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Mortality, Reproducibility, and the Persistence of Styles of

Theory
Jeffrey Pfeffer,

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Jeffrey Pfeffer, (1995) Mortality, Reproducibility, and the Persistence of Styles of Theory. Organization Science 6(6):681-686.
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 JEFFREY PFEFFER Crossroads

we build networks of scholars and their supporters working on common topics, that
we secure control of influential journals and create technologies that encourage
others to do work that will increase the likelihood that particular ideas and streams of
inquiry will endure. Pfeffer <loes not appear to advocate any particular theory,
methodology or specific journal but to be describing what he believes contributes to
the emergence and survival of other "successful" scientific fields. Van Maanen, on the
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other hand, eschews a formal, organized approach to the furtherance of the field. He
is more interested in understanding and facilitating the development of good ideas
that we create as we do our work and with their meaning and their quality. He is
asking evaluative questions about performances in our craft. He puts his faith in
plurality, in the dispersion of ideas from multiple sources and scholars and with the
way those ideas are written and communicated as paths to endurance of the field.
Pfeffer views the debate about form and discourse as a ·'Sideshow." He is inherently
questioning the wisdom of ignoring the impact of movements, changes, and dynamics
of a "reality" out there. Van Maanen sees the debate as "the Main Event." He does
not believe that one can be free from rhetoric which shapes what wc experience as
"reality."
As 1 noted earlier, readers will decide for themselves which view of paradigm
development is most plausible and most valuable, based on the persuasiveness of the
authors as well as on their own predilections, experiences and insights. 1 hope that
the debate prornotes a better grasp of the issues and that the end result for readers
and for the field is that the argurnents and contexts provided Pfeffer and Van
Maanen, together with other voices on the topic, will rnove us forward in our
understandings of the nature and role of paradigrns, rather than keeping us in
polarized camps. We need more vigorous and open debate in the field and these two
authors have provided a fine exernplar of what can be accomplished when passion
and erudition are presented in debates of irnportance. We are all enriched by the
candor and the capabilities of these two fine scholars as they have expounded on
these issues.

Peter J. Frost

Mortality, Reproducibility, and the

Persistence of Styles of Theory

Jeffrey Pfeffer
Graduate School of Business, Stanford Uniuersity, Stanford, California 94305-5015

It seems somehow appropriate that Peter Frost's letter
sending me a draft of John Van Maanen's (1995)
article should have been dated November 7, 1994. For
on November 8 we witnessed, at least in the United
States and particularly in California, the culmination of
a season of political campaigns notable for their
viciousness and appeal to emotion rather than reason.
Frost's (1995) characterization of Van Maanen's article
as "less restrained than we are used to"was an under-
statement.
John is nothing if not a master of rhetoric, and his
comment on my paper employs tried and true rhetori-
cal devices. This includes contrastive pairs (Atkinson
1984), in this instance, implicitly Weick and a style of
theory that "rests on its more or less unique style"
(p. 135) versus Pfeffer, a presumed apologist for (if not

