{"id":1132,"date":"2025-03-31T18:35:25","date_gmt":"2025-03-31T16:35:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogit.utu.fi\/tselosophers\/?p=1132"},"modified":"2025-03-31T18:35:26","modified_gmt":"2025-03-31T16:35:26","slug":"the-unbearable-difficulty-of-scholarly-debates","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogit.utu.fi\/tselosophers\/2025\/03\/31\/the-unbearable-difficulty-of-scholarly-debates\/","title":{"rendered":"The unbearable difficulty of scholarly debates"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

TSElosophers meeting on 21 March 2025<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Participants: Albrecht Becker, Samu Kantola, Kari Lukka, Ari Nieminen, Mia Salo, Milla Unkila<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reading<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Suddaby, R. (2024) What theory is, what theory was: Whence and whither theory. Organization Theory<\/em>, 5:4.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Suggested supplementary reading: Abend, G. (2008) The meaning of \u2018theory\u2019. Organization Theory<\/em>, 26:2.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Summary<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Suddaby (2024) is a response to and critique of both Abend (2008) and Abend (2023) simultaneously. He claims that Abend is against conceptual clarity, arguing for its importance in many ways. Suddaby also claims that Abend misuses pragmatism in the (alleged) dismissal by the latter of theory and theorizing. Further, Suddaby claims that Abend is ahistorical and has an outdated understanding of what \u2018theory\u2019 means in organization studies today. It is easy to buy Suddaby\u2019s key arguments: We need conceptual clarity in research; pragmatism is not an atheoretical stream of thought; and epistemology has certainly become more accommodative since the days of ancient Greeks. However, it is surprisingly unclear how Suddaby so aggressively claims Abend\u2019s thinking would be different in these regards. Finally, and very importantly, Suddaby (2024) completely bypasses even mentioning the key worry of Abend (2008): There are several meanings of \u2018theory\u2019 in organization studies, hampering scholarly communication. Hence, Abend argues, something should be done about it, i.e., we need conceptual clarity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Discussion<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This discussion of TSElosophers was generally deeply confused: Some members had read or at least glanced at one of the targets of Suddaby\u2019s critique, the paper by Abend from 2008. Unfortunately, nobody had accessed the other target, Abend\u2019s book from 2023. The group anticipated that as Suddaby was explicitly targeting both these texts of Abend as a bundle<\/em>, it should be sufficient to be familiar with what Abend argued in 2008. This assumption was likely, at least partially, erroneous, as is explained below.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Considering just Suddaby (2024) and Abend (2008), there is good reason to be confused: Suddaby\u2019s critique seems to be largely missing the target, not least as a reader could well conclude that he and Abend, for the most part, agree. Suddaby\u2019s critique claiming that Abend is dismissing conceptual clarity seems completely unwarranted as the main<\/em> worry of Abend (2008) is precisely the lack of conceptual clarity in organization studies! Also, Suddaby\u2019s claims that Abend (2008) has misunderstood the view of pragmatism regarding theory or being generally ahistorical seem strange. TSElosophers generally wondered why Suddaby was so critical of Abend in the first place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When this blog post was drafted, none of the TSElosophers had still got access to Abend\u2019s book (2023). However, one TSElosopher, during our meeting, found the response text by Abend, published in 2024. Reading Abend (2024) made it clear that there must be quite a difference between Abend (2008) and Abend (2023). Abend (2024) likely stresses much more than Abend (2008) the extremely inclusive democratic process as a solution to the current conceptual ambiguity. TSElosophers generally shared Abend\u2019s worry, but given the general confused sentiment at the meeting, we never got far in discussing the solution that Abend put forth. A notable cause of the confusion was that Suddaby (2024) bundled the two texts of Abend (2008) and (2023) as the<\/em> target of his critique, while this choice likely does not hold water.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One learning point from this session is that TSElosophers should pay more attention to the scope of the debates chosen to be discussed at their meetings. This time, the scope was too narrow, which made the discussion situation complex and unhelpful. That said, in the words of one TSElosopher, the meeting was anyhow nice to have, given how seldom we have chances to lead such open discussions as are typical of the TSElosophers\u2019 meetings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Abend, G. (2023) Words and distinctions for the common good<\/em>. Princeton University Press<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Abend, G. (2024) Democratizing social scientists\u2019 words and distinctions: Where and why moral reasons are decisive. Organization Theory<\/em>, 5:4.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

TSElosophers meeting on 21 March 2025 Participants: Albrecht Becker, Samu Kantola, Kari Lukka, Ari Nieminen, Mia Salo, Milla Unkila Reading Suddaby, R. (2024) What theory is, what theory was: Whence and whither theory. Organization Theory, 5:4. Suggested supplementary reading: Abend, G. (2008) The meaning of \u2018theory\u2019. Organization Theory, 26:2. Summary Suddaby (2024) is a response to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2766,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[136,123,137,135],"class_list":["post-1132","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-conceptual-clarity","tag-pragmatism","tag-scholarly-debates","tag-theory","post-preview"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogit.utu.fi\/tselosophers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1132","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogit.utu.fi\/tselosophers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogit.utu.fi\/tselosophers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogit.utu.fi\/tselosophers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2766"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogit.utu.fi\/tselosophers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1132"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogit.utu.fi\/tselosophers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1132\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1133,"href":"https:\/\/blogit.utu.fi\/tselosophers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1132\/revisions\/1133"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogit.utu.fi\/tselosophers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1132"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogit.utu.fi\/tselosophers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1132"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogit.utu.fi\/tselosophers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1132"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}