Realist social theory : the morphogenetic approach
TL;DR: 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Approach not only rejects methodological individualism and holism, but argues that the debate between them has been replaced by a new one, between elisionary theorising and emergentist theories based on a realist ontology of the social world.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.
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TL;DR: In this article, the relationship between culture and welfare state policies is analysed in a comparative perspective. But the way in which cultural differences also contribute to the explanation is often ignored, or at least treated as a more marginal issue.
Abstract: In comparative welfare state analyses, cross-national differences have often been explained both by the specific profiles of welfare state institutions and the constellations of social actors. However, the way in which cultural differences also contribute to the explanation is often ignored, or at least treated as a more marginal issue. The aim of this article is to reflect on the relationship between culture and welfare state policies, and consider how it might be analysed in a comparative perspective. A theoretical framework for analysis is introduced in which the relationship of culture and welfare state policies is conceptualised as a complex, multi-level relationship which is embedded in the specific context of a particular society and can develop in contradictory ways.
433 citations
Journal Article•
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors evaluate the impact of telecollaborative language study on the development of foreign language (FL) linguistic competence and the facilitation of intercultural competence (e.g., Bausch, Christ, & Krumm, 1997; Bredella & Delanoy, 1999; Byram, 1997, Harden & Witte, 2000).
Abstract: It is widely reported (e.g., Belz & Muller-Hartmann, 2002; Kern, 1996; Kinginger, in press; Warschauer & Kern, 2000) that the goals of telecollaborative language study are the development of foreign language (FL) linguistic competence and the facilitation of intercultural competence (e.g., Bausch, Christ, & Krumm, 1997; Bredella & Delanoy, 1999; Byram, 1997; Harden & Witte, 2000). Whereas evaluations of the impact of telecollaboration on FL linguistic competence have been based on structural descriptions of learner discourse from the earliest days of research in this field (e.g., Beauvois, 1992; Chun, 1994; Kelm, 1992; Kern, 1995; Pelletieri, 2000; Sotillo, 2000; Warschauer, 1996), discussions of intercultural competence in the same configuration have been characterized primarily in alinguistic terms. These have included analyst-sensitive content analyses of learner interaction in telecollaboration, post-semester interviews with learners who have participated in telecollaborative projects, and attitudinal surveys of these same learners (e.g., Fischer, 1998; Furstenberg, Levet, English, & Maillet, 2001; Lomicka, 2001; Muller-Hartmann, 1999; von der Emde, Schneider, & Kotter, 2001; Warschauer, 1998; see, however, Belz, 2001; Belz & Muller-Hartmann, 2003). In general, the fields of foreign language learning and teaching (FLLT Martin, 2000; White, 1998), a Hallidayian-inspired linguistic approach to the investigation of evaluative language. The quality of conversation may well be one of the most significant measures of civilization, and when people converse, the interlocutors inevitably realize that civilizations do not clash, contrary to some academic reductionists, the media, and politicians... (Kadir, 2003, p. 9; emphasis added)
423 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors examined the effectiveness as a professional development mechanism of the imposition of changes to policy and/or practice that require modification or renovation of professionalism, and the pitfalls associated with mechanisms for modifying professionalism through a reform and standards agenda.
Abstract: What purpose is served by renovation or redesign of professionalism, and how successful a process is it likely to be? This article addresses these questions by examining the effectiveness as a professional development mechanism of the imposition of changes to policy and/or practice that require modification or renovation of professionalism. The ‘new’ professionalisms purported to have been fashioned over the last two or three decades across the spectrum of UK education sectors and contexts have been the subject of extensive analysis, and this article avoids going over old ground and revisiting issues that have already been much debated. Nevertheless, the example of UK government education policy during this period is used as a basis for considering the pitfalls associated with mechanisms for modifying professionalism through a reform and standards agenda. The article's analysis incorporates re-definition and examination of the concept and substance of professionalism and offers new perspectives ...
420 citations
Cites background from "Realist social theory : the morphog..."
...Professionalism thus has as much chance of influencing professionality as professionality has of influencing professionalism, in the same way that a critical realist interpretation explains the interaction between structure and agency in defining culture ( Archer, 1995 )....
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TL;DR: A new theory of technology-mediated organizational change is proposed that explains the process of change as a three-stage cycle in which the ostensive, performative, and material aspects of organizational elements interact differently in each stage.
Abstract: While various theories have been proposed to explain how technology leads to organizational change, in general they have focused either on the technology and ignored the influence of human agency, or on social interaction and ignored the technology. In this paper, we propose a new theory of technology-mediated organizational change that bridges these two extremes. Using grounded theory methodology, we conducted a three-year study of an enterprise system implementation. From the data collected, we identified embeddedness as central to the process of change. When embedded in technology, organizational elements such as routines and roles acquire a material aspect, in addition to the ostensive and performative aspects identified by Feldman and Pentland (2003). Our new theory employs the lens of critical realism because in our view, common constructivist perspectives such as structuration theory or actor network theory have limited our understanding of technology as a mediator of organizational change. Using a critical realist perspective, our theory explains the process of change as a three-stage cycle in which the ostensive, performative, and material aspects of organizational elements interact differently in each stage.
417 citations
TL;DR: This paper argues that affordances are the generative mechanisms the authors need to specify and explain how affordance are a specific type of generative mechanism, and uses the core principles of critical realism to argue how affordances arise in the real domain from the relation between the complex assemblages of organizations and of IT artifacts.
Abstract: Convincing arguments for using critical realism as an underpinning for theories of IT-associated organizational change have appeared in the Information Systems literature A central task in developing such theories is to uncover the generative mechanisms by which IT is implicated in organizational change processes, but to do so, we must explain how critical realism's concept of generative mechanisms applies in an IS context Similarly, convincing arguments have been made for using Gibson's (1986) affordance theory from ecological psychology for developing theories of IT-associated organizational change, but this effort has been hampered due to insufficient attention to the ontological status of affordances In this paper, we argue that affordances are the generative mechanisms we need to specify and explain how affordances are a specific type of generative mechanism We use the core principles of critical realism to argue how affordances arise in the real domain from the relation between the complex assemblages of organizations and of IT artifacts, how affordances are actualized over time by organizational actors, and how these actualizations lead to the various effects we observe in the empirical domain After presenting these arguments, we reanalyze two published cases in the literature, those of ACRO and Autoworks, to illustrate how affordance-based theories informed by critical realism enhance our ability to explain IT-associated organizational change These examples show how researchers using this approach should proceed, and how managers can use these ideas to diagnose and address IT implementation problems
412 citations