Management and Development Process

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Following Kuhn's seminal work, "the structure of scientific revolution", challenging linear and accumulative approaches to science, paradigm concept has been widely used in social science, and became popularized in organization studies with Burrell and Morgan's "Sociological paradigm in organization theory". In this article, possibility of multi/meta paradigm approach in organization studies is examined. Having reviewed the concept of paradigm and the different perspectives on paradigms including paradigm incommensurability, the possibility of dialogue between different paradigms, i.e. multi/meta paradigm approach, is studied. The enquiry is comparative-descriptive and critically scrutinizes previous writings in the area. Eventually, it would be illustrated that a major problem in the literature on paradigm is the loose application of the term as far as its concept is concerned. Taking into account the context of application, the vagueness of the concept can be reduced. Furthermore, multi/meta paradigm approach is paradoxical and ignores the essential characteristic of paradigm. Accordingly, organizational phenomena cannot be analyzed through multiple paradigms simultaneously.

Keywords: Multi Paradigm, Meta Paradigm, Structuration, Incommensurability, Theoretical Pluralism

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