9 April 2002

DRAFT

To appear in Christian Knudsen and Haridimous Tsoukas (eds), Organization

Theory as Science : Prospects and Limitations, Oxford University Press

Please do not cite without permission

ORGANIZATION THEORY AS CRITICAL SCIENCE?

FORMS OF ANALYSIS AND `NEW ORGANIZATIONAL FORMS’

HUGH WILLMOTT
Judge Institute of Management Studies
University of Cambridge
England
 Abstract

This chapter explores and commends the relevance of Habermasian Critical Theory for
clarifying and advancing the production of knowledge in the field of management and
organization studies. Habermas' theory of knowledge-constitutive interests links the
production of scientific knowledge to three types of cognitive interest : in prediction and
control, in mutual understanding, and in emancipation. This theory of cognitive interests
is critically reviewed before demonstrating its relevance for management and
organization studies in general and the study of `new organizational forms’ in particular.

ORGANIZATION THEORY AS CRITICAL SCIENCE?

1
FORMS OF ANALYSIS AND “NEW ORGANIZATIONAL FORMS”

“Science as a productive force can work in a salutary way when it is infused by

science as an emancipatory force… The enlightenment which does not break
the (mythic) spell dialectically, but instead winds the veil of a halfway
rationalization only more tightly around us, makes the world divested of deities
itself into a myth! (Habermas, 1974 : 281).

As knowledge production in the management disciplines has expanded in volume and

increased in theoretical sophistication, doubts have grown about the coherence and

viability of a conception of science that represents scientific knowledge as unified,

authoritative and/or value-free. These concerns are dramatically articulated in the claim

that organizational analysis comprises four incompatible and indeed hostile paradigms

founded upon polarised sets of assumptions about science as well as society (Burrell

and Morgan, 1979; see Willmott, 1993; see also Organization Studies, 1988).

This chapter presents and applies insights developed by Critical Theorists to offer a

heuristic framework for appreciating and accommodating the existence of competing

conceptions of scientific knowledge without abandoning a critical, reflexive

understanding of knowledge production. Focusing upon knowledge production as a

2
social practice, the chapter commends the contribution of Habermas's theory of

cognitive interests for the development of our self-understanding of (our knowledge of)

management and organization. Habermas’s thinking is illustrated by reference to

established areas of organizational analysis as well as to more recent research on `new

organizational forms’ (NOFs) 2.

The thinking of Critical Theorists, and Habermas’s theory of cognitive interests more

specifically, has been largely overlooked in management and organization studies (but

see Willmott, 1983; Lyytinen and Klein, 1985; Stablein and Nord, 1985); or, if vaguely

known about, it has been regarded as somewhat "old hat", having allegedly been

superseded in Habermas’s later work, a criticism that is addressed later in the chapter.

For the moment it is relevant to keep in mind Burrell’s (1994) observation that for the

past 30 years and more, Habermas

`has fought in a variety of ways against "the present mood" and all attempts to
bring about the downfall of Western rationality… Habermas stands against all
varieties of totalizing critique which lead to despair. For him, the philosopher as
"guardian of reason" is also the sentinel of, and for, human hope' (p.5)

Habermas's theory of cognitive interests, it will be argued, has continuing relevance for

illuminating at least three important concerns in organization studies:

• the aspiration of management knowledge to be scientific;

• the fragmentation of methodologies within organization studies;

• the scope for recognising and combining the distinctive contributions of different

forms of knowledge.

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Habermas’s theory of knowledge-constitutive interests can be taken seriously without

necessarily accepting that Critical Theory in general, or Habermas' thinking in particular,

offers the most plausible or coherent account of the `interested' production of

knowledge. The more modest re quirement is a willingness to contemplate the

possibility that Habermas's theory of knowledge-constitutive interests may be helpful in

advancing the self-understanding of management knowledge as a product of scientific

investigation.

The chapter begins by locating the claims of Critical Theory in relation to traditions of

`systemic modernism’ and `postmodernism’ (Cooper and Burrell, 1988) as a basis for

showing how Critical Theory illuminates the normativity of knowledge production (and

consumption). A plurality of methodologies within organization studies is identified and

reviewed, using the literature on mainstream management theory, employee

participation as well as 'new organizational forms' to illustrate the analysis. Attention is

then drawn to a number of criticisms levelled against Habermas's cognitive interests

theory before indicating how these criticisms have been addressed by Habermas and

others. In conclusion, some affinities between elements of Habermas’s thinking and

poststructuralist analysis advanced by Foucault and by Laclau and Mouffe are signalled.

MANAGEMENT SCIENCE AND EPISTEMOLOGICAL ANGST

The Claims of Systemic Modernism

4
The received understanding that science is unified, authoritative and value-free is

underpinned by the assumption that reality is "out there", and that scientific knowledge

can capture this reality in value-neutral ways that facilitate its effective manipulation.

This understanding harbours no doubts about the ethics of scientific practice, once the

decision to embrace the values of science has been made (Weber, 1949; for a critique,

see Alvesson and Willmott, 1996 Ch 2). In contrast, those who challenge what Cooper

and Burrell (1988) characterise as the claims of `systemic modernism’ argue that

`scientific’ knowledge is inescapably produced, transmitted and legitimised through a

variety of power-laden mechanisms of production and control (e.g. resource allocations

and refereeing procedures) - mechanisms that discipline the research process and

condition what is to count as `value-free knowledge' (Hales, 1974; Wood and Kelly,

1978). According to Whitley (1984a),

`topic selection and assessment criteria are affected by individual and collective
values so that what is seen as constituting scientific knowledge is dependent
upon preferences and interests . Secondly, the existence of internal
relationships between descriptions of phenomena constituted by everyday
meanings and values means that all descriptions and explanations are
inevitably permeated by values' (ibid: 384, emphasis added)

Anyone for Postmodernism?

