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Pragmatism in Organizations: Ambivalence and Limits

The Production of Managerial Knowledge and Organizational Theory: New Approaches to Writing, Producing and Consuming Theory

ISBN: 978-1-78769-184-1, eISBN: 978-1-78769-183-4

Publication date: 11 April 2019

Abstract

Pragmatism in the sense of harmonizing rules and reality for the sake of appropriate problem solving and overall performance is a ubiquitous phenomenon in organizational life. As such it has been generalized as an everyday requirement of making organizations work and a virtue of human decision making under the condition of complexity, strategic dilemmas or “wicked problems.” This chapter addresses both the theoretical and the normative dimensions of pragmatism in organizations, public administration in particular. The main statement is that the necessary theoretical clarification concerns the distinction between pragmatism and what is referred to as a logic of appropriateness while the normative limits of pragmatism refer to the necessity of ranking logics of appropriateness and related values plus the ability to act on the basis of accurate judgment which is primarily, even if not exclusively, a matter of leadership.

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Acknowledgements

Acknowledgments

I am indebted to Paul ’t Hart for profoundly helpful advice and comments and to two anonymous RSO reviewers. I also thank Annette Flowe and Kevin Klamann for their assistance in the technical production of the manuscript.

Citation

Seibel, W. (2019), "Pragmatism in Organizations: Ambivalence and Limits", Zilber, T.B., Amis, J.M. and Mair, J. (Ed.) The Production of Managerial Knowledge and Organizational Theory: New Approaches to Writing, Producing and Consuming Theory (Research in the Sociology of Organizations, Vol. 59), Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 43-58. https://doi.org/10.1108/S0733-558X20190000059002

Publisher

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Emerald Publishing Limited