Speech Genres and Other Late Essays

Rules and Representations

This article builds on constructs that authors have labelled strategic ambiguity, interpretative viability, umbrella constructs, and boundary objects, and suggests that these constructs all articulate a central concern for collective action and the role of ambiguity therein. It characterizes as pragmatic ambiguity the condition of admitting more than one course of action, and elucidates and operationalizes this new construct. Drawing on the sociology of translation (Callon, 1986; Latour, 1987),[1] it argues that pragmatic ambiguity is both the result and the resource of a collective process of interessement occurring during the rise in popularity of a new management approach.

Following Benders and van Veen (2001), the article posits that pragmatic ambiguity increases during the rise of a management fashion. It provides empirical evidence in support of this claim by means of a longitudinal analysis of quality management (QM) concepts as articulated by several authors both before and during the Quality Movement of the 1980s and 1990s. The analyses of QM texts show that concepts became vaguer, more ambiguous, and more general as the Quality Movement gained momentum, suggesting the presence of a positive feedback loop between pragmatic ambiguity and popularity. In addition, the data illustrate how pragmatic ambiguity was achieved and sustained textually, and how it was supported by a variety of social, linguistic and rhetorical factors.

'It was such a handy term': Management fashions and pragmatic ambiguity

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Introduction: Restoring Life to Its Original Difficulty Part One: Repetition and the Genesis of Hermeneutics CHAPTER I. Repetition and Kinesis: Kierkegaard on the Foundering of Metaphysics CHAPTER II. Repetition and Constitution: HusserlOs Proto-Hermeneutics CHAPTER III. Retrieval and the Circular Being of Dasein: Hermeneutics in Being and Time Part Two: Deconstruction and the Radicalization of Hermeneutics CHAPTER IV. Hermeneutics after Being and Time CHAPTER V. Repetition and the Emancipation of Signs: Derrida on Husserl CHAPTER VI. Hermes and the Dispatches from Being: Derrida on Heidegger CHAPTER VII. Cold Hermeneutics: Heidegger/Derrida Part Three: The Hermenuatic Project CHAPTER VIII. Toward a Postmetaphysical Rationality CHAPTER IX. Toward an Ethics of Dissemination CHAPTER X. Openess to the Mystery List of Abbreviations Notes Index

Eradication/Reification: Or, What's so Radical about Radical Hermeneutics?@@@Radical Hermeneutics: Repetition, Deconstruction, and the Hermeneutic Project

Foreword - Frederick Turner Chaos and Social Science Preface PART ONE: EMERGING NEW DIRECTIONS: MYTHS AND THEORIES The Myth of Postmodern Science - Bob Price From Enlightenment to Chaos - Mary E Lee Toward Nonmodern Social Theory The Persistence of 'Emergence' - Kevin Mihata Chaos and Complexity - Kurt W Back Necessary Myths Nonlinear Dynamics and the Micro-Macro Bridge - Thomas S Smith Nonlinear Dynamics, Complexity and Public Policy - Euel Elliot and L Douglas Kiel Use, Misuse and Applicability Self-Organization of the Economy - Helmut Michael Staubmann A System-Theoretical Reconsideration of Georg Simmel's Philosophy of Money The Omicron Point Sociological Application of the Anthropic Theory - William Sims Bainbridge The Origins of Order and Disorder in Physical and Social Deterministic Systems - Alvin M Saperstein PART TWO: PRELIMINARY THINKING ABOUT METHODS Webs of Chaos - William F Stroup II Implications for Research Designs Chaos and Social Reality - R J Bird An Emergent Perspective Chaos and Pattern in Complex Systems - Ben Goertzel PART THREE: CONCEPTUAL MODELS AND APPLICATIONS Dynamics of Children's Friendships - Lutz-Michael Alisch, Shahram Azizighanbari and Martin Bargfeldt Short-Term Changes in the Domestic Division of Labor - Sara Horsfall and Elizabeth Maret Intimations of Complexity Biological Foundations of Social Interaction - Thomas S Smith and Gregory T Stevens Explorations of Nonlinear Dynamics in Arousal-Modulation Collective Behavior Following Disasters - Eve Passerini and David Bahr A Cellular Automation Model Organizations and Constraint-Based Adaptation - Kakthleen M Carley Chaotic Behavior in Society - Kevin Dooley et al Adolescent Childbearing in Texas 1964-1990 So Where Are We Now? A Final Word - Raymond A Eve

Chaos, Complexity and Sociology: Myths, Models and Theories@@@Chaos and Intoxication

The thesis is an attempt to apply complex systems thinking to the problem of meaning. It is in two parts. Part 1, Chapter 1 introduces the research agenda and overviews the thesis. Chapter 2 establishes the value of adopting a systems approach to the problem of meaning. The next chapter introduces key concepts of complex systems theory as they apply to sociocultural phenomena, and the last chapter in Part 1 reviews three theories of complex meaning systems (Donald Campbell, Jay Lemke, and Paul Cilliers) from which a preliminary model and agenda for theorising complex meaning systems is proposed. Part 2 of the thesis investigates the phenomena of management fads, applying the models of complex meaning systems formulated in Part 1. No primary empirical work is attempted; rather an analytical engagement is conducted using secondary literature on what we know about such fads. The literature, both primary and secondary, is reviewed and critiqued. The final chapters exemplify the problem of meaning using the theory building and agenda setting from Part 1. The concluding chapter reflects on the adequacy of a complex systems approach to meaning, critiques the process of the thesis and comments upon its contribution.

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Wendy Lea Corfield

Papers

Conceptualizing complex meaning systems : the case of management fads