A strong postmodernist position contends that modernist analysis harbours inherently

oppressive grand narratives that constrain the possibilities of `conflict, surprise and

5
unpredictability' (Power, 1990 : 117). At the heart of this critique is the objection that

taken for granted, modernist truths of `objective knowledge’, `rigorous analysis’,

`independent scrutiny’, etc., yet aspire to be totalizing. Postmodernist thinking unsettles

the 'truths' of modernism in

`a way that, in a sense, returns to reality what is repressed by its rationalist

vision...Postmodernism is thus associated with the recognition and celebration
of the value of diverse rationalities and, relatedly, with the charge that the one-
dimensional application of a supposedly authoritative (scientific) rationality is
indefensible... the discourse of postmodernism draws much of its plausibility
from the inevitable "failure" of modernism to eliminate indeterminacy and
multiplicity' (Willmott, 1992 : 59-60)

The modernist rejoinder to such criticisms is that the most strenuous of efforts are made

to refine and purify their research methods, thereby ensuring that biases ascribed to

`individual and collective values' are minimized and eventually eliminated. What this

defence declines to acknowledge, however, is that the very methods of detecting and

demonstrating the reduction of bias are themselves subject to the processes identified

by Whitley (see above) - namely, the permeation of scientific by particular `ethnocentric’,

rather than universal values, preferences and interests. As a consequence, it is not

surprising to find that, despite the best efforts of the Canutes of systemic modernism

(e.g. Donaldson, 1985; Bacharach, 1989) who struggle valiantly to stem the delinquent

tide of `irrationalism' and `subjectivism' (as they might characterise the diverse assaults

on the citadel of Science, see Bernstein, 1976), their defences have been breached

(see Marsden, 1993) and the waves are not receding.

The Critical Modernist Alternative

6
'Critical modernists', Habermas included, share a postmodern scepticism about value-

free knowledge, yet seek to retain and revive the spirit of the Enlightenment in the face

of what are regarded as the perversions of Reason, including the power invested in

Scientific Authority by systemic modernism. The rosy view of science as the benevolent

agent of enlightenment is challenged by the understanding that modern civilisation is

mesmerized by the power of a one-sided, instrumental conception of reason. Beguiled

by successes in conquering and harnessing nature, the inhabitants of modern societies

are seen to be prisoners of a nexus of systemic modernism that is no less constraining,

and is in many ways much more destruc tive, than the myopia and deprivations of pre-

modern traditions. Yet, it is precisely these traditions that the enlightening advance of

science aspires to replace: `In the most general sense of progressive thought, the

Enlightenment has always aimed at liberating men from fear and establishing their

sovereignty. Yet the fully enlightened earth radiates disaster triumphant’ (Horkheimer

and Adorno, 1947 : 3). Symptomatic of this disaster is the relentless and mechanised

effort to dominate nature and the widespread environmental destruction and pollution

associated with the ruthless exploitation of scarce natural resources.

By deploying the debunking capacities of critical Reason (e.g. to unmask racist or

sexist claims about the innate superiority of particula r groups), critical modernists

anticipate a progressive demystification and rationalisation of communication that

moves beyond the `halfway rationalization’ (Habermas, 1974 : 281) that is (arguably)

consequent upon the equating of science with a technical interest in prediction and

control. According to critical modernists, it is when the connection of scientific

knowledge to an interest in `liberating men from fear’ (Horkheimer and Adorno, 1947 :

7
3) is weakened that science becomes an instrument of political and economic

domination. When decisions are dominated by a technical interest in refining means,

based upon seeming incontrovertible `facts’ , that fundamental questions about politics

and ethics are marginalized as ends are taken as given or beyond rational

determination as they are represented as a matter of arbitrary value -choice.

In opposition to an exclusively instrumentalist conception of science, Critical modernists

seek to mobilise critical, reflective Reason to expose `unreason’ or distorted forms of

Reason and thereby facilitate an overcoming of `the totalizing control of systemic logic'

(Cooper and Burrell, 1988 : 97) that is seen to spawn an incipiently technocratic form of

life based upon seemingly objective information produced by experts rather than a

democracy fashioned through an ideal of universal participation in open debate. Critical

modernism counterpose to technical reason the practical rationality of the institutional

frameworks in which technical reason is embedded, and which can be mobilised to

contest processes of (technocratic) rationalization.

CRITICAL THEORY AND HABERMAS’S THEORY OF COGNITIVE INTERESTS

This section places Habermas' thinking on science in the context of the development of

Critical Theory. Each type of knowledge-constitutive interest is briefly summarised prior

to illustrating it by reference to studies that focus upon `new organizational forms’ in

addition to more generalist literatures.

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Critical Theory

Having its institutional origins in the Institute of Social Research at Frankfurt University,

the Critical Theory of the Frankfurt School, as it has become known, aims to combine

social science and philosophy into politically and practically committed social

philosophy. As we have noted, this mission inc ludes a fundamental questioning of the

claim that social science can and would produce objective, value-free knowledge of

social reality. Instead of feeling obliged to discover universal, invariant regularities and

law-like patterns in social behaviour (o r at least to dress up empirical findings in these

terms), members of the Frankfurt School have sought to show how seemingly `given’

patterns of activity (e.g. consumerism, authoritarianism) take shape within specific

historical and societal contexts, and that the methods of representing these patterns are

themselves inextricably embedded within these contexts.

A strong thread links the ideas of the Frankfurt School to the views of left-Hegelians

whose most influential member was Marx (see Jay, 1973). Members of the School

identified themselves with the critical, emancipatory intent of the Marxian tradition. But,

instead of focusing upon the revolutionary potential ascribed by Marx to the working

class of which they were sceptical, their attention has been directed to any and all

individuals who – feeling frustrated, oppressed and confused by the contradictory

claims, perverse priorities and divisive effects of modern capitalist societies – are

potentially receptive to the revitalization of an Enlightenment conception of Critical

Reason as a means of exposing and removing forms of mystification and oppression

engendered by a modern, scientistic culture.

9
Knowledge and Human Interests

According to Habermas, the forgetting of the critical, emancipatory contribution of

modern science in discrediting prescientific dogmas is symptomatic of a failure to

appreciate how scientific activity is embedded in the human `self-formation process'

through which different kinds of `interest’ guide the generation of knowledge. `The

methodology of the sciences', Habermas (1972 : 5) argues, is inextricably `intertwined

with the objective self-formation process' made possible by humanity's cultural break

with nature. Released from the secure tyranny of instinctual demands, human beings are

compelled to organize forms of knowledge or 'cognition' through which a precarious

'management' of social and natural phenomena is accomplished.

