Abstract:
Management Theory and Organization Studies have promoted a series of representations,
that have pervaded management thought and shaped managers actions. These have changed
radically during the past century, and any manager, especially one whose experience
encompasses the more recent decades, has had to learn, and relearn, a great deal during their
careers. One would expect that, in the business schools, it would be the practitioners of
organization studies, above all other specialists, who would be guiding the development of
new paradigms for changing conditions. Yet, as this paper addresses, the literature on
paradigms in organization studies and the literature of paradigms addressed to business
practice have hitherto been largely separate enterprises. Notwithstanding this separation, the
business paradigms literature has considerable implications for organization studies, and and
the theoretical paradigms that guide work in this literature, as the paper spells out.
