Organization Theory as Ideology

Abstract

Experience is mysterious, for it is not entirely clear how we come to understand what we do and what is happening to us (cf. Laing 1967, p. 17). This article argues, therefore, that the placing of meaning upon experience is an act of enormous importance. As it continues, the argument recognizes the interpretation of human experience as the bedrock upon which human life is built and upon which organization theory should stand. Organization theory, however, usually ignores such mysteries in human life, and it does so at the cost of impoverishing its own insight into people's lives and social reality. In the name of comprehensiveness and simplicity, theory usually oversimplifies the variety and complexity of human experience within organizations. In a fundamental sense, organization is experience. The quality of experience within organizations, of course, varies greatly from person to person, from time to time, and from place to place. The gaps between levels or kinds of experience constitute what we recognize as structure in organization. Any links or transitions across these gaps will have more to do with the forces that govern the outcome of a dice throw than with those that apparently determine at what time the sun will rise tomorrow.1

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