Organizational de-structuring? Latour's potential contribution to the critical realist – pragmatist dispute. Issue 3 (27th May 2022)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Kemp, Stephen
• Is Part Of: Journal of critical realism. Volume 21:Issue 3(2022)
• Page Start: 309
• Page End: 330
• Publication Date: 2022-05-27
• Subjects: Critical realism -- Elder-Vass -- Latour -- organization -- pragmatism -- structure; Critical realism -- Periodicals; Réalisme critique; 149.205
• DOI: 10.1080/14767430.2022.2049090
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1476-7430

Abstract

ABSTRACT: This article explores a key difference that Elder-Vass has identified between critical realism and pragmatism: their divergent views on the viability of the concept of social structure. Noting that this is also a point of dispute between critical realists and Actor-Network Theorists, I try to contribute to the debate about social structure by focusing on the question of whether organizations are structures, drawing on the views of a pragmatist-leaning ANT - Bruno Latour - to evaluate those of a critical realist - Dave Elder-Vass. I suggest that Latour's arguments can be used to identify two challenges for Elder-Vass's approach, questioning both whether an organization has a singular structural form and whether organizations have determinable powers and impacts. I then consider whether Latour's approach is vulnerable to critical realist arguments that perspectives which deny the existence of social structure cannot account for long-term stabilities, fail to connect different cases, and are individualistic in character.