ÜRGANIZATION SCIENCE/Vol. 6, No. 6, November-December 1995 681

Copyright© 2001 All Rights Reserved

 JEFFREY PFEFFER Crossroads
an example of) "a logocentric tradition of empirical
science with its count-and-classify conventions" and
"more than a little physics envy" (p. 134). Van
Maanen's article also follows Edelman's (1964, p. 124)
description of political speech as "a ritual, dulling the
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critical faculties rather than awakening them. Chronic
repetition of clichés and stale phrases that serve simply
to evoke a conditioned uncritical response is a time-
honored habit among politicians and a mentally restful
one for their audiences." Van Maanen promotes a
caricature of normal science and reinfarces its protago-
nists' unacceptability with emotion-laden adjectives
(shrill, sour, vain, autocratic, insufferably smug, ortho-
dox, and naive, among many others).
Finally, Van Maanen employs perhaps the most
time-honored tradition in political language: saying one
thing while doing the other (Edelman 1964). For even
as Van Maanen venerates dialectic reconstruction and
bemoans either/or reasoning, he couches the theoreti-
cal issues that distinguish his approach from mine as
being mutually incompatible; far instance, description
either following from objects or being prior to recog-
nizing those social objects. And, even as he bemoans
contention and defensiveness, he plays word games
with my name, uses provocative language, and notes
that "My {John's} remarks ... must then be understood
as ... an understandable and necessary effart to defend
my work" (1995, p. 134, emphasis added). Having not
attacked nor even mentioned either him or his work in
my earlier article, the need to defend same, while
complaining about defensiveness, seems peculiar.
Van Maanen's particular article aside, what has sur-
prised me in the time since 1 first gave my talk and my
article appeared is the emotion it has aroused. I am
surprised because, as 1 will describe below, the issucs
raised are scarcely unique to organization studies, be-
ing contested, albeit with occasionally less vitriol, in
several adjacent fields such as strategic management,
política! science, and even economics. Moreover, the
points 1 made seem scarcely controversia! with respect
to their empírica! faundations and probably not even in
the logic of the argument, as 1 hope to demonstrate
shortly.
The intent of my talk and paper was to encourage us
to take a concept-paradigm development-whose ef-
fects on a number of outcomes had been well-studied
and to ask, both in general and with respect to organi-
zation studies in particular, what determined the leve!
of paradigm development that characterized a field or
subdiscipline; why is it that sorne fields seem to exhibit
more consensus than others? It seemed useful to also
explore the implications of paradigmatic consensus far
682 ÜRGANIZATJON
Copyright© 2001 All Rights Reserved
fields that exist in a world of increasingly scarce re-
sources, but that interest was secondary to trying to
understand the source of paradigmatic differences: not
between physics and organization studies, but between
política! science, or strategic management, or eco-
nomics, and organization studies.
The claims of others (e.g., Canella and Paetzold
1994, p. 337) to the contrary, it remains the case that
organization studies is very much at risk far experienc-
ing sorne of the same processes that have occurred in
relatcd social sciences: namely, a domination by an
economistic, rational choice perspective that relies on
methodological individualism, neglects institutional
context or detail, relies on rational choice/actor mod-
els. and postulates agency theory-like (opportunistic,
self-interest seeking) assumptions about human behav-
ior. I happen to believc that such a theoretical ap-
proach is both substantively incorrect and managerially
harmful (Pfeffer 1994, Ch. 4). 1 remain concerned that
as sorne of us create an interesting intellectual sideshow
about presumed paradigmatic imperialism, we have
failed to notice the main event: the growing influence
of rational choice, economics-líke theory on organiza-
tion studies.
Do Developed Paradigms Triumph?
What do the data indicate about changing intellectual
orientations in fields? Here political science has much
to teach us. Although the field of political science was
once dominated by "institutional analysis, behaviorist
methods, and group-based pluralist theory" (Green and
Shapiro 1994, p. 2), today rational choice theory reigns
supreme. In 1992, rational choice theory accounted for
almost 40 percent of the articles published in the
American Political Science Reuiew, the discipline's lead-
ing journal (Green and Shapiro 1994, pp. 2-3). More-
over, ·'the advent of rational choice theory has recast
much of the intellectual landscape in the discipline of
political science" (Green and Shapiro 1994, p. 3); "its
proponents are highly sought by all major American
política! science departments" (Green and Shapiro
1994, p. 2), and "press editors eagerly pursue half-com-
pleted manuscripts by practitioners in the field"
(Ordeshook 1993, p. 74). Rational choice theory de-
duces the microfoundations of behavior from assump-
tions about incentives, constraints, and the calculations
individuals make when confronted with incentives,
constraints, and information about both. In política!
science, rational choice includes game theory. In orga-
nization science, it would include transaction cost eco-
nomics and agency theory, both of which deduce, often
using sorne kind of formalism, propositions about be-
ScJENCE/Vol. 6, No. 6, November-December 1995
 JEFFREY PFEFFER Crossroads
havior from assumptions of economizing on the part of