The interests that are constitutive of knowledge are described by Habermas as 'quasi-

transcendental'. On the one hand, their origin is understood to lie in the universal,

transcendental human condition of world-openness; but, on the other hand, their

realization is historically and culturally mediated within immanent social institutions.

Habermas's usage of the term 'cognitive interests' refers to the human species’

(transcendent) capacities, and not to the historically contingent (immanent) interests of

any particular social group. His theory of cognitive interests accommodates and values

diverse forms of knowledge production3, and Habermas argues that the most basic

challenge for contemporary scientific endeavour is to re-member the diverse cognitive

interests released by the cultural break with nature; and then to mobilise these interests

in the emancipatory project of developing more fully, as contrasted with `halfway’ (see

10
earlier), rational social institutions and relations.

Three cognitive interests, Habermas contends, underpin the production of distinctive

forms of knowledge (and associated types of science): a technical interest in production

and control; a practical (historical-hermeneutic) interest in mutual understanding; and

finally an interest in emancipation (See Table 1). Everyday human action is understood

to involve combinations of these cognitive interests. For heuristic and emancipatory

purposes, however, it is helpful to appreciate how human interests are constitutive of

different kinds of knowledge. More particularly, the partitioning of human interests

facilitates an appreciation of how the three cognitive interests - technical, practical and

emancipatory and related types of science - contribute more fully and self-consciously to

the human self-formation process.

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Table 1 Habermas' Three Knowledge - Constitutive Interests

Cognitive Interest Type of Science Purpose Focus Orientation Projected Outcome

Technical Empirical-analytic Enhance prediction Identification and Calculation Removal of irrationality

and control manipulation of within means -ends
variables relationships.

Practical Historical- Improve mutual Interpretation of Appreciation Removal of

hermeneutic understanding symbolic misunderstanding
communication

Emancipatory Critical Realise Enlightenment Exposure of Transformation Removal of relations of

project through domination and domination and
development of more exploitation exploitation that
rationa l social repress without
institutions and necessity
relations

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THE THREE KNOWLEDGE -CONSTITUTIVE INTERESTS AND THEIR
ARTICULATION AS ORGANIZATION THEORY

The Technical Interest

When this interest is engaged or articulated, it impels the production of knowledge in a

way that improves the efficiency and/or effectiveness of the means of fulfilling current

ends. The world is represented as a set of given, objectified elements and processes

over which human beings seek to establish and extend their control. When motivated by

a `technical' interest, these elements and processes are apprehended as independent

phenomena that can be manipulated in a continuous process of design, intervention

and feedback. In its scientific manifestation, the technical cognitive interest represents

the world as a complex set of interdependent variables. Wage-payment systems, for

example, are a typical product of such knowledge in which material and symbolic

rewards are geared to the measured outputs of productive effort. It is understood that

increases in productivity can, in principle, be predicted and controlled - for example, by

changing the reward system, or by refining the organization of internal labour markets.

Such interventions may achieve the desired results. However, from the perspective of

the practical interest (see below), this is because such interventions are consistent with

the particular meanings attributed by employees to (changes in) their work, and not as a

direct consequence of the redesign of their jobs. A vast literature has been spawned by

a technical interest in enhancing the prediction and control of people in work

organizations. It comprises two key strands. The first is overtly problem-solving and

prescriptive; the second is ostensibly investigative and descriptive.

The most celebrated example of the overtly prescriptive literature is Taylor's Principles

13
of Scientific Management (1911), a model of instrumental reason that has been

reinvented or recast by numerous other management thinkers, including the

contemporary champions of business process reengineering. A more thoughtful and

penetrating example is prescriptivism is Barnard's The Functions of the Executive

(1934) whose ghost haunts so much `progressive' management thinking, including the

influential Excellence literature (e.g. Peters and Waterman, 1982). It identifies a `new'

factor - `culture’ – that, when managed effectively, is deemed to ensure predictable and

continuing improvements in performance. More recently, recipes for managing` chaos’

have joined, and are perhaps poised to supplant, prescriptions for controlling `culture’:

`Today scientists are developing powerful descriptions of the ways

complex systems – from swarms of mosquitoes to computer programs to
futures traders in commodity markets – cope effectively with uncertainty
and rapid change… The new rules of complex behaviour that cutting-edge
scientific research describes have intriguing parallels with the
organizational behaviours many companies are trying to encourage…’
(Freedman, 1992 : 26)

An emergent prescriptive literature on `new organizational forms' advises managers to

pursue particular courses of action - generally couched in terms of the need to remove

`old’ rigid, bureaucratic practices – as a means of enhancing performance. `Flexibility'

is widely canvassed as the key to success in a `hypercompetitive' environment

(Volberda,1996). The `transgression of bound aries is commended as a means of

`allowing greater fluidity of movement throughout the organization' (Ashkenas et al,

1995 : 4); and managers are advised to replace an established notion of boundaries as

`fixed barriers' with `an organic view of boundaries as permeable, flexible, moveable

membranes in a living evolving organism' (ibid : 4) so that they reduce the risk of being

14
`faced with a rate of change that exceed(s their) capability to respond' (ibid : 5-6,

emphasis omitted). In each case, managers are enjoined to identify a critical variable

which, once controlled effectively, will yield the predicted improvements in performance.

We now turn to consider a second major strand of thinking, also guided by a technical
interest, that is more scholarly and less explicitly prescriptive. Here we find literature
concerned with the construction and testing of theory that is ostensibly distanced from
`the real world' preoccupations of organizational design and performance improvement.
The Hawthorne experiments, for example, correlated employee productivity with
changes in various `environmental factors'. Likewise, the Aston studies measured and
compared the performance of organizations operating in different contexts with different
structures and patterns of behaviour (Pugh and Hickson, 1968), where the latter are
understood to be reactive to the contingencies of the former. An opposing, `action
theoretic' stance ascribes adaptations of structure and behaviour to the particularities of
the accumulated competencies and recipes that inform the pro-active, strategic
choices (Child, 1972) made by managers who enact and shape the contexts of their
actions - for example, by entering into alliances, erecting barriers to entry, and generally
impeding or monopolizing the development of competition, as well as by identifying
designs for organizations that are justified in relation to their efficacy in supporting and
promoting such practices.

