A new theory for organizational management

There have been many organizational studies, which have sought to understand what guides the operation of an organization in its interaction with the world. Many of these studies have been undertaken from an instrumentalist perspective for the purpose of understanding what makes an organization successful or otherwise. However many of the management theories and practices that have been developed appear to be partial or incomplete in their explanatory value and effectiveness. This thesis draws together dominant logic, social theory, paradox, and narrative theory into a meta-theory or synthesis for the purpose of extending our understanding of each and in the process extending our understanding of organizational management. In doing so an extension of theory is achieved and a new theory for organizational management is developed which has more powerful explanatory value than any of the individual theories in isolation. In contrast to much of the accepted organizational theory, which has been undertaken through a functionalist perspective, underpinned by metaphors of organization-as-machine and organization-as-organism, an interpretivist perspective, underpinned by the schismatic metaphor. This has allowed dimensions of organization to be explored that would not have been explored through a functionalist perspective, which has permitted the theory extension. The new theory is then presented in a schematic form or model and applied to the data, which was collected in an organizational context over the period of a year through an ethnographic process and presented in the form of a narrative.