Cal report week 3

CAL Report- Week 3 Reflecting upon my experience as we have neared the end of our third week together I have found the time very informative. I have been introduced to a wider understanding of what nature and sociology have to say about creating knowledge which is acceptable and useful. We were able to explore various ideas about positivism and interpretive roles with regard to knowledge when it comes to organizations.
Four patterns or paradigms were identified by Burrell and Morgan in 1979, said again by Morgan in 1980 and restated by Johnson and Duberley in 2000. These were named as radical humanism or subjective change ; radical structuralism which is to do with the many conflicts in society; interpretive sociology which deals with the interpretation of society ; and functionalist sociology which sees society as consisting of many interacting parts. It was discovered within the group how these ideas all relate to learning and knowledge within organizations, and also how they could be applied to particular difficulties.
The various paradigms can be utilized individually or more than one can used at one time. To add a greater degree of understanding and the ability to apply these ideas metaphors can be used as shown by Morgan in 1980 and later by Hassard ( 1991) It is necessary to choose those which best fit our particular circumstances and reflect on them.
As I took part in the week 3 learning group I began to discover how my the structure of my company fits into the various models of management research and how to use that knowledge in order to create the most applicable knowledge. I am now attempting to fit the paradigms to my work situation and see how compatible the two are.
I think that using the correct paradigm or pattern to create knowledge , together with the proper methodology, will enable me to make progress in developing my skills at leadership
Also , using the right language , as described by Van Maanen (1991) will make it easier to produce convincing arguments. Together with the use of metaphor this will help me to produce suitable solutions for my organization.
The main aim this week was to be able to turn theories into practice. This means translating the models into actual work tasks and, by using the correct knowledge creation , enabling the most beneficial decisions to be made.
BURRELL, G. and MORGAN G., 1979, Sociological Paradigms and Organizational Analysis , London, Heinemann
HASSARD, J. 1991, Mulitple Paradigmsand Organizational Analysis : A Case Study, Organization Studies, 12 ( 2) pages 275-299, EBSCOhost, available from http: web. ebscohost. com. ezproxy. liv. ac. uk/ehost/detail? hid= 105&sid= 446561bf-3152-405d-87fd-f6972fd2d38e%40sessionmgr115&vid= 5&data= JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGI2ZzY29wZT1zaXRI#db= buh&AN= 593166, accessed 25th July 2011
JOHNSON, P. and DUBERLEY, J. 2000, Understanding Management Research : An Introduction to Epistemology, London Sage
MORGAN, G. 1980, Paradigms, metaphors and puzzle solving in organizational theory, Administrative Science Quarterly 25 (4) pages 605-622, EBSChost, available from http://web. ebscohost. com. ezproxy. liv. ac. uk/ehost/detail? hid= 105&sid= 446561bf-3152-405d-87fdf6972fd2d38e%40sessionmgr115%vid= 38bdata= JnNpdGU97Whvc3QtbGI2ZSZzY29wZT1zaXRI#db= buh&AN= 4014439, accessed 25th July 2011
VAN MAANAN, J , 1991, The Smile Factory: Working at Disneyland, in Frost , P. Moore, L. Luis, M., Lundberg, C., Martin, J. editors, Reframing Organizational Culture, California , Sage
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