More recently, students of `new organizational forms' have called for the combining of

`reactive’ and `proactive’ models of change in a `co-evolutionary' framework that

considers `the joint outcomes of managerial adaptation and environmental selection'

where the emergence of new forms of organization are examined as an interaction of

managerial intentionality and environmental effects (Lewin and Volberda, 1999 : 523).

The call is for research that abandons the focus upon unidirectional causalities founded

upon a dependent-independent variable distinction in favour of a framework that studies

15
how `changes in any one variable may be caused endogenously by changes in others'

(ibid : 527). However, the preoccupation with mapping and measuring variables that

will render organizations more predictable and controllable is extended rather than

suspended.

The call to abandon research aimed at discovering unidirectional causalities points

towards an alternative approach where the concern to identify causal relationships

between variables is abandoned in favour of appreciating how people in organizations

actively interpret, construct, negotiate and accomplish their organizing practices,

including those practices identified as exemplifying `new organizational forms'. Such

research addresses the question of how knowledge of `organizations' as well as their

`environments' is developed within particular schema that are productive of the very

distinctions and relations - between `organizations' and `environments', for example -

that they aspire to illuminate. Some limited attention to this process is evident in

Dijksterhuis et al `s `Where Do New Organizational Forms Come From?', (1999) in

which they contend that p̀erceived environment characteristics derived from shared

schemas of top management trigger strategic design actions that may lead to new

organi zation forms' (ibid : 571, emphasis added); and where it is argued that this

`shared set of beliefs' comprising the schema not only `functions as a context' for

strategic design actions but `is also reproduced in these actions' (ibid). This formulation

of the relationship between `environments', `strategic design actions' and `forms'

incorporates some appreciation of how `schemas' are productive of the characteristics

ascribed to environments; and also notes how design actions are at once `triggered' by

the schemas and reproductive of them. Such analysis does not, however, extend to an

16
appreciation of how the identification of `forms' and `strategic actions' by managers and

commentators is itself the expression of a particular interpretive framework, and not a

more or less accurate reflection of the reality that such sense-making seeks to

penetrate and conquer. The analysis remains rooted in an empirical-analytic conception

of knowledge production in which the self-evidence of the distinctions made between

environment, design actions and forms is assumed; and in which minimal attention is

paid to the question of how the existence ascribed to `forms' and `strategic actions' is

enacted. To consider how knowledge of organizations, or organizing processes,

including their allegedly `new' forms can be differently constituted, it is necessary to

consider research guided by an alternative, practical interest in mutual understanding.

The Practical Interest

The practical interest anticipates and pursues the possibility of attaining mutual

understanding between people. When knowledge production is guided by this interest,

the pressing concern is not to predict or control but, rather, to facilitate communication

so that mutual understanding is reached, or at least advanced. This interest is termed

`practical' because the process of making sense of the world is understood to be a

precondition of any form of social action, including the prediction and control of

objectified processes (see previous section). The identifi cation and measurement of

variables, it is argued, is irremediably dependent upon `the prior frame of reference to

which they are affixed' (Habermas, 1972 : 308). Knowledge guided by the practical

interest addresses the question of how `variables' are identified and operationalized in

order to develop insights into the social organization of empirical-analytic knowledge

17
production4. The type of science that discloses and appreciates, rather than takes for

granted, such socially organized frames of reference is termed `historical-hermeneutic'

because such `practical' knowledge necessitates the mobilisation of historically

mediated processes of interpretation.

When addressing the issue of employee participation, for example, knowledge guided

by a practical interest in mutual understanding might begin with the question of how

employees currently make sense of their work, and then explore how such sense-

making is historically and culturally embedded within a wider set of social practices,

norms and values (e.g . Gouldner, 1954; Dalton, 1959; Watson, 1994). It may be

shown how increased participation, for example, is viewed by employees in different

and shifting ways - as a way of removing petty rules and/or as a more subtle form of

management control, for exa mple. The purpose of knowledge guided by a practical

knowledge is to appreciate how persons enact their situation(s), and thereby aspire to

develop a better understanding of their respective orientations.

In the `new organizational forms’ literature, Sydow and Windeler (1998), for example,

call for an approach to their study, and more specifically the development of inter-firm

networks, that `focuses on organizational and interorganizational practices and, at the

same time, takes the interplay of action and structure, as well as power, sense-making

and legitimacy issues involved in economic practices into account' (ibid : 265,

emphases added). Sydow and Windeler examine the network practices of a group of

900 financial advisors, led by MLP-Finanzdienstleistungen AG, Heidelberg, who offer

18
financial services to high income customers 5. The branches not only provide support

services for the advisors but `are strongly involved in the process in which the symbols,

interpretive schemes, knowledge, norms, understandings and ways of doing business

are reproduced' (ibid : 267). It is to an exploration and explication of these `schemes,

knowledge, norms, understandings and ways of doing business' that the practical

interest in mutual understanding is directed. The schemes, etc. are understood to be

media of organizing, as are appeals to values and rational course of action signaled by

such concepts as `profitability, return on capital, stockholder value, fairness, reputation,

innovativeness, adaptive capacity', etc. They all serve to evoke a context within and

through which action is accomplished6.

The Emancipatory Interest

Whereas the technical and practical interests are conceived to be endemic to human

existence, the emancipatory interest is conceived to be stimulated by consequences

flowing from ideas and actions guided by the other two cognitive interests. This interest

is understood to be provoked when, for example, when employees resist techniques

and lampoon ideologies that purport to `empower' them but are experienced as an

intensification of their work without appropriate or sufficient compensation. In

elucidating the emancipatory interest, Habermas (1986) explains that

`what I mean is an attitude which is formed in the experience of suffering from

something man-made, which can be abolished and should be abolished. This is
not just a contingent value-postulate : that people want to get rid of certain
sufferings. No, it is something so profoundly ingrained in the structure of human
societies - the calling into question, and deep-seated wish to throw off, relations
which repress you without necessity - so intimately built into the reproduction of

19
 human life that I don't think it can be regarded as just a subjective attitude which
may or may not guide this or that piece of scientific research. It is more' (ibid :
198).

