the people make the paradigm

The The people make the paradigmIncubator

NEIL ANDERSON*

Department of Psychology, Goldsmiths College, University of London, U.K.

Introduction

`I don't know why I spend my time,Writing songs I can't believe,With words that tear and strain to rhyme'.

`And so you see I have come to doubt,All that I once held as true,I stand alone without beliefs,The only truth I know is you' (Simon, 1968).

If, as in Schneider's (1987) terminology, `the people make the place' in work organizations,then as a research community in OB we undoubtedly construct the paradigm which guidesand facilitates our e�orts to explain and understand organizational phenomena (Kuhn, 1970;Campbell, Daft and Hulin, 1982). Such shared understandings, unspoken norms, taken-for-granted assumptions, and implicit codes of conduct governing research are all-pervasive butdeeply covert and rarely exposed to examination in the cold light of day. Rather, we continue toroutinely investigate old chestnut phenomena using conventional methods and designs, at times itfeels, actively dissuaded from pursuing an innovative agenda or from trialing untested methodsand approaches. Instead, the paradigm, if allowed to become excessively conformist, sti¯esradical innovation and channels us to remain on familiar ground by conscientiously continuingto not so boldly go where many have been before.

Excessive Conformity

Excessive conformity to the predominant paradigm now a�icts many areas in OB (Herriot andAnderson, 1997). Research seems to become ever more narrowly focused, reductionist, atomistic

CCC 0894±3796/98/040323±06$17.50# 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Accepted 14 July 1997

JOURNAL OF ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR, VOL. 19, 323±328 (1998)

*Correspondence to: Neil Anderson, Department of Psychology, Goldsmiths College, University of London, NewCross, London SE14 6NW, U.K. Tel: 0171 919 7894. Fax: 0171 919 7873.

and replicative in our attempt to mimic the apparent quantitative rigour and general laws presentin the physical sciences. `Playing the game' by sticking to safe, well-trodden paths seems to havebecome the implicit code of conduct for us all; the conformity pressures too great; the rewardprospects too seductive; but above all, the punishment pressures just too pernicious to contem-plate attempting anything di�erent (e.g. Astley, 1985; Pfe�er, 1993). Indeed, some might evenargue that the bureaucratization of OB research is now almost completeÐresearch domains havebecome impressively specialized, measures of the impact and value of research carefully con-structed and rigorously applied, and the norms for individual researcher's productivity nowgenerally accepted. But there is an insidious downside to this.

Excessive conformity to the dominant paradigm breeds myopic incrementalism in appliedstudies, and a retarded development of the subject su�cient to engender feelings of ingroupsafety, scienti®c superiority, and a sense of deserving self-identity which can only be maintainedby one's continued conformity to the predominant value system. Herriot and Anderson (1997)have recently suggested that such conditions can lead to marginalization, stagnation, andeventual decline if they are left unchallenged. Although our case was directed toward one part-icular subdiscipline with OBÐpersonnel psychologyÐthe conditions and pressures we identi®edare equally relevant to other areas. Indeed, I would argue that widespread pressures to conformare increasing across all the disparate areas which collectively form OB due to environmentalcontingencies in academia (e.g. Pfe�er, 1993). As a result, innovative scholarship runs the risk ofbeing supplanted by a quasi-bureaucratic industry which churns out incremental and replicationstudies by the score.

What are the indicators of excessive conformity? They include:

(i) Predominance of a single ontological perspective, set of paradigmatic values, or methodo-logical approach.

(ii) Implicit beliefs that it must be therefore sacrilegious to challenge taken-for-grantedassumptions as they are obviously axiomatic.

(iii) Masses of technically sound studies published in the premier journals which edge know-ledge forwards marginally but which demonstrate methodological excellence above sub-stantive contribution to the furtherance of understanding.

(iv) Routinization of knowledge production, review standards, and exchange processes,coupled with the internalization of shared norms as to what constitutes a `good' study.

(v) Established reward and review structures which create punitive sanctions against radicalcontributions whether theoretical or empirical.

(vi) A lack of published constructive controversy (Tjosvold, Wedley and Field, 1986). Instead,any disagreements appear as either in-paradigm points of detail or, worse, are suppressedunder anonymous journal referee procedures.

(vii) Concentration of power within a senior academic elite who have considerable vestedinterest in maintaining the dominant paradigm.

Of course, this list is not exhaustive. And not all areas in OB su�er from these symptoms. Farfrom it. A core problem is that the underlying environmental pressures seem to be leadinginexorably toward conformity as the only smart career move, especially for ambitious juniorfaculty (Kozlowski and Chao, 1995). Yet, the advancement of many ®elds in OB would be betterserved if younger researchers perceived themselves as critical scholars rather than as ¯edglingapparatchics of their respective professional societies or academic cliques (Feyerabend, 1980;Cannella and Paetzold, 1994).