rational actors facing incentives and constraints.
In their compelling critique of rational choice theory,
Green and Shapiro pose an apparent paradox: al-
though rational choice theory has grown enormously in
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importan ce and stature within political science, "the
stature of rational choice scholarship does not rest on a
readily identifiable set of empírica! successes" (1994,
p. 5). Green and Shapiro (1994, p. 6) note that "the
case has yet to be made that these models have ad-
vanced our understanding of how politics works in the
real world." Why should a subfield grow from being
virtually nonexistent in 1957 to being one of the largest
(if not the largest) subspecialty in just 25 years without
actually accounting for empirical observations of poli-
tics in non-trivial ways? I would argue because of the
paradigmatic consensus that gives rational choice a
competitive advantage over its theoretical rivals in po-
litical science that lack such consensus.
Is what happened in political science being replayed
in organization science? In 1975, the year in which
Williamson's (1975) first book-length exposition of
transaction costs reasoning appeared, and the year
befo re the appearance of Jensen and Meckling (1976),
not surprisingly, there was little citation of economics
in organizational journals; just 2.5% of the articles in
Administrative Science Quarterly and 0% of the articles
in the Academy of Management Journal cited eco-
nomics or economists. By 1985, just ten years later, the
proportions had grown to 30% in ASQ and 10% in
AMI. By 1993, the proportion of articles citing eco-
nomics had risen to 40% in ASQ and 24% in AMI.
Although citations are not the only indicator of the
growth of a way of doing organizational analysis, the
pattern is informative and the parallels to the growth
of rational choice in political science are striking.
One can also look within organization scicnce to see
what can be accomplished by subfields that have con-
sensus on methods and subject matter and, most im-
portantly, because of that consensus are cfficient in
training graduate students and others and developing a
technology that makes scholarship more predictable
and more readily accomplished. Two such subfields,
although there are clearly others, are behavioral deci-
sion theory and population ecology. Over the years,
behavioral decision theory has virtually taken over one
of the major journals: what used to be called Organiza-
tional Behavior and Human Performance is now Organi-
zational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, and
there has been a corresponding shift in its content over
time. In the case of population ecology, in the six issues
of Administrative Science Quarter/y from September
ÜRGANIZATION ScIENCE/Vol. 6, No. 6, November-December 1995
Copyright© 2001 All Rights Reserved
1992 through December 1993, of 32 published articles,
5, or 15.6%, were ecolog1cal approaches to organiza-
tional analysis. It is not likely that 15.6% of the field's
scholars are ecologists. But these results are precisely
what onc would expect from the argument that theo-
retical consensus and coherence produces more effi-
cient and effective research programs resulting in dis-
proportionate impact and publication.
Even the field of economics itself holds sorne lessons
about disciplinary evolution and the power of paradig-
matic consensus. Economics did not start out in its
present form or with its current analytic apparatus.
Parker (1993, p. 155) noted that 30 of the 50 founders
of the American Economic Association were ordained
ministers, and the association was founded in 1885 as
"a progressive counterweight to what its members saw
as the social Darwinism then emerging in the social
sciences" (1993, p. 154). Parker's review of methodolog-
ical disputes within the discipline suggests that:
Wh1le excess abstractton would seem to be a recent com-
plaint, rooted m the heavy reliance on mathematics since
World War II, the cntic1sm 1s more than a century old. A
recent rev1ew .. of methodolog1cal disputes among American
econom1sts begms its survey m 1860 and counts no fewer than
80 exampb of bas1c .. debates before 1900 (Parker 1993,
p 154)
In ways very similar to Green and Shapiro's crit-
ique of rational choice theory in political science,
Parker (1993) documents both the failures of modero
economic theory to account for empirical reality in
nontrivial ways, and also documents the various mecha-
nisms that have been employed to develop and main-
tain dominance over thi: discipline by that style of
theory. Readers troubled by my modest expression of
concern about theoretical profusion in the organiza-
tional sciences should read Parker's (1993) documenta-
tion of how serious theoretical hegemony is achieved
and maintained.
The field of strategic management provides yet an-
other context in which to observe the struggle over
paradigms and paradigm consensus. On one side of the
debate, arguing for more theoretical and methodologi-
cal orthodoxy, are, among others, Camerer (1985) and
Montgomery et al. (1989). These authors bemoaned
the confusion about concepts, failure to do proper
empírica! testing, and the absence of cumulation or as
much progress in knowledge as they would like.
Camerer (1985, p. 1) advocated "the deductive use of
mathematic:- and econom1c concepts." Taking the other
side of the debate are people such as Mahoney (1993),
who argued for pragmat1sm and above all, pluralism.
683
 JEFFREY PFEFFER Crossroads
Although it is too early to tell precisely how this debate
will play itself out, there are certainly significant ad-
vances being scored by game theory and industrial
organization economics.
Thus, there is suggestive evidence from adjacent