Habermas points to the experience of (unnecessary) frustration and suffering which, he

contends, stimulates, yet also frustrates, a desire to `throw off relations' that `repress

without nec essity' (my emphasis). For Habermas, critical science resonates with, and

indeed is fuelled by, a desire to assert (the possibility of) greater autonomy and

responsibility 7 in the face of institutions and practices that are sensed to impede

unnecessarily their contemporary expression and extension. In contrast to the

`empirical-analytic' and `historical-hermeneutic' sciences, which each take existing

social formations and patterns of meaning as given objects of prediction and control or

of interpretation, critical science strives to expose the unreasoned, political basis of

this givenness. For example, instead of seeking to identify covariance between

observable events (the project of empirical-analytic science) or striving to interpret the

development of particular meanings (the concern of historical-hermeneutic science),

critical science is concerned to reveal how patterns of behaviour and meaning are

embedded in oppressive structures of domination that, potentially, are open to

challenge and change. In Habermas' (1972) words, critical social science seeks

`to determine when theoretical statements grasp invariant regularities of social action
as such and when they express ideologically frozen relations of dependence that can in
principle be transformed' (ibid : 310).

To consider once more the case of employee participation, knowledge guided by an

emancipatory interest goes beyond the `mere' appreciation of employee orientations

20
(e.g. towards participation) to show how these understandings are structured within

relations of power and domination - relations that are potentially open to (radical)

transformation that dissolve `frozen relations of dependence’ and thereby eliminate

forms of socially unnecessary suffering associated with these relations. Fro m this

perspective, findings that indicate employee indifference towards a participation

scheme may be interpreted as symptomatic of a structure of social and industrial

relations where, historically, participation has either been excluded (e.g. by the adoption

of a top-down approach to organization and job design) or introduced cynically as a

means of achieving some other, often undisclosed, purpose - such as greater flexibility.

Employee hostility towards, or scepticism about, participation schemes is then viewed,

from the standpoint of critical science, as persuasive evidence of institutionalised

relations of dependence in which employees have been historically excluded from

participation in key decisions. Precisely because such attitudes are located in a

particular structure of dependency relations, they are understood to be mutable: they

can be changed by transforming the structures in which such attitudes are fostered and

reproduced.

An academic body of knowledge guided primarily by an emancipatory interest has

emerged only comparatively recently in the field of management and organization

studies. Forester (1992), for example, Habermas' analysis of the pragmatics of

communicative action `to show how much more than instrumental action...takes place in

ordinary practice and what difference this makes for questions of power and

powerlessness, community and autonomy' (ibid : 47). Forester's analysis illuminates

how, for example, hierarchy operates to exclude or marginalize the contribution of

21
subordinate actors to decision-making processes, thereby depriving them of full

involvement in the institutions through which their sense of identity and purpose is

constituted. This deprivation is understood not simply as a loss to the individual but

simultaneously as a loss for the group or community. The wider community forfeits the

benefit of the individual's immediate contribution; there is also a loss of the future

benefits of skills and a sense of collective responsibility that can develop through active

participation in decision-making.

In Forester’s analysis, capitalists (e.g. property developers), senior planners and

managers are identified as (highly compensated) participants in a structure of power

relations that they struggle to secure and sustain. Highlighting the interdependence of

the individual and the wider community, he shows how those who are understood to

occupy privileged positions of relative autonomy and power are themselves frequently

oppressed by a burden of responsibility which they often contrive to evade.

Superficially, this representation of the privileged as victims would seem to affirm

conservative arguments for further compensatory hikes in their material and symbolic

compensation. However, critical analysis turns this proposal on its head. The (critically)

rational solution to problems of irresponsibility and apathy ascribed to disadvantaged

citizens and employees, on the one side, and the excessive responsibility and stress

suffered by an elite of decision-makers, on the other side, it is argued, is not to

strengthen the existing system of control and rewards. Rather, the more enlightened way

forward is to promote a wider diffusion of power and responsibility through the

democratisation of economic, as well as political, institutions .

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Turning, finally, to consider studies of `new organizational forms’, it is relevant to take up

once more Sydow and Windeler's (1998) study of organizing and evaluating inter-firm

networks. Network performance measures applied to the financial advisors studied by

Sydow and Windeler included `the ratios of prospective clients, of prospective to actual

customers, and of the revenue realized to the revenue planned' (Sydow and Windeler,

1998 : 275). Of particular relevance is their observation that evaluations of the

performance and effectiveness of the MLP network were not the product of impartial

calculations so much as the outcome of political processes of domination that

presented themselves as rational decision making. Resources at the command of

those occupying the hub-firm of the MLP network are seen to be mobilised to establish

and institutionalize particular criteria of evaluation, including the acceptability or

normalcy of criteria supportive of the reproduction of their position of dominance within

the network. To the extent that there is compliance amongst network members with the

evaluation criteria, then the use of resources to marshal and maintain the network

serves to augment the assets at the disposal of the hub, thereby stabilizing the struc ture

of domination. It is noted, for example, how what can be made to count as `the

adequate information' is dependent upon agents' `power to impose the corresponding

concept on the individual, on the organization or on the network'8. `Network

effectivene ss', Sydow and Windeler (ibid : 275) contend, is thus `an expression of

distinct modes of domination, inherent in the organizing practices'. From a critical

standpoint, network effectiveness is not simply a matter of reducing inefficiencies,

facilitating expansion or negotiating a shared definition of the situation wherein the

evaluation criteria are viewed as normal and reasonable. More fundamentally, it is

about organizing forms of economic activity that maintain a situation in which `the

23
greater proportion' of the surplus generated by the network as a whole is `appropriated

by the hub firm' (ibid : 276).

This darker side of new organizational forms has been noted by Victor and Stephens

(1994) who acknowledge that they may be effective at generating surplus, reducing

costs, leveraging competitive advantage, etc., but that their `radical design…entails

losses as well as costs'. They note, for example, how the security of a role anchored in

an organization with a well defined boundary and codified in a job description is being

supplanted by stress-ridden, `hyperflexible workplaces' where roles are defined by the

task of the moment, and where rights become ephemeral as everything is driven by the

demand to be adaptive and innovative. These `high velocity' workplaces, Victor and

Stephens contend, `offer no ongoing relationships, no safe haven, no personal space'

(ibid : 481) Everything is negotiable and disposable.