# 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. J. Organiz. Behav. 19: 323±328 (1998)

324 N. ANDERSON

The Marginalization of OB

At the risk of sounding strident, I am convinced that excessive conformity, combined with adysfunctional reward system, is starving many subdisciplines within OB of innovative theoreticalproposition papers and exploratory model building contributions. OB research is now followingafter changing events in the workplace, not generating novel perspectives to drive innovativepractice. We have fallen into a reactive mode of response in failing to anticipate future changeby not generating future-oriented theoretical models capable of being empirically tested. Instead,by `sticking to the paradigmatic knitting', as it were, OB research is becoming increasinglyintrospective, reactive and marginalized.

The uncomfortable question of why OB scholars have had so little in¯uence upon managerialpractices is one perhaps we should ask of ourselves more often. Simultaneously, we should querywhy it is that an ongoing succession of management gurus continue to provoke such blindallegiance to their over-simplistic, usually unresearched, and at times, patently incorrect prescrip-tions (March, 1984). One explanation is that the gurus have been good at spotting trends as theybreak or just ahead of time. Not weighed down by the imperative to fully justify their claims, orindeed even to o�er up the most scant of validity evidence, their ideas are nevertheless publishedin the public domain and, for some time at least, have impact upon practising managers. For theunfortunate academic, the `time to market' for novel ideas is substantially longer, but alsofraught with the pitfalls of possible non-publication, major rewrites, and troublesome calls forsupportive evidence. That traditional review processes in OB have perhaps not nurturedembryonic ideas is, of course, one of the laudable driving factors behind the Incubator section inJOB. But, this alone will not be enough to catapult OB research back to the forefront ofmanagerial theory and practice. Rather, we need to examine the increasing segregation betweenacademics, consultants, and practising managers and to re¯ect on just how routinized andconformist much `research' in OB has become. The indicators of our marginalization include:

(i) The annexing of applied knowledge by gurus and consultants as translator-intermediariesbetween academics and practising managers.

(ii) Gratuitous complexity in the conceptualization, operationalization and reporting ofapplied research, indecipherable styles of writing, statistical analyses, or conventions ofjournal article presentation, even for fellow academics in the same ®eld! I use the termgratuitous complexity intentionally, as, without doubt, many phenomena we seek tounderstand and explain in OB are complex, multifaceted, and interrelated. It is thetrend toward construct and analytical complexity for the sake of esoteric exclusively inmimicking the jargon and quantitative methods in the physical sciences which I wish tochallenge.

(iii) Managers dismissing academics as being `too academic', and therefore, their knowledge-base as irrelevant to their needs.

(iv) Academics withdrawing from applied studies in the business environment to concentrateupon `pure research'.

(v) Managers regarding the premier academic journals in the ®eld as unreadable, banal andinconsequential.

(vi) Academics themselves regarding the premier journals in the ®eld as unreadable and banalbut of great instrumental consequence to career advancement.

The last of these points is perhaps the most telling indictment of any research discipline. Inthis unfortunate scenario academics may begrudgingly accept the situation, quietly reach an


THE PEOPLE MAKE THE PARADIGM 325

accommodation to continue to play the game by churning out more and more of the same oldmaterial, and exist on a comfortable diet of compliance, mutual appreciation, and ingroupmembership. But of course, the presence of just one or two of these factors in isolation does notlead to marginalization, it is their combined e�ects over time within a strongly conformist culturewhich is likely to lead to this. Indeed, in many areas of OB a single paradigm appears to becoherent to the point of being unassailably predominant (e.g. personnel psychology, HRM,cybernetics, critical management studies, organization commitment, occupational stress, evenorganizational innovation). Here, the ontological and epistemological assumptions remainunspeci®ed and unspoken but nevertheless pervasive; the values and beliefs which underpin theculture follow logically from these paradigmatic assumptions; and the artefacts of research followlogically from these beliefs and values. In some areas these taken-for-granted assumptions appearnow to have taken on the characteristics of an ideologyÐan axiomatic set of beliefs which are tobe embraced whole and without question (Anderson and Ostro�, 1997). Even to query an elementof the paradigm is tantamount to rejecting it entirely (Dachler, 1994). In fact to do so would beprofessional suicide for any but themost senior and revered of academics (Perrow, 1994). Fit to theresearch community ethos, it would seem, is nowadays valued as highly in OB as person±organizational ®t was by the so-called `strong-culture' companies in the 1980s (e.g. Pfe�er, 1993).The paradox, of course, is that it is these very shared assumptions and understandings whichunderpin every academic community which also have tangible positive bene®ts. These include:

(i) Generally accepted standards and conventions for the conduct of research, practice andtraining.

(ii) A sense of community, belonging, peer support and self-identity.(iii) Bene®ts stemming from presenting a `united front' and from being perceived by others as

a coherent group (e.g. policy in¯uence, funding).(iv) SpecializationÐthe ability to specialize research training and to focus research e�orts on

de®ned topics and issues.(v) ProfessionalizationÐthe opportunity longer-term to establish a professional body to

represent subdisciplinary interests.

