Narration or Science? Collapsing the Division in Organization Studies

Abstract

Scientific knowledge is conventionally distinguished from the everyday knowledge of lay people that is transmitted in stories-narrative knowledge. Recently, however, a call for redeeming narrative knowledge in the humanities and social sciences in general and in organization studies in particular can be heard. The present article considers whether there is enough ground for reintroducing the narrative knowledge into a research tradition, which until now has been imbued with the logoscientific knowledge. Several existing and emerging traditions within organization studies are intent on achieving such a rapprochement: for instance case studies, studies of organizational stories and a variety of interpretive approaches. A collective reflection is needed to consolidate such attempts. Such reflection, which this paper initiates, might aim at interpretation which lies beyond the hermeneutic tradition of separating the material world from the symbolic, and at a conscious development of a genre which will speak to practitioners as well as to theoreticians.