This unremittingly dark picture tends to overlook how the very existence and exploitation

of relations of dependence ferments the possibility of counter-discourses and practices

that expose and challenge oppressive institutions. Hints of this are present when Sydow

and Windeler describe network processes being `full of tensions and contradictions and

a dialectic of control that only to some extent and for some time can be tamed by an

appropriate governance structure…' (ibid : 280). They note, for example, that the hub

firm is `highly interested that the advisors see themselves as "independent"' (sic) even

though their scope for acting independently of the network is, in some respects at least,

`almost as restricted as that of some employees in vertically integrated firms' (ibid :

272). It is implied that those in the hub firm mobilise their resources to promote a

24
definition of the advisors' situation that is intended to distance the self-understanding of

the latter from that of employees. This stratagem proved to be contradictory, however,

when the advisors exercised their sense of independence to mount a successful

challenge to pressures to change their client quota. In this way, the attribution of

independence that was intended, according to Sydow and Windeler, to obfuscate their

capture by the network's performance indicators had the contradictory consequence of

emboldening advisors to exercise their power as key players within the network upon

whose continued cooperation and delivery of client revenues the hub-firm depended.

When knowledge is guided by an emancipatory interest, questions are posed that bring

to the surface the suffering - in terms of anxiety and stress, for example - that are

associated in Sydow and Windeler's study with the use of performance indicators and

the means of maintaining the subordination of the advisors within the network. Is it

asked, for example, if the measures devised jointly and democratically by those to

whom they were applied? Or were they imposed by fiat by the hub-firm? To the extent

that advisors complied with, or even consented to, the application of the performance

indicators, does this imply that their cooperation was a consequence of making an

informed decision, or was it because they calculated that the benefits (e.g. opportunity

to earn bonuses) associated with advisory work outweighed the costs (pressures, job

insecurity)? To what extent had the methods and criteria of assessing the job of

advisors been conditioned by the high value placed upon material wealth in our society?

The thrust of the emancipatory interest is to raise questions of this kind as a way of

problematizing what is suspected to be an unreasoned basis for decision-making, such

as career choice. Upon reflection, the conclusion may be reached that compliance with,

25
or even consent to, evaluation procedures institutionalized within the MLP ne twork is an

`expression of ideologically frozen relations of dependence' (Habermas, 1972 : 310) -

of advisors on the hub-firm in particular - that can be transformed.

One kind of transformation would be for a group of advisors to establish their own, rival

network. A more radical transformation might involve pressures from advisors to

transform the network into a mutual company or a cooperative in which decisions about

the distribution of the surplus are made by the policy-holders or by the partners within

the cooperative. Less ambitiously, advisors might organize to shift the centre of gravity

away from the hub-firm towards the advisors by organizing `microemancipatory' forms

of resistance to the repressive and/or precariously maintained pressures to produce a

surplus. As Sydow and Windeler (198 : 275) usefully point out, the place of those

occupying a dominant position within a hierarchy is rarely, if ever, unassailable.

Changes of circumstances, such as shifts in distribution mechanisms (e.g. moves

towards the remote distribution of financial services through the internet), can disturb

prevailing structures of domination and relations of power; and ultimately those

occupying such positions are dependent upon others who generate the surpluses. It

was this dependence that enabled some MLP advisors - presumably, the ones with the

most affluent client base - successfully to resist pressures by the hub -firm to change the

average number of clients that an advisor was allowed to serve. One may speculate that

the prospect of disaffected advisors and their possible departure (with their clients) to

establish a competitor network to MLP was sufficient to dissuade those in the hub to

persist in their efforts to renegotiate the client quota.

26
DISCUSSION

It would be inconsistent to conclude this chapter without briefly addressing some

criticisms of Habermas' theory of cognitive interests. Criticism has been directed at his

characterisation of the ontological status of human interests as `quasi-transcendental’.

When responding to the criticism that he fudges his position by refusing to say whether

the interests are historical (immanent) or universal (transcendental), Habermas defends

his original, ambivalent formulation of the dialectical development of human nature and

its interests : the interests, he contends, are a condition of `the cultural break with

nature' (see earlier), but they are also a consequence of this break. Without interests in

either understanding or controlling nature and society, knowledge that facilitates the

realization of this project would not be generated. But the realization of these interests is

always mediated by the specific contexts of their articulation. It is therefore erroneous

to suggest that the interests are transcendental or immanent since, in practice, they are

both.

Second, Habermas has been criticised for his representation of the self-understanding

of the empirical-analytic sciences. The objection is that Habermas' account relies upon

an outdated, idealised representation of natural scientific practice (Hesse, 1982). It can

be readily conceded, as Habermas (1982 : 274 et seq) has done, that not all empirical-

analytic scientists are unreflective empiricists in the way that his representation of their

work may suggest. Fortunately, this admission is not particularly damaging to

Habermas's theory of cognitive interests. It is possible to acknowledge the existence of

post-empiricist philosophies of (social) science whilst, at the same time, contending

27
that in many fields of investigation, including the field of management, the conduct of

`normal science' proceeds, for the most part, blissfully unaware of post-empiricist

philosophical debates. It is precisely this sleep that the theory of cognitive interests

aspires to disturb - a prospect that is not diminished by Habermas's positive valuing of

empirical-analytic science within this theory9.

Habermas has also sought to strengthen the basis of his argument by abandoning a

philosophy of consciousness in favour of a philosophy of language10. It is worth stressing

that this `linguistic turn' does not nullify the theory of cognitive interests or make it "old

hat" 11. By rooting his analysis in the universal properties of language, Habermas

attempts to show - although not persuasively, in my view- how the very (transcendental)

structures of language anticipate a consensus based upon dialogue rather than force12.

I am not persuaded, however, that it is possible to separate knowledge from relations of

power within an `ideal speech situation’ in the manner that Habermas (counter-factually)

claims. Instead, I am drawn to a Nietzchian or postmodernist position which warms that

there can be no escape from power relations; and that despite all the fine words

surrounding Critical Theory, its proponents' refusal to fully acknowledge that the idea of

emancipatory reason is historically constructed, not ontologically given, leads to a

suppression of pluralism and playfulness as its authority is uncritically privileged 13. In

response to this criticism, Habermas retorts that postmodernist thinking leads

inexorably to nihilism and despair. Deeply sceptical about the progressive claims of

postmodernists (e.g. Lyotard, 1986), Habermas (1987b) argues that the postmodern

inclination to relativize (modernist) rati onality devalues and squanders the emancipatory

28
potential of Reason as a resource for exposing and removing forms of mystification

and oppression.