This then is the dilemmaÐhow to maintain these positive features whilst ensuring that ourunderstanding of phenomena in OB advances and widens rather than stutters and implodes, andthat simultaneously we also have an impact upon managerial practices in industry.

The People Make the Paradigm

I am not, of course, suggesting that there is a complete absence of innovation or theoretical modelbuilding in OB. What has become increasingly apparent though is a near obsessive focus uponmethodological rigour and, in some disciplines, statistical sophistication to the detriment ofthought-provoking contributions which actively challenge covert paradigmatic assumptions. Wedo not need more and more of the same old conscientiously conducted studies; we need paperswhich disturb, which violate taken-for-granted assumptions, or which force us to open up andgrapple with uncomfortable agendas and themes. Rather, the bureaucratization of OB researchhas reduced what should be an exciting, inspirational, fundamentally challenging and fun processto routinized, albeit highly sophisticated, clerical labour. Content to maintain the status quo, wehave allowed a creeping asphyxiation of radical ideas and study designs. Yet, as a ®eld, OB can


326 N. ANDERSON

boast some of the most able and creative individuals, and if the people do indeed make theparadigm, this largely untapped reservoir of intellectual abilities is our lifeline. I would raise thefollowing questions initially in an attempt to stimulate re¯exivity and constructive controversyamong colleagues:

(i) Is excessive conformity an inevitable dysfunctional outcome of the maturation of OBresearch?

(ii) If so, how might we reduce the barriers to, and raise the rewards for, genuinely innovativeperspectives and empirical studies?

(iii) What might be the requisite level of complexity needed to conceptualize, operationalizeand report research into phenomena which are, by their nature, complex?

(iv) Is marginalization an unavoidable consequence of (ii) and (iii) above? If so, should weabandon any attempt to in¯uence practising managers since we deal in matters that aremanifestly too di�cult for them to understand?

Without doubt, research in OB has become more specialized and the ®eld has fragmented intoa series of largely autonomous subdisciplines (Morgan, 1986; Daft and Lewin, 1993). But hasOB become a discipline which has lost its verve because it has lost its nerve? Perhaps the timehas come to critically examine paradigmatic assumptions and to take stock of the theoreticalhealth, propensity for innovation, and environmental impact of OB. After all, given our collectiveknowledge-base should we not be in the best position to undertake such an introspectivediagnosis?

References

Anderson, N. R. and Ostro�, C. (1997). `Selection as socialisation'. In: Anderson, N. and Herriot, P. (Eds)International Handbook of Selection and Assessment, Wiley, Chichester.

Astley, G. (1985). `Administrative science as a socially constructed truth', Administrative Science Quarterly,30, 497±513.

Campbell, J. P., Daft, R. L. and Hulin, C. L. (1982). What to Study: Generating and Developing ResearchQuestions, Sage, Beverly Hills, CA.

Canella, A. A. and Paetzold, R. L. (1994). `Pfe�er's barriers to the advancement of organizational science:A rejoinder', Academy of Management Review, 19, 331±341.

Dachler, H. P. (1994). `A social-relational perspective of selection'. Paper presented at the 23rd Inter-national Congress of Applied Psychology, Madrid, Spain, July 1994.

Daft, R. L. and Lewin, A. Y. (1993). `Where are the theories for the ``new'' organizational forms?An editorial essay', Organizational Science, 4, i±vi.

Feyerabend, P. (1980). Against Method, Verso, London.Herriot, P. and Anderson, N. (1997). `Selecting for change: How will personnel and selection psychologysurvive?' In: Anderson, N. and Herriot, P. (Eds) International Handbook of Selection and Assessment,Wiley, Chichester.

Kozlowski, S. W. J. and Chao, G. T. (1995, May). `Conducting integrative and creative research: Principlesfor pushing the envelope'. Presented at the Doctoral Consortium for the 10th Annual Conference of theSociety for Industrial and organizational Psychology, Orlando, FL., U.S.A.

Kuhn, T. S. (1970). The Structure of Scienti®c Revolutions, 2nd edn, University of Chicago Press, Chicago.March, J. G. (1984). `How we talk and how we act: Administrative theory and administrative life'.In: Sergiovanni, T. and Corbally, J. E. (Eds) Leadership and Organizational Cultures, University ofIllinois Press, Urbana.

Morgan, G. (1986). Images of Organization, Sage, Newbury Park.


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Perrow, C. (1994). `Pfe�er slips! Dialogue', Academy of Management Review, 19, 191±194.Pfe�er, J. (1993). `Barriers to the advancement of organizational science: Paradigm development as adependent variable', Academy of Management Review, 18, 599±620.

Schneider, B. W. (1987). `The people make the place', Personnel Psychology, 40, 437±453.Simon, P. (1968). `Kathy's Song' from Simon, P. and Garfunkel, A., Sounds of Silence, Columbia Records.Tjosvold, D., Wedley, W. C. and Field, R. H. G. (1986). `Constructive controversy, the Vroom±Yettonmodel, and managerial decision-making', Journal of Occupational Behaviour, 7, 125±138.


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the people make the paradigm

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