Don't Simplify, Complexify: From Disjunctive to Conjunctive Theorizing in Organization and Management Studies

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/joms.12219
• Date: 01 March 2017
• Published date: 01 March 2017
• Author: Haridimos Tsoukas

Don’t Simplify, Complexify: From Disjunctive to

Conjunctive Theorizing in Organization and

Management Studies

Haridimos Tsoukas

University of Cyprus and University of Warwick

ABSTRACT In this paper I argue that, rather than theory development aim at simplifying

complex organizational phenomena, it should aim at complexifying theories – theoretical

complexity is needed to account for organizational complexity. Defining the latter as the

capacity for ‘nontrivial’ action, I explore a complex ‘system of picturing’ organizations as

objects of study that provides an alternative to the hitherto dominant disjunctive style of

thinking. A complex ‘system of picturing’ consists of an open-world ontology, a performative

epistemology, and a poetic praxeology. Complex theorizing is conjunctive: it seeks to make

connections between diverse elements of human experience through making those analytical

distinctions that will enable the joining up of concepts normally used in a compartmentalized

manner. Insofar as conjunctive theorizing is driven by the need to preserve the ‘living-forward

– understanding backward’ dialectic, it is better suited to grasping the logic of practice and,

thus, to doing justice to organizational complexity. We come close to grasping complexity

when we restore the past to its own present and make distinctions that overcome dualisms,

preserving as much as possible relationality, temporality, situatedness and, interpretive open-

endedness. I illustrate the argument with several examples from organizational and

management research.

Keywords: complexity, epistemology, ontology, praxeology, management, metatheory

‘Nor is wisdom only concerned with universals: to be wise, one must also be famil-

iar with the particular, since wisdom has to do with action, and the sphere of

action is constituted by particulars’.

Aristotle (2002, p. 1141b15)

Address for reprints: Haridimos Tsoukas, University of Cyprus, Department of Business and Public Adminis-

tration, 1 University Avenue, Aglantzia, 2109, Nicosia, Cyprus (htsoukas@ucy.ac.cy; Hari.Tsoukas@wbs.

ac.uk).

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C2016 John Wiley & Sons Ltd and Society for the Advancement of Management Studies

Journal of Management Studies 54:2 March 2017

doi: 10.1111/joms.12219

‘Blind intelligence destroys unities and totalities. It isolates all objects from their

environment. It cannot conceive of the inseparable link between the observer and

the observed. Key realities are disintegrated. [...] The dominant methodology pro-

duces an increasing obscurantism: because there are no longer any links between

the disjointed elements of knowledge, so there is no longer an opportunity to truly

absorb them and reflect on them.

Edgar Morin (2008, p. 4)

‘Emergence is my ability to see newly’.

Heinz von Foerster (2014, p. 17)

‘[...] As we begin [...] to bring into focus the nature of living activity, as distinct

from repetitive, mechanical activities of non-living, dead things, we [...] come to

focus more and more on what is novel, on what is unique, on what some scientists

call singularities’.

John Shotter (2011, p. 148)

That theory matters in any discipline is indisputable. But what theory should aim at and

how it should be developed, especially in a practically-oriented field such as organization

and management studies, is less certain. Insofar as theory necessarily involves an

abstraction from the world (Elster, 2007; Sayer, 1984; Swedberg, 2016; Thomas, 2006),

it is worth exploring how such abstraction is conceived.

In an editorial article, Bettis et al. (2014) set out to clarify what ‘theory’ means, at lea st

for the journal they edit. They acknowledge that theory-building is essential for advancing

the field of strategic management, define what theory is, and explain why it is important.

They write: ‘Theory has several core elements: simplification, assumptions, concepts, and

causal relationships. It is widely agreed across natural and social science that theory

involves simplification in varying degrees. Reality is too ambiguous, complex, broad, and

diverse to be fully perceived, understood, or represented without some level of simplification.

Hence, theory must make simplifying assumptions. Such assumptions should be obvious or be

stated. For example, microeconomic theory assumes profit and utility maximization, while

the behavioural theory of the firm assumes bounded rationality’ (Bettis et al., 2014, p.

1411; emphasis added). Although the authors are open to several ways for deve loping

theory (hypothesis-testing, mathematical models, computational models, qualitative

research, etc.), they suggest that causality is the most distinguishing feature of a theory –

‘theory is concerned with causality, not with association’ (Bettis et al., 2014).

Leaving aside the causality imperative (one is hard pressed to see causality in some of

the most influential theories of strategic management, such as the competitive position-

ing model and the resources-based view of the firm), it is worth reflecting on the need

for theory to ‘simplify’. Although there are good reasons to believe that any model,

description or theory about a phenomenon is bound to offer a partial perspective on it

(the map is necessarily an abstraction of the territory mapped (Weick, 1990)), the reverse

from what Bettis et al. (2014) suggest may be needed: rather than argue that ‘theory

must make simplifying assumptions’, what is important, it could be plausibly argued, is

for theories to become more complex to cope with the complexity of the world – after

133Don’t simplify, complexify

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C2016 John Wiley & Sons Ltd and Society for the Advancement of Management Studies