MonographDOI
Realist social theory : the morphogenetic approach
TLDR
The Morphogenetic Cycle: the basis of the morphogenetic approach 7. Structural and cultural conditioning 8. The morphogenesis of agency 9. Social elaboration.Abstract:
Building on her seminal contribution to social theory in Culture and Agency, in this 1995 book Margaret Archer develops her morphogenetic approach, applying it to the problem of structure and agency. Since structure and agency constitute different levels of stratified social reality, each possesses distinctive emergent properties which are real and causally efficacious but irreducible to one another. The problem, therefore, is shown to be how to link the two rather than conflate them, as has been common theoretical practice. Realist Social Theory: The Morphogenetic Approach not only rejects methodological individualism and holism, but argues that the debate between them has been replaced by a new one, between elisionary theorising and emergentist theories based on a realist ontology of the social world. The morphogenetic approach is the sociological complement of transcendental realism, and together they provide a basis for non-conflationary theorizing which is also of direct utility to the practising social analyst.read more
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Book ChapterDOI
Doing which work? A practice approach to institutional pluralism
TL;DR: Glynn et al. as mentioned in this paper examined alternative approaches that organizations use to deal with institutional pluralism based on a longitudinal real-time case study of a utility company grappling with opposing market and regulatory logics over time.
Journal ArticleDOI
Case studies and generalization in information systems research: A critical realist perspective
TL;DR: It is shown that critical realism represents a very different view than either positivism or interpretivism, and that embracing critical realism would enable researchers to more fully explore the potential for case finding generalization.
Journal ArticleDOI
Identifying generative mechanisms through affordances: a framework for critical realist data analysis
TL;DR: It is argued that the critical realist approach offers a methodological tool for identifying generative mechanisms, helping the researcher in conducting a more precise data analysis in empirical research.
Water policy – Water politics: Social engineering and strategic action in water sector reform
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors map the "politics of water" as a field of research, and argue that unless a self-consciously political strategic action approach to institutional transformation is taken, the deadlock in water sector reform may continue for some time.
Journal ArticleDOI
Does work really cause distress? The contribution of occupational structure and work organization to the experience of psychological distress
TL;DR: The findings support the hypothesis that occupation and, to an even greater extent, "pathogenic" work organization conditions contribute independently to the experience of psychological distress and support the theoretical model conceptualizing psychological distress as the product of stress caused by constraints and resources brought to bear simultaneously by the agent's personality, structures of daily life, and macrosocial structures.