Against this defense, it can be questioned whether Habermas’s aspiration to provide a

rational grounding for normative standards is a coherent project that is not without its

own dangers. Its coherence is suspect if all forms of knowledge – including the idea of

the ideal speech situation and communicative action – are articulations of power and,

inescapably, exert a subjugating effect upon those who identify them as truth. The

objection here is that the Habermasian position is insufficiently self-reflective and self-

critical about his own preconceptions – notably, his assumption that (his radical

humanist) ideas about `autonomy’ and `responsibility’ are unequivocally propitious for

humankind. Such a view is also potentially dangerous, insofar as it implies that what is

done in the name of emancipation is somehow exempt from (its own kinds of)

oppressive effects (Knights and Willmott, 2001). The risk is one of `reason’ being

invoked to deny or mystify forms of subjection that ostensibly it claims to expose and

remove.

Habermas’ response to this criticism has been to concede that Critical Theory cannot

escape this risk. He then seeks to turn the tables on his critics (see Poster, 1989) by

inviting them to reflect upon what, for him, are the far more serious consequences of

abandoning any basis for differentiating the true from the false, and the rational from the

irrational. In its absence, Habermas (1992 : 209) argues, `All validity claims become

immanent to particular discourses. They are simultaneously absorbed into the totality of

some one [sic ] of the blindly occurring discourses and left at the mercy of the

29
`hazardous play’ amongst these discourses as each overpowers the other’. In part,

Habermas seems to be responding constructively to the poststructuralist contention that

consideration must be given to the consequences of adopting particular kinds of

discourse, and not just to the way their claims are grounded. In doing so, Critical Theory

is defended, on the basis that efforts to differentiate the truth from the false are less

damaging in their, apparently conservative, effects than either a refusal to do so and/or

a commitment to showing how such distinctions are solely `immanent to particular

discourses’ rather than in any way being a condition of all forms of discourse

(Freundlieb, 1989; see also Power, 1990).

However, If it is the case, as Habermas claims, that what passes for truth is historically

contingent at least until `the ideal speech situation’ has been realised rather than simply

invoked as a counter-factual, then the plausibility of truth claims is conditional upon the

context of their assessment, and not upon their alleged universal veracity. If this is

accepted, it then follows that even if we were to be convinced by Habermas's theory of

universal pragmatics, our conviction would tell us more about the strength of our cultural

receptivity to such ideas - which, of course, does not logically exclude the possibility of

the theory being true - than about their veracity. In which case, forms of critical thinking

that reject a Habermasian (transcendental) preoccupation with grounding truth claims

become more appealing. More specifically, such scepticism enhances the appeal of

approaches that attend to, and build upon, the (immanent) identification of opportunities

for exposing and dissolving forms of oppression; and this is not least because they are

compatible with commending Habermas's theory of cognitive interests as a heuristic

device for appreciating the presence and potentially emancipatory contribution of

30
different forms of science.

From a (self-critically) critical modernist perspective, postmodernist analysis may have

the unintended, but nonetheless beneficial, consequence of renewing and extending the

critical strand of modernism. By prompting reflection upon assumptions and methods

that are otherwise shielded from scrutiny by disciplinary complacency, blinkered self-

referentiality and/or intellectual pride, it may encourage deeper questioning of whether,

for example, Critical Theory, and the recent work of Habermas especially, is excessively

preoccupied with the universal justification of its own truth claims, to the neglect of

exploring what can be done to challenge everyday forms of subjugation, oppression and

repression by appealing to extant local understandings and traditions (Alvesson and

Willmott, 1996). To this extent, at least, there is some common cause in postmodernist

and critical modernist critiques of systemic modernism; and in this regard, it is worth

quoting briefly from the (later) writings of Foucault who, though often identified with the

postmodern camp, argua bly straddles the critical modernism - postmodernism divide:

`the thread that may connect us with the Enlightenment is... the permanent
reactivation of an attitude - that is, of a philosophical ethos that could be
described as a permanent critique of our historical era' (Foucault, 1984 : 42)

Foucault's understanding of (the) Enlightenment, which he characterises as an attitude

more than as a period or a project, is remarkably similar to that of Habermas. But a key

point of difference remains : profound Foucauldian scepticism that there is an

authoritative basis for critique and transformation. This anti-foundationalism bypasses

the need to make highly problematical claims about an essential human autonomy or

31
even the embeddedness of autonomy in the structure of language. Contra Habermas,

the pursuit of freedom and equality is not, as it were, guaranteed or privileged by a

foundational principle, whether its location is posited in the structure of language or in

the depths of human nature. Rather, as in Laclau and Mouffe’s (1989) thinking, the

possibility of freedom and equality is understood to be conditional upon the

development and continuing existence of discourses that attribute value to ideas of

freedom and equality and the institutions that support their articulation and facilitate their

realization. As Laclau and Mouffe (1990: 124) note, the absence of any apodeictic

certainty that one type of society (or organization) is better than 'another' does not

prevent them from reasoning politically and of preferring, for a variety of reasons, certain

political positions to others. In a passage that echoes Habermas's anticipation of the

ideal speech situation without becoming encumbered by the baggage that seeks to

justify it as a touchstone of objective truth, Laclau and Mouffe commend an approach to

the production of knowledge and the transformation of relations that

`tries to found itself upon the verisimilitude of its

conclusions, is essentially pluralist, because it needs to
make reference to other arguments and, since the process
is essentially open, these can always be contested and
refuted. The logic of verisimilitude is, in this sense,
essentially public and democratic' (Laclau and Mouffe,
1990 : 125).

From this perspective, it makes little sense to deny that methodologies favoured by

critical science exert disciplinary effects that can be constraining as well as enabling -

an observation that takes on board elements of the postmodernist critique of Critical

Theory.

