Theories as Agents of Progress – Can we see a Bridge between Constructionism, Chaos Theory and Organization Research?

Detlef Quast
Additional contact information
Detlef Quast: Department of Business, Economics, Statistics and Informatics, Postal: Örebro University, Department of Business, Economics, Statistics and Informatics, SE - 701 82 ÖREBRO, Sweden

No 2003:3, Working Papers from Örebro University, School of Business

Abstract: ”Constructionism shares constructivism's connotation of learning as ”building knowledge structures” irrespective of the circumstances of the learning. It then adds that this happens especially felicitously in a context where the learner is consciously engaged in constructing a public entity, whether it's a sandcastle on the beach or a theory of the univ erse... If one eschews pipeline models of transmitting knowledge in talking among ourselves as well as in theorizing about class rooms, then one

must expect that I will not be able to tell you about my idea of constructionism. Doing so is bound to trivialize it. Instead, I must confine myself to engage you in experiences (including verbal ones) liable to encourage your own personal construction of something in some sense like it. Only in this way will there be something rich enough in your mind to be worth talking about.” (Papert, 1991)

This essay is intented as a contribution to the philosophical discussion of the development of

science, i.e. the process of adopting, keeping and rejecting scientific theories. The aim of this short investigation is to make a contribution to the understanding of constructionism and other scientific theories like chaos theory and self-organization, which influences organization theories. The present essay constitutes rather an elaboration of views than a solution to given problems but perhaps the views gives another piece to the puzzle of understanding the development of scientific theories.

Keywords: chaos theory; constructionism; organization theory; self-organization; self- fullfilling prophecy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A23 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 22 pages
Date: 2004-08-09
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

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:hhs:oruesi:2003_003

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Papers from Örebro University, School of Business Örebro University School of Business, SE - 701 82 ÖREBRO, Sweden. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().