Pragmatism, Practice, and the Boundaries of Organization

Josh Whitford () and Francesco Zirpoli ()
Additional contact information
Josh Whitford: Department of Sociology, Columbia University, New York, New York 10027
Francesco Zirpoli: Department of Management, Università Ca’ Foscari Venezia, 30123 Venezia, Italy

Organization Science, 2014, vol. 25, issue 6, 1823-1839

Abstract: This article uses a longitudinal qualitative analysis of key transitions in the relationship between Fiat Group Automobiles and a major supplier to integrate a pragmatist model of action into the contemporary “practice” approach to the study of organizations. It builds on an affinity between pragmatist and practice approaches that has been widely recognized but has not yet been fully developed with reference to an empirical case. It argues that an analytic reliance on a pragmatist conception of agency improves on the more general reliance in studies of organizational practice on a conception of the agent imported from Giddens’ structuration theory [Giddens A (1984) The Constitution of Society: Outline of the Theory of Structuration (Polity Press, Cambridge, UK)]. The argument is developed with reference to a long-standing debate in organization theory—the debate over the determinants of organizational boundaries—that has grown in importance as companies have responded to market and technological volatility by involving suppliers not just in the production but also in the conceptualization and design of the products they sell. It provides a theoretical framework that can help analyze the place of managerial agency in organizational strategy making and explain why organizational boundaries in many industries today are so unsettled and contested and are likely to remain so in the future.

Keywords: pragmatism; practice; routines; economic sociology; field study; qualitative research; interorganizational relationships; organizational boundaries (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/orsc.2014.0919 (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:inm:ororsc:v:25:y:2014:i:6:p:1823-1839

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Organization Science from INFORMS Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Asher ().