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social sciences that theoretical perspectives character-
ized by formalism and a deductive methodology often
are able to achieve dominance, even when their empir-
ical contributions are minuscule. The fact of theoreti-
cal domination in the presence of modest results makes
the power of that style of theory all the more evident;
after all, any theory can succeed if it is actually useful
and empirically insightful. It is a much bigger challenge
to prevail in the face of modest or few accomplish-
ments. Moreover, there is evidence that many of these
same theoretical trends are currently visible in organi-
zation science, with a growing importance of the same
rational choice models and perspectives that first
achieved dominance in economics and then political
science.
Why Styles of Theory Prevail
Embedded in Van Maanen's illuminating discussion of
Karl Weick's work is a way of understanding why work
of that type (to the extent John's description of it is
accurate), however much we may admire its insight,
richness, lucidity, virtuosity, creativeness, and style, is
inevitably disadvantaged in the marketplace of ideas.
Ideas and writing have a finite lifetime and their au-
thors most certainly are mortal. Great ideas may last in
the collective consciousness longer than ideas of less
originality or power, but nevertheless, citations are
almost invariably time dependent. As authors retire
from the scene, the only way their work and ideas can
be maintained is to have others pick them up and
develop them or carry them forward. Even contempo-
raneously, it is probably useful to have more rather
than fewer students and colleagues doing work related
to one's own. lnfluence is not simply a numbers game,
but numbers certainly count.
How easy or difficult it is to recruit others to further-
ing one's intellectual efforts or to pick up one's intellec-
tual torch is not independent of the style of one's work.
Van Maanen uses the writing of Karl Weick as an
exemplar, "a distinctive and altogether useful way of
putting theory into print" (Van Maanen, p. 135). In
describing Weick's writing, he argues that it has four
qualities. First, it is essayistic in form, filled with
"meanderings, detours," and "distractions" (Van
Maanen, p. 136). Second, the writing is characterized
by indeterminacy and open-endedness. Weick's writ-
684 ÜRGANIZATION Sc1ENCE/Vol. 6, No. 6, November-December 1995
Copyright© 2001 All Rights Reserved
ings "refuse settlement,"they are "amusingly paradoxi-
cal," and Karl writes "stringing together ... ideas or
propositions without connectives" (Van Maanen, pp.
136-37). Third, Weick often takes two logical oppo-
sites and shows how both may be true at the same
time, or, working in reverse, produces a dialectic from
an identity (Van Maanen, p. 137). Finally, Weick keeps
the reader's attention through presence-by enumerat-
ing, amplifying, and repeating ideas-always, however,
in slightly different form. Salancik's description (1977,
p. xiii) of Weick's development and writing about the
enactment process is instructive:
I described severa! difficulties that I thought readers would
have with sorne of bis ideas and pointed out sorne places
where a hmt of definition to enactment was emerging and
could be expanded. When I later went through bis revision, I
noticed that he had carefully deleted nearly every sentence
that I alluded to. From this experience, I concluded, "To
define enactment is to miss the point about it."
How easy would it be far others to employ Weick's
style, or even to build on his work? Although being
elusive in one's definitions and non-linear in one's
thinking may make far more interesting, intellectually
challenging, or engaging reading, it is almost certainly
not a prescription far having one's work extended,
replicated, or adopted by others as part and parce! of
their own research program. Similarly, paradox and
meandering are also not likely to make it easy or
perhaps even likely far others to build on those mean-
derings and extend the paradoxical line of thought.
This is not to say that the linear, list-like, normal
science-type writings that Van Maanen eschews are
somehow intrinsically superior. It is simply an ecologi-
cal argument; the ability to readily reproduce gives
ideas (just as it does other forms) survival value.
Technology matters a lot in the ability of ideas or
theories to develop adherents, which is why theories
that come to have widespread use and currency often,
although not always, have associated technologies that
render their use easier. Three examples illustrate the
point. Population ecology, in its study of the dynamics
of birth and death over time, virtually requires a
methodology far analyzing qualitative outcomes (such
as the birth or death of an organization, or its change
from one structural forro or strategy to another) over
time. Hannan and Tuma's (1979) development of
event-history analysis and the software to implement
that analysis was clearly essential in making it easier
far others to adopt and implement their theoretical
framework.
 JEFFREY PFEFFER Crossroads
In the early 1980s, network concepts of organizations
and social structure were diffuse and unorganized.
Burt (1980, p. 79) noted:
Anyone reading through what purport~ to be a "network"
literature will readily perceive the wisdom of Barnes' (1972)
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analogy between that literature and "a termmological jungle
in which any newcomer may plant a tree." A loose federat1on
of approaches ... is currently referenced as network analys1s.
Burt's subsequent attempts to advance bis particular
conception of sociological analysis relied not only on
