Bob austere and Steve Barley have attempted to seize the moral high domain pointing to what they diocese as serious shortcomings in the representations of research conducted and the direction of disentanglement of organizational studies.

Bob austere and Steve Barley have attempted to seize the moral high domain pointing to what they diocese as serious shortcomings in the representations of research conducted and the direction of disentanglement of organizational studies. They claim that scholars of organizations have lost sight of an important part of the original agenda, as envisioned at Weber and reinforced by Parsons. It is always more merriment to be an aggrieved keeper of folly than to be an apologist for the status quo further Stern and Barley's message strikes me as non-nuanced, overstated, and either outdated or premature. Their essay contains about sense, but much nonsense, and to such a degree I am happy to be invited to comment

Stern and Barley assert that those of us conducting organizational research and building theory have pursu single a severely truncated portion of Weber's and Parsons' intellectual agenda. We are reminded that in his essay in the inaugural issue of the Administrative Science Quarterly, Parsons identified three strands of work, of which we have pursu merely two. We have heeded his call to subject of attention the goal attainment and implementation processe internal to organizations, and we have pursu his charge to examine organizations' adaptation to their environments, employing increasingly expanded conceptions of environmental range and content. But, we are told, we have seriously pass overed Parsons' call to examine "the part of organizations in the larger sociocultural system" (p 151) from failing to attend to the ways in which organizations are influenced through society and the ways in which society has been influenced - and transformed - through organizations. If true, this set forths a grave oversight and an unconscionable narrowing of the original mandate. however is it true?

What sorts of evidence do incorruptible and Barley offer in support of their case? First, they endow many examples of studies forward organizational effects performed in earlier times, if it were not that now, purportedly, no longer guarded They begin, however, with an redundant example: Whyte's (1956) "study" The Organization Man. Whyte as exemplar? The hint is not to William Foote Whyte justly famous sociologist, if it were not that to William H. Whyte, Jr journalist and contributing editor of Fortune. Study? The Organization Man is not the report of a cogitation but a typical journalistic tract piling together assorted statistics and illustrative anecdotes depicting the overweening constraining forces imposed by modern organizations upon their participants. While relevant issues were raised by means of this work, understanding was little advanced. certainly this is not the reflection from which to measure our fall; nor has this journalistic tradition stomached neglect. Contemporary hyperbolic journalists provide us with more than enough war stories and prescriptive homilies regarding the impact of organizations onward contemporary society and vice versa to fill an ever-expanding demand for airport reading.

Other examples? rigid and Barley lament the demise of studies so as Hunter's, detailing how organizational power translated into community power. still numerous examples of related and updated studies forward this topic exist (see Perrucci and trifle 1989). Researchers are still pursuing studies of for what cause and why schools acquire bureaucratic trappings, including the work of Meyer and numerous collaborators (eg Meyer and Scott 1983; Scott and Meyer 1994) inflexible and Barley remind us that Seeley investigated corporate support for the Community Chest. This interest in the organizational impact onward community philanthropy has not been heedlessnessed but has been pursued and substantially augmented by means of Galaskiewcz (1985), among others. Similarly, the tradition of research begun by means of Wirth on the economic vulnerability' of communities to corporate hurrys continues up to the not away in research by Friedland and Palmer (Friedland, 1983; Friedland and Palmer, 1984) In short, it is not difficult to cite examples of contemporary research that build usefully forward what Stern and Barley declare to be pay no regard toed foundations.

It would be easy to provide additional examples to calculator Stern and Barley's claim of traditions abandoned, on the other hand debate by example is not solitary tedious but, in the final analysis, fruitless, and worse, endles Instead, permit me shift from the specific to the general. The conclusions strict and Barley reach appear to stop primarily on a review of the peaces of the primary journals devot to organizations, of the like kind as the Administrative Science Quarterly, the Academy of Management Journal, the Academy of Management Review, Review, and Organization Science. If we were to agree to restrict attention to these journals then, I acknowledge, the evidence would support their negative case, for the lion's share of articles in these journals does concentrate attention onward organizational structures and processes and/or onward organizational adaptation. But is this surprising? I think not.

Academic fields are defined primarily onward the dependent variable. The core of the field of organization studies is circumscribed by way of discussions of characteristics of organizational forms, what transpires within their boundaries, and what factors influence their features, processe and life chances. The focus of organizational studies is, in short, organizations.(1) This does not mean, however, that other questions are not asked, questions like, to what extent do organizations affect the functioning of families or the nature of stratification processe or the behavior of educational, medical, or economic systems? Rather, it means that studies devot to like questions are more likely to appear either in other, broader sociological journals, like the American Journal of Sociology or the American Sociological Review, or to be published in more specialized journals devot to, respectively, educational, medical, or economic topics. There now exists a voluminous number of specialized journals and other publishing media reporting studies in each of these specific arenas of application. Rather than as a tale of betrayal and decline, I rather view the fresh history of organizational studies as undivided of substantial growth and, consequently increased differentiation in audiences and outlets(2)