The real challenge within organization theory, like many other social science disciplines, rests not so much in abolishing or ignoring the paradigm concept, hoping that somehow or other it will go away, but in realizing its power as a tool for understanding the manner in which scientific knowledge is essentially socially constructed and socially sustained.

Gareth Morgan Lecturer, Department of Behavior in Organisations The University of Lancaster, England and

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Letter to the Editor

Visiting Lecturer, Department of Management Science and Organizational Behavior Pennsylvania State University University Park, PA 16802

REFERENCES

Burrell, Gibson, and Gareth Morgan 1979 Sociological Paradigms and

Organisational Analysis. Lon- don: Heinemann.

Kuhn, T. S. 1962, The Structure of Scientific 1970 Revolutions, 1 st and 2d eds.

Chicago: University Press.

Masterman, Margaret 1970 "The nature of a paradigm."

In Imre Lakatos and Alan Musgrave (eds.), Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge: 59-89. Cambridge: University Press.

Mintzberg, Henry 1978 "Mintzberg's final paradigm."

Administrative Science Quar- terly, 23: 635-636.

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