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‘Through the Looking Glass’: On Phantasmal Tales, Distortions and Reflexivity in Organizational Scholarship

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

This chapter asks: ‘How often do we as social scientists question the validity of our theories and our findings? How often do we reflexively examine the distortions in the lenses we use to analyse organizations? ‘It proceeds to answer these questions by defining reflexivity and presenting six perspectives on reflexive analysis that build on and extend previous analytical treatments of reflexivity, especially that by Alvesson, Hardy, and Harley (2008). Illustrations of the six are drawn from my own experiences as well as those of other scholars. The intention is to stimulate greater interest in reflexivity and provoke other scholars to look more reflexively at their own work.

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Acknowledgements

Acknowledgments

The author would like to thank Tammar Zilber, Shaz Ansari, Trin Thananusak, Seray Ergene and an anonymous reviewer for their comments on an earlier draft of this chapter.

Citation

Gray, B. (2019), "‘Through the Looking Glass’: On Phantasmal Tales, Distortions and Reflexivity in Organizational Scholarship", 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. 237-253. https://doi.org/10.1108/S0733-558X20190000059013

Publisher

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Emerald Publishing Limited