32
CONCLUSION

With the benefit of Habermas's theory of cognitive interests, it is possible to appreciate

how, for example, a technical interest in prediction and control dominates the production

of knowledge about management and organization. Ideas about improved quality of

working life, better communications, employee involvement and empowerment, for

example, are routinely formulated in terms of their contribution to organizational

effectiveness, to the exclusion of their contribution to a questioning of established

objectives and priorities, or to the development and application of knowledge that

reaches out beyond these limits. Commenting upon the weakness of the

(acknowledged) connection between knowledge and praxis within empirical-analytic

science, Habermas (1974 : 254-5) observes:

`Emancipation by means of enlightenment is replaced by instruction in control

over objective or objectified forces. Socially effective theory is no longer directed
towards the consciousness of human beings who live together and discuss
matters with each other, but to the behaviour of human beings who manipulate.
As a productive force of industrial development, it changes the basis of human
life, but it no longer reaches out critically beyond this basis to raise life itself, for
the sake of life, to another level'

Nevertheless, and crucially, Habermas's theory of cognitive interests admits and

celebrates the (yet to be fully realized) potential of the technical interest in prediction
and control to enable human beings to develop ways of organizing and managing that
are safer and less wasteful of human and natural resources. Habermasian thinking
does not deny the value and power of empirical-analytic science but, rather, seeks to
recall its critical, emancipatory potential. It also recalls and celebrates how the capacity
to develop mutual understanding through the use of language can enable people to
cooperate more effectively. In the absence of the catalyst of critical reflection upon the
historical conditions in which technical and practical knowledge is generated and

33
applied, however, knowledge becomes the servant, rather than the debunker, of power
(Baritz, 1960). Movement away from a narrowly instrumental, politically conservative,
socially divisive and ecologically destructive use of knowledge, as Fischer (1990) has
argued, demands the adoption of

`a methodological framework that not only includes but logically transcends

empirical analysis by interpreting the meaning of its data in both the context of
action and a larger critique of society' (ibid : 217).

Habermas's exploration of the connectedness of knowledge and human interests is of

considerable value in exposing and changing the division of science from ethics and the

damaging consequences, social and ecological, of ascribing neutrality to the principles

and practices of management that embody and sustain this division. As the

Enlightenment connection of scientific knowledge with the reduction of suffering is re-

membered, it may be hoped that the calamitous illusion of ethically neutral value-free

knowledge will be progressively dispelled.

Those unsympathetic to such a project have complained that it contravenes the

understanding that `decisions about good and evil and the meaning of the universe

cannot have any scientific foundation' (Kolakowski, 1978 : 394, cited in Tsoukas, 1992 :

643). Even if it is the case that moral positions can never be conclusively validated,

Habermas's theory of cognitive interests, and the recognition and pursuit of critical

science in particular, can nonetheless help us to identify, question and hopefully

dissolve some of the prejudices which place unnecessary constraints upon our

collective capacity to wrestle with moral and metaphysical questions. The claim here is

not that rationality should be re-designed from scratch or that it should replace morality

34
that has developed through a process of cultural evolution (see Tsoukas, 1992: 644).

Rather, the more modest hope is that the human reason of modernity has been, and can

continue to be, a force in the critique and transformation of moral rules - for example, the

rules that legitimise and sustain the sanctity of managerial prerogatives, the necessity of

functional imperatives and/or the inevitability of patriarchal power relations.

Acknowledgement

An earlier version of this chapter was presented in the Department of Management at

the University of Keele. I would like to thank participants in this seminar, and especially

Simon Lilley, for their comments and criticisms.

35
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NOTES
1
Sections of this paper draw upon H.C. Willmott (1997) and M. Alvesson and H.
Willmott (1996). It has been supported by the research project `Changing Organizational Forms
and the Re-Shaping of Work' (ESRC award number: L212 25 2038). The project is part of the
first phase of a wider ESRC research programme on The Future of Work.
2
The term `new organizaitonal form’ has emerged as a way of announcing the claimed presence
of emergent and distinctive (e.g. `post-bureaucratic') organizing practices2 that depart from
established, `older' forms of organizing (Daft and Lewin, 1993) which view the old virtues of
specialization and clarity as inhibitors of responsiveness to rapidly changing opportunities and
demands.
3
It is not developed for, or directly relevant to, the rather different, but also important
sociological task of explaining how knowledge is socially organized, sponsored and
appropriated (Whitley, 1984).

4
This form of knowledge may also be directed at gaining a better, reflexive understanding of how
its own form(s) of knowledge (e.g. about the practices of empirical-analytic science) are
accomplished.

5
In addition to the advisors, the hub-firm of MLP originally established by Marschollek and
@
Lautenshl ger and 70 branches, the MLP network includes its own life insurer and an
information services provider in addition to stable relationships with insurance companies, banks
and investment funds.

6
The study incorporates consideration of the practical, negotiated process of organizational
reality production as a means of advancing our understanding of how `organizational and
interorganizational practices' are accomplished. Criteria used for evaluating organizations and
interorganizational networks are, from this perspective, `necessarily contextually embedded
social constructions' (ibid : 273, emphasis in original). There is, however, disappointingly little
illumination of how these sense-making processes are learned, developed and changed through
processes of communication.

7
Later, I question Habermas's unreflective use of these terms.
8
There is, however, little consideration of how the process of `imposition' is accomplished or
indeed how certain kinds of information are privileged (and widely accepted?) as reliable and
legitimate indicators of effectiveness. Within what interpretive frameworks are such demands
placed, and how are these frameworks forged and reproduced? Sydow and Winderler are largely
silent on such issues, despite their contention that `studying inter-firm networks in general and
strategic networks in particular requires the analysis of concrete, contextually embedded
(network) practices' in a way that `renounces conventional hypothesis-testing' (ibid : 280).

9
With specific reference to empirical-analytic science, Habermas has argued that `no matter
how perverted', its findings `remain a piece with committed reason' (Habermas, 1974 : 270).

10
The basic difference between these formulations is that, in the philosophy of language,
Habermas's claims are grounded intersubjectively in what he terms the `universal pragmatics' of
language use, rather than intrasubjectively in the consciousness of each human being.
11
Burrell (1994 : 8) has noted how, in Habermas's later work, including The Theory of
Communicative Action, `some of the key conceptualization of knowledge interests not only

41
remain but grow in importance. They are part and parcel of Habermas's linguistic turn ...'. See
also White, 1988 : 27 and Honneth and Joas, 1991 : 19).

12
That said, the plausibility or otherwise of Habermas's claims is of relevance for my argument.
This paper is not concerned primarily with the role of the theory of cognitive interests in providing
a foundation for Critical Theory. My concern is instead with the heuristic value of this theory in
differentiating types of science.

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