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FQS Special Issue "Methods for Qualitative Management Research in the Context of Social Systems Thinking"
Editors
Patricia Wolf (ETH Zurich, Switzerland), Jens Meissner (Lucerne School of Business, Switzerland), Terry Nolan (AUT University Business School, NZ), Mark Lemon (De Montfort University Leicester, UK), Rene John (Leibniz Universität Hannover, Germany), Evangelia Baralou (ALBA Graduate Business School, Greece), Silke Seemann (University of Innsbruck, Austria)
Call for Papers
The term "social systems," as applied in the title of this proposed special issue, is derived chiefly from the theoretical starting point propounded by Niklas LUHMANN. This call is intended to raise the profile of his work in the wider English speaking research community. His work on organizations as autopoietic social systems has only recently and partly been made available in English (LUHMANN, 1995; SEIDL & BECKER, 2005). Although there exists a broad but relatively exclusive German speaking scientific community using this theoretical approach for research (e.g. WIMMER, MEISSNER & WOLF, 2009; MÜLLER, NAGEL & ZIRKLER, 2006; WETZEL, 2004; JOHN, 2005), the theory is taking a relatively long amount of time to be acknowledged, developed, applied and critiqued in the English speaking research community.
However, some basic theoretical assumptions are reflected in the field of complexity science as applied in the management domain (WEBB, LETTICE & FAN, 2007; WEBB, 2009), social constructionists' work (GERGEN, 2003; BURR, 1995; RÜGG-STÜRM, 2003; COOPER, 2005; REICHERTZ & ZIELKE, 2008) and researchers seeking to (re-)construct organizations as distributed self-regulating knowledge systems (TSOUKAS, 1996; AHRNE & BRUNSSON, 2005). Other related streams highlighting a sympathetic systemic understanding of organizations/institutions include GIDDEN's structuration theory (1984), BOJE's (2001) work on metaphors, narratives, and storytelling, LATOUR's (1987) and WOOLGAR's (1996) use of "actor-network theory," as well as MACKENZIE and WAJCMAN's (1999) focus on the social construction of technology, and no doubt others.
A key assumption this call for papers rests on, therefore, is our belief that the reluctance of the scientific community to apply LUHMANN's social system theory in management research boils down to: 1) the relative difficulty readers face when trying to follow his writing and the complexity of the theoretical approach, and, 2) more significantly, a missing methodological basis for conducting research grounded in LUHMANN's social system theory and related theoretical approaches. Therefore, for this special issue, we are seeking:
- theoretical papers reviewing the broad landscape of existing qualitative research methods and developing an adequate methodological canon for research grounded in LUHMANNs' social system theory and related theoretical approaches (literature reviews following the systematic review style will be especially welcomed);
- empirical papers describing the application of specific qualitative research methods actually used in research projects grounded in LUHMANN's social system theory and related theoretical approaches and the empirical significance of research results.
Important dates
- Extended abstracts (3000 words) to be submitted to the editorial team by 15th December 2009 to Patricia Wolf: pawolf@ethz.ch
- Editorial decisions on abstracts communicated by 20th January 2010
- Full papers (native speaker checked) to be submitted by 31th March 2010
- Review feedback on full papers to be provided by 15th May 2010
- Revised papers to be submitted by 1th July 2010
- Publication of special issue: 30th September 2010
References
Ahrne, Göran & Brunsson, Nils (2005). Organizations and meta-organizations. Scandinavian Journal of Management, 21(4), 429-449.
Boje, David M. (2001). Narrative methods for organizational and communication research. London: Sage.
Burr, Vivien (1995). An introduction to social constructionism. London: Routledge.
Cooper, Robert (2005). Relationality. Organization Studies, 26(11), 1689-1710.
Gergen, Kenneth J. (2003). An invitation to social constructionism. Thousand Oaks: Sage.
Giddens, Anthony (1984). The constitution of society. Outline of the theory of structuration. Berkeley: University of California Press.
John, Rene (2005). Innovationen als irritierende Neuheiten. Evolutionstheoretische Perspektiven. In Jens Aderhold & Rene John (Eds.), Innovation. Sozialwissenschaftliche Perspektiven (pp.49-64). Konstanz: UVK.
Latour, Bruno (1987). Science in action: How to follow scientists and engineers through society. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Luhmann, Niklas (1995). Social systems. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Müller, Werner R.; Nagel, Erik & Zirkler, Michael (2006). Organisationsberatung: Heimliche Bilder und ihre praktischen Konsequenzen. Wiesbaden: Gabler Verlag.
MacKenzie, Donald & Wajcman, Judy (1999). The social shaping of technology (2nd edition). Buckingham: Open University Press.
Reichertz, Jo & Zielke, Barbara (2008). Editorial: Theories that matter. On some pragmatic aspects of social constructionism. Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung / Forum: Qualitative Social Research, 9(1), http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:0114-fqs0801D5Ed8.
Rüegg-Stürm, Johannes (2003). Organisation und Organisationaler Wandel. Eine theoretische Erkundung aus konstruktivistischer Sicht. Wiesbaden: Westdeutscher Verlag.
Seidl, David & Becker, Kai H. (2005). Niklas Luhmann and organization studies. Copenhagen: Liber & Copenhagen Business School Press.
Tsoukas, Haridimos (1996). The firm as a distributed knowledge system: A constructionist approach. Strategic Management Journal, 17, 11-25.
Webb, Carol (2009). Dear diary: Recommendations for researching knowledge transfer of the complex. Electronic Journal of Knowledge Management, 7(1), 191-198.
Webb, Carol; Lettice, Fiona & Fan, Ip-Shing (2007). Don't dis' the ants, man!: Acknowledging the place of ants, termites, birds, and bees. Emergence: Complexity and Organization, 9(1 & 2), 184-193.
Wetzel, Ralf (2004). Eine Widerspenstige und keine Zähmung. Systemtheoretische Beiträge zu einer Theorie der Behinderung. Heidelberg: Carl-Auer-Systeme.
Wimmer, Rudolf; Meissner, Jens O. & Wolf, Patricia (2009). Praktische Organisationswissenschaft. Lehrbuch für Studium und Beruf. Heidelberg: Carl-Auer Verlag.
Woolgar, Steve (1996). Technologies as cultural artefacts. In William Dutton (Ed.), Information and communication technologies. Visions and realities (pp.87-102). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