the publication of bis ideas (Burt 1980, 1992) but
perhaps more importantly on bis developing a network
analysis program, "Struc:ture," that he continues to
update and refine and give away free to any who ask.
Burt understands quite well that if he can influence the
technology, the methodology by which social networks
are analyzed, he is well on his way to exercising influ-
ence over the conceptual frameworks and ideas that
are employed in such analyses as well.
Nor is this concern with technology limited to quan-
titative sociology. Heritage (1984, p. 233) noted that
"conversation analysis has developed into a prominent
form of ethnomethodological work and has come to
exert a significant influence-both methodological
and substantive-on a range of social science disci-
plines ... its growth and diversification have become
very extensive." Sacks (1984, p. 26), one of the founders
of the rnethod, was explicit in bis concern with rnaking
ethnornethodological rescarch replicable and with de-
veloping a technology that could be taught to others:
When I started to do research in sociology, 1 f1gured that
sociology could not be an actual science unless 1t was able to
handle the details of actual events, handle them fonnally, and
in the first instance, be informative about them in the direct
ways in wh1ch primitive sciences tend to be informative, that
is, that anyone e/se can go and see whether what was said is so
(emphasis added).
Boden (1994) has an excellent review of the debate
between organizational perspectives that ernphasize
structural constraint and those that ernphasize the role
of human agency and how conversation analysis, both
in its rnethods and ideas, can help integrate this false
dichotorny. But again, the irnportant point 1s that a
technology for analysis exists that helps others learn
both the substance and rnethod of an approach to
social analysis and perrnits replication and extension.
Van Maanen's cornrnent ernphasizes the effect of
writing on the reader, and particularly, its persuasive
quality. Without denying the importance of persuasion,
one must recognize that for writing to be influential, it
rnust suggest not only what to do in general terrns but
ÜRGANIZATION ScIENCE/Vol. 6, No. 6, November-December 1995
Copyright© 2001 All Rights Reserved
how to go about doing it in very specific terrns. That is
why the development of replicable, teachable, transfer-
able concepts and rnethods is helpful, to put it rnildly.
Sorne Concluding Thoughts
Reviewing the developrnent of the so-called Austrian
school of econornics, Foss and Knudsen (1993, p. 19)
concluded that "there has to be sorne balance between
the generation of new theoretic alternatives and the
selection among thern." Variation by itself, without
rnechanisrns of selection and retention, is insufficient
for the developrnent of knowledge. They cited March
(1991) who noted that organizations need to strike a
balance between exploration and exploitation, and ar-
gued for an optima! arnount of pluralisrn:
We ... conclude that d1sc1phnes characterized by a too low as
well as too high degree of theoret1cal pluralism will be con-
fronted wnh a stnng of specific problems (Foss and Knudsen
1993, p. 20l.
Among the problerns affecting too-pluralistic disci-
plines are an inability to make good choices arnong
cornpeting theories resulting in disciplinary fragrnenta-
tion and a consequent inability to effectively generate
and absorb new knowledge.
Mane and McKinley (l 993, p. 293) have documented
the existence of a "uniqueness value" in organization
studies and sorne of its consequences for the discipline:
We suggest that the uniqueness value has contributed most
directly to the undes1rabilit) of rephcat10ns and, consequently,
fewer extcnsions to or refutations of previous research are
published. Yet ... the rapiiJ rate of mnovat1on spawned par-
t1ally by the umqueness value 1s not necessarily strengthening
our understandmg of or knowledge concerning organi-
zations ... parad1gmatic specialization, reduced integration,
and infom1ation overload can occur more easily
Sorne rnight say it is a rnatter of taste or style as to
how rnuch consensus a field should have, or how such
consensus gets produced. What 1 have argued here is
that, at least looking cornparatively and historically,
that does not seern to be the case. For very under-
standable reasons, possessing consensus on ap-
proaches, ideas, and perhaps rnost irnportantly, rneth-
ods, provides advantages in enlisting others to one's
theoretical perspective and being productive in the
sense of acquiring journal space, legitimacy, and other
resources. Although we may value the laissez-faire,
let-a-thousand-flowers-bloorn spirit that currently per-
vades organization studies, we should not delude our-
selves that our freedorn frorn constraint comes without
sorne costs, or that our ability to indulge whatever
685
 JEFFREY PFEFFER Crossroads
particular intellectual tastes or styles we hold dear is
guaranteed to last forever.
Perhaps most importantly, readers should not spend
too much time or effort simply debating the points of
my original article. Once again, Edelman (1971, p. 17)
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says it well:
Adversary role playing serves to bring valued benefits to the
adversaries; and the most valued of these have little to do
with the pubhcized symbohc goals; rather, they take the form
of the achievement of an 1denttty which will be cherished and
defended.
In this instance, the issues of how and under what
conditions paradigmatic consensus develops and the
consequences of such consensus can and should be
empirically studied. This is a debate that would benefit
from having more light and less heat.
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