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date: 23 February 2020

Abstract and Keywords

Interpretive approaches to science are found in many social sciences, including organizational studies. They trace their antecedents, sometimes consciously, sometimes by implication, to a set of philosophical arguments that developed largely in the first part of the twentieth century in Europe (initially in Germany, at mid-century in France, with the occasional involvement of English philosophers). These arguments have even earlier roots — in the eighteenth-century work of Kant, in the ancient Greek philosophers, and in 1,500-year-old Jewish textual practices. To talk about ‘science’ is to ask certain kinds of questions, involving claims-making about the subject(s) of study. As interpretive philosophies developed in dialogue with other nineteenth- and twentieth-century philosophical arguments about various questions and claims, this article begins with a brief overview of the context out of which they grew, touches on their central ideas, and then turns to their manifestations in organizational studies.

Keywords: social sciences, organizational studies, Greek philosophers, Jewish textual practices, interpretive philosophies

Mary Jo Hatch

Mary Jo Hatch (PhD Stanford 1985) is the C. Coleman McGehee Eminent Scholars Research Professor of Banking and Commerce at the Mclntire School of Commerce, University of Virginia (USA). Her current research interests include organizational culture and identity, corporate branding, and aesthetic approaches to leadership and organizations. Her publications appear in journals such as Academy of Management Review, Administrative Science Quarterly, European Journal of Marketing, Harvard Business Review, Human Relations, Journal of Management Inquiry; Organization, Organization Science and Organization Studies. Among others, Mary Jo sits on the editorial boards of Academy of Management Review and Human Relations. Her textbook Organization Theory: Modern, Symbolic and Postmodern Perspectives (1997) is available from Oxford University Press, which also published The Expressive Organization: Linking Identity, Reputation and the Corporate Brand (2000), co-edited with Majken Schultz and Mogens Holten Larsen, and Organizational Identity: A Reader (2004), also co-edited with Schultz. A new book co-authored by Hatch, Monika Kostera and Andrzej K. Kozminski, The Three Faces of Leadership: Manager, Artist, Priest is available from Blackwell. E-mail mjhatch@virginia.edu.

Dvora Yanow

Dvora Yanow (Ph.D., MIT, 1982) is Professor and Chair of the Department of Public Administration, California State University, Hayward (US). Her research is shaped by an overall interest in the communication of meaning in organizational and public policy settings. She has written on organizational learning from an interpretive-cultural perspective, the role of built space in communicating meaning, and public policies as collective identity stories, as well as on organizational metaphors, myths, and culture, and interpretive philosophies and research methods. She is the author of How Does a Policy Mean? Interpreting Policy and Organizational Actions (1996), Conducting Interpretive Policy Analysis (2000), and Constructing ‘Race and Ethnicity’ in America: Category-making in Public Policy and Administration (2002). Her articles have been published in such journals as Administration & Society, Administrative Theory & Praxis, the Journal of Architectural and Planning Research, the Journal of Management Inquiry, the Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, Organization, Organization Science, and Policy Sciences, and Political Research Quarterly. Her editorial activities include four years as editor of one of the sections of the Journal of Management Inquiry and editorial board service for Administrative Theory & Praxis, the American Review of Public Administration, Management Learning, the Journal of Public Affairs Education, and Qualitative Inquiry. She is also a Contributing Editor for the quarterly Judaism, a pianist and violinist-fiddler, a folk dancer and singer, and gardener, email DYanow@csuhayward.edu

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