MATERIALISM AND IDEALISM IN ORGANIZATIONAL RESEARCH

Organization theory needs a framework that can elucidate the technolog ical, economic, political and symbolic forces that are at work in and on organizations. Much organizational research can be seen as material ist, by virtue of its granting primary causal efficacy to technical-ec onomic forces, or idealist by virtue of privileging political-symbolic forces. The conflict between materialism and idealism has often been inflated and/or obscured by conceptual strategies of specialization, e clecticism and reductionism. A metatheoretical approach to materialism and idealism is presented that clarifies the fundamental nature of th e approaches and distinguishes areas of possible reconciliation from a reas of irreducible conflict.