Pragmatism, a process perspective on organizations

Mainstream organization studies have long conceptualized organizations as structures imposing order on individual and collective practices. Many organization scholars see organizing as an ongoing process, given the ceaseless adaptative experience of organizations. After an account of the “process turn” in organization studies, this chapter identifies six key questions about the characteristics of organizing processes and analyzes the process orientation of pragmatism and the specific contribution of the main pragmatist thinkers to process thought. It clarifies the pragmatist responses to the six key issues: (1) Organizing is an intrinsic dimension of ordinary activity rather than a specific process reflexively examining activity; (2) organizing is a relational/trans-actional rather than (inter-)subjective process; (3) organizing is a teleological rather than self-contained and autopoietic process; (4) organizing operates segmentation and unification, spatializing and temporalizing at the same time; (5) organizing is both experience-based and creative, it entangles cognition and intuition; (6) organizing is ediated by signs.