Search

Purpose This paper analyses the origin, conceptual underpinnings and consequences of the idea of management theory. It argues that despite claims to incommensurability and except for critical studies authors, management researchers come together in their quest for performativity. The search for theory has condemned management scholars to espouse structural-functional-positivist assumptions. As such, mainstream management theorists assume and promote psychological determinism. Equivocations, ambiguities, tautologies and imprecise language obscure this implication, however, hollowing out management theory of its performative quality. A century after its inception, the quest for management theory has failed. Another avenue for management scholarship exists, one in which management history is a major contributor. Design/methodology/approach This paper offers a historical and conceptual analysis, relying on relevant philosophy of science scholarship. The object of study is the concept of management theory. Findings Most commentators on management theory rely on a widespread view (of postmodern lineage) according to which incommensurable management research paradigms exist. Allowance made for critical management studies, this paper argues otherwise, namely, that current management research paradigms are merely variations on a positivist theme. It further contends that mainstream management research has failed in its quest to identify theory, even if the language used to report research findings obfuscates this fact. Research limitations/implications A notable implication of this paper is that management academics should reconsider what they do and in particular abandon their quest for theory in favour of management history. Originality/value This paper builds on arguments that philosophers of science and scholars specialising in sociological analysis have long recognised to offer a new thesis on management theory in particular and management academia in general.

This paper considers the empirical evidence that we currently have for various kinds of determinism that might be relevant to the thesis that human beings possess libertarian free will. Libertarianism requires a very strong version of indeterminism, so it can be refuted not just by universal determinism, but by some much weaker theses as well. However, it is argued that at present, we have no good reason to believe even these weak deterministic views and, hence, no good reason—at least from this quarter—to doubt that we are libertarian free. In particular, the paper responds to various arguments for neural and psychological determinism, arguments based on the work of people like Honderich, Tegmark, Libet, Velmans, Wegner, and Festinger.

This article focuses critically on realism as an International Relations (IR) theory (family). It argues that realist theories share a particular view of human nature and that this view of human nature is flawed in several important respects. I begin by discussing the quality of human nature assumptions in realism and the way they are employed. The following section then argues that, in addition to its gloomy assumptions concerning the motives for human (and state) action, realism relies strongly on an assumption of rationality. This move splits descriptive from prescriptive realism and renders the paradigm both internally inconsistent and compatible in important respects with its rival paradigm of liberalism. I then turn to a critique of the neo-realist approach in particular, showing that and why in spite of claims to the contrary it cannot escape the foregoing critique. In conclusion, it emerges that the status of realism in the field of IR theory would likely sustain serious damage from a systematic examination of the nature and use of its claims about human nature. The paradigm is, in short, infused with a paradoxical psychological determinism that will not stand up to scrutiny.

I argue in this essay that belief/desire explanations are not logically true and not causal, and further that the antecedent of a true belief/desire conditional cannot be strengthened in such a way as to transform it into a true causal statement. I also argue that belief/desire explanations are not dispensable: they are presupposed in our justifications of scientific claims. The proposal is not that psychological determinism is false, but that some at least of our activities are not describable in causal terms. These arguments prepare the ground for a puzzle. If all human intentional behaviour is caused, then all actual linkages between psychological states and behaviour should be expressed in causal statements. But neither the action of asserting a causal statement nor the action of justifying the assertion can be described as the result of a cause. Therefore if one accepts that scientific claims can be justified, not all linkages between psychological states and subsequent action are expressible in causal statements. I do not offer a solution to this puzzle.

This article briefly examines biological determinism in the context of research on human differences, and outlines how this orientation has historically functioned to legitimise social inequality. It is then argued, in contradiction to the “received view” in contemporary psychology, that “extra-scientific” factors shape and inform all aspects of scientific inquiry. An historicist-contextualist perspective is subsequently used to highlight the “justificatory function” of psychological research. It is concluded that an unreflective adherence to traditional positivist-empiricist theories of science, and a refusal to admit “consequence” arguments into scientific discourse has contributed to a situation where social research has persistently served to reinforce and reify normative social values as natural and immutable.

This paper is concerned with a specific point concerning the implications of psychological determinism for legal sanctions of behaviour. One hears it argued sometimes that, insofar as the concept of moral responsibility is predicated on the assumption of self‐determinism or voluntarism, determinism, in denying the coherence of the concept of moral responsibility, entails a nihilistic approach to legal sanctions of behaviour. It will be argued that whilst determinism indeed renders the concept of moral responsibility vacuous, determinism itself entails no policy on the punishment (or reward) of certain behaviours.

Much contemporary urban and regional studies literature contains an inadequate understanding of why people do what they do. This paper attempts to redress this situation by examining the implications of sociobiology and social psychology for urban and regional analysis. It is argued that these areas of theory can indeed make a significant contribution to urban and regional studies. However, this can only be achieved if biological and psychological determinism is abandoned and if we combine an understanding of the innate bases of behaviour with the cultures which societies self-consciously construct for themselves. This argument is illustrated with reference to two issues of central concern to urban and regional studies: home life and community relations between adolescents and older people. This paper also suggests that urban and regional studies could profit by returning to older (and now frequently dismissed) forms of urban analysis, particularly the Chicago School of urban sociology.

ACCORDING to the traditional view of man, what distinguishes him from animals is his freedom to choose between one course of action and another, his freedom to seek good and avoid evil. The animal has no freedom, but is determined by physical and biological laws; like a machine, the animal responds whenever the appropriate stimulus is present. But because man has free will, we cannot hope to explain his behavior merely in terms of causes. Man cannot be bound by physical or biological laws. While divergent views have gained some recognition, for example, the idea that man is a machine, or the idea that all of nature is purposive, the prevailing view has been one that implies that man somehow transcends the deterministic laws of nature. Two developments of the present century have challenged this traditional view of man and nature: quantum mechanics, which suggests that physics is not deterministic, and psychoanalysis, which suggests that man is not free. In response to these developments there has been a resurgence of interest in the determinismfreedom problem, especially among philosophers and physicists. Psychologists, however, have been strangely quiet about the problem, even though they are deeply implicated in it. I will indicate here the position I believe has been assumed, usually implicitly, by experimental psychologists today regarding determinism and freedom, and I will spell out some of the implications of this position for the problem of morality. In discussions of free will and determinism tlere are often a number of issues in question.' The present discussion will be concerned with just one issue: the predictability of behavior. Some men, who will be called indeterminists, contend that human behavior is not entirely predictable from antecedent conditions, so that by the power of his will a man is free to controvert the determining efficacy of prior experience and conditioning. The indeterminist has the advantage of tradition on his side of the argument, but does he have any evidence to support his position ? Let us see.