Silverman1997
| Silverman1997 | |
|---|---|
| BibType | ARTICLE |
| Key | Silverman1997 |
| Author(s) | David Silverman |
| Title | Studying organizational interaction: ethnomethodology’s contribution to the “new institutionalism” |
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| Tag(s) | EMCA, Ethnomethodology, Social interaction, Conversation, Organizational theory, Functionalism, Reference interviews, Navigation, Social structures, Research methods, Photocopiers |
| Publisher | |
| Year | 1997 |
| Language | English |
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| Month | |
| Journal | Administrative Theory & Praxis |
| Volume | 19 |
| Number | 2 |
| Pages | 178–195 |
| URL | Link |
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Abstract
Powell and DiMaggio's (1991) "new institutionalism" represents a move away from methodological individualism and functionalism's version of the social system. It represents an imaginative attempt to cut across existing debates, to find continuities with earlier traditions. Their achievement is an impressive synthesis of Durkheim, cognitive psychology, postmodernism and ethnomethodology. It clears away some dead wood and attempts to incorporate the more lively current theoretical traditions in the field. However, gains often have losses attached. Powell and DiMaggio's synthesis, like my own early text (Silverman, 1970), contains no clear guidelines for the organizational researcher, other than a pot-pourri of concepts with, at best, an unknown relation to the contingencies of data collection and analysis. Moreover, its theoretical character may, unfortunately, help to preserve a field in which "pure theory" rules. Above all, it is by no means clear that the different traditions Powell and DiMaggio identify as the "new institutionalism" sit together comfortably. In particular, their synthesis only works by attempting a Durkeimian reading of ethnomethodology. Responding to these lacunae in the new institutionalist program, I show how studies of organizational activities informed by ethnomethodology and its cousin conversation analysis are making a substantial contribution to basic issues of theory and method in the study of organization.
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