Sumario de hallazgos del análisis del discurso 98

In such circumstances, what we find is a revival of older perspectives - legitimatory polemics from

management writers, adversary polemics from critics of capitalism, and a modified human relations. In any period, ideas do not simply die out merely because they are thought to be discredited or outmoded. As Child observed,

’On the other hand, we noted the continued presence in recent years of older perspectives and of

analyses distorted by managerial values, among some writers whose work remains either coloured by a legitimatory purpose (as with Jaques) or marred by ignorance•’qq

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Thus Klein in the mid-1970’s complains that a simplistic social-psychology imported from America is displacing the more rigorous home-grown approach, which another sociologi

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Lupton, had, apparently, already demolished for its 'universalistic1 assumptions.

But not only might a rigorous social science from time to time give way to simplicities. Within the more

sophisticated formulations which derive from empirical observations and testing, there may, too, lurk value

premisses which support social control through managerial leadership. The evidence of a plurality of divergent

interests in the workplace, for example, does not in itself justify constant n e g o t i a t i o n w i t h the purp o s e of reconciling these.

Thus, instead of there existing a p u r e l y empi r i c a l science of organisational behaviour, it has b e c o m e

apparent (under the force of the radical critique) that social science itself (and p a r t i c u l a r l y o r g a n i s a t i o n

theory) is not so simply devoid of i deological character.

L o g i co-experimental w o r k in the social arena cannot be 5 2

pe r f e c t l y detached from value elements. P a r t l y it is b e c a u s e descriptions of social reality can only be descriptions of prevailing social reality. T h e o r y in the social sciences therefore, tends merely to m o d e l p r e vailing forms in the social world. Taki n g Popper's observation that logico-experimental science w o r k s by a process of 'multiplicative c o r r o b o r a t i o n ’ , S p e n c e r and Dale comment:

’M u l t i p l i c a t i v e corroboration, used alone, tends to produce conservative formulations, since it tests what Popper calls "the w o r l d of a p p e a r a n c e s " . ' _

5 J>

Whereas, therefore, it may disprove assumed relations, it can still only be reformist in character, m o d i f y i n g what is taken to be a ’true f a c t ’. It cannot r a d i c a l l y d isclose b y hypothesis and testing, the dominant a s s u m p t i o n s on

w h i c h our social life and our institutions are based, (although, of course, w e ^ k n o w ’ these t h r o u g h o t h e r means). This was the force of Marx's criti q u e of 19th

Century political economy, when he argued that it described and consequently served to legitimize currently existing relations.

Secondly, one cannot p r o c e e d w i t h o u t some conc e p t u a l framework, some set of assumptions or beliefs, some e nco m p a s s i n g theory. All social theories invite i n s p e c t i o n on these grounds, and those w h i c h are p r o p o u n d e d as if they involve no p r i o r const r u c t i o n s espec i a l l y so:

'the v e r y n o t i o n that social r esearch can be conducted other than on the basis of the p r i o r development of concepts and theories is h e l d to be i d e o l o g i c a l . ' ^

Thus, theories may contain b o t h "postulations" ("explicitly formulated assumptions") and also

"back g r o u n d assumptions" out of w h i c h the " p o s t u l a t i o n s " emerge, but w h i c h stand in the b a c k g r o u n d i n e xplicit

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