The merger has made outstanding contributions to the development of administrative theory, especially to the effective communication between administrative personnel and the public and the improvement of administrative practice.
Keywords positivism/explanatory perspective/critical perspective
main body
At present, the theoretical orientation of administrative management is shifting from functionalism and institutionalism to knowledge perspective, critical perspective and post-modern perspective. In fact, no theoretical method has been supported by most people in the administrative and practical circles. In Thomas Kuhn's view, today's administrative field just lacks a code that most people in our discipline agree with and support [this article comes from the secretary 1 14-www, Wenmi 1 14.com, please go to the secretary1/kloc-4.
In the fields of administration and business administration, scholars often use the word "paradigm", perhaps as a way to attract people's attention, which often appears in the titles of various monographs and articles. However, due to the lack of creativity, the model architecture revealed by many scholars is often disappointing. This paradigm is usually a repackaging of some old ideas, coupled with traditional structure-functionalism, open system theory (or new system theory), so it only focuses on a deterministic explanation of human behavior and organizational phenomena. The cognitive power of this paradigm is essentially an empirical inquiry method, aiming at objectifying people's organizational experience, thus confirming the work performance of bureaucracy. It should be pointed out that this article never implies that the introduction of reorganization ideas and experience information is unnecessary. On the contrary, this kind of work is important as long as it can clearly divide the meanings in social situations and improve human communication, management activities and public welfare.
Although there is a split state of theoretical perspective, it can be said that macro-or meso-oriented institutional methods and functional methods in the study of public policies and administrative phenomena still occupy a dominant position, because their scope and methods can be accepted by administrative scholars and practitioners. In fact, positivism and management orientation are obvious in the research and writing of administrative management. Furthermore, this mode of thinking is inseparable from the tradition in mainstream administration, and its theoretical orientation is to give some empirical explanation or set some principles for human behavior in order to seek organizational order, efficiency, performance, rationality and objective professional responsibility.
This introductory article aims to discuss the significance of explanation and criticism methods in the study of administrative management and organizational theory. Explaining the visual dimension is an optional method to understand the components of complex phenomena in administrative management. Critical theory is the continuation or extension of many explanatory traditions, such as phenomenology, hermeneutics, symbolic interaction theory and psychoanalysis. Although interpretive approach enjoys great knowledge influence in interdisciplinary social sciences, only some liberal theorists use interpretive approach method to explore the subjectivity of democratic administration and the essence of subjectivity interaction. The popularity of functionalism and positivism methods or paradigms in the whole 20th century may be largely due to the powerful influence of bureaucracy and its demand in the public.
According to GibsonBurrell and GarethMorgan, the method of interpretation is an independent model when fighting against the functionalist model. However, the explanation method is not a clear model, that is, it does not have a set of frameworks and assumptions to explain and predict social phenomena. On the contrary, the explanation of visual dimension is only some concepts and methods, which implies the explanation of organizational analysis at all levels.
First, the need for interpretation.
Administrative scholars urgently need a cognitive basis, from which they can put forward new views on the essence of administrative management, so that they can not only think about political, economic and instrumental things that people are concerned about, but also think about social phenomena from the humanistic and cultural levels. When a cognitive theory of positivism is criticized, people always refute the assumptions contained in its basic theory (such as bureaucracy, contingency or system theory in functionalism theory). Criticizing a theory from a selective perspective (including post-modernism perspective) is itself a theoretical construction process. This important assumption is that the process of human understanding and action cannot be simply reduced to scientific (or empirical) inquiry. In addition, in order to properly put the functionalism theory in a broader scope of administrative culture, we must seek a general theory that human beings understand and compare it with generally accepted or classical theories from almost every point.
The German philosopher wilhelm dilthey (1833-1911) once introduced a new method to study society and culture. He emphasized that there is a fundamental difference between natural science and humanities and social sciences in terms of the methodology used by scholars to explore social phenomena. Natural scientists use universal laws to try to clarify a phenomenon; On the other hand, scholars in humanities and social sciences try to understand a phenomenon through some experience and according to the research purpose. In this way, Dilcey brought the theory of interpretation into the "philosophical field of historical knowledge and humanities", in which the method of explaining human activities is basically psychological or intuitive.
Edmund Husserl
L, 1859- 1938) Criticizing natural science (or empirical science in social science) is "naive objectivism" (or realism) to treat social reality. In particular, he holds a negative attitude towards "naturalism" (empiricism or positivism) trying to establish truth in philosophical exploration. Husserl emphasized the importance of understanding the "life world"; Emphasize the importance of understanding the ordinary world and gaining experience through observation and experience. This living world is alive.
Husserl described it as a world full of secular noise, and endowed it with such connotation: things, expectations, emotions and ideas that we human beings are experiencing change. This earthly and life world exists before all internal introspection, and we must understand that this earthly world gives meaning to all other possible experience worlds that occur in it.
Dilcey and Husserl, as philosophers of hermeneutics and phenomenology, have exerted great influence on further promoting the development of hermeneutics. Other western thinkers, such as Heidegger, Sartre, Melo-Ponty, George Meade and Steven Taylor, emphasize criticizing the presupposition of natural science inquiry and advocate developing new methods to understand history, culture, language, tradition and human phenomena. However, in recent years, some postmodern thinkers, such as Rorty and Derrida, have criticized the defects in interpretation practice. Interpretation has become a unique method, especially its close connection with administrative management, because it holds a constructivist position on social phenomena. This constructivist position emphasizes the possibility that dialectics exists in the form of indeterminism (non-causality), and in this way, through the mutual sharing of ideas and experiences held by participants, the goals, plans and programs are regarded as legitimizing the same action.
Interpretation provides a series of concepts and assumptions to help us understand social and administrative phenomena. Now, these interrelated concepts can be listed as follows:
First, the interpretation dimension, especially the interpretation dimension of architecture based on phenomenology, seeks to understand and explain social reality through the perspective of participants in social situations. In the field of individual consciousness and subjectivity, the horizon of interpretation seeks explanation by referring to the framework of participants rather than observers. Explanatory vision regards social reality as a sudden social process triggered by people with their own interests in society. Human beings are the creators of social reality, and the significance of social phenomena is established through social communication. Through social interaction and sharing ideas, an activity of correcting (compromising) meaning has emerged.
Second, understanding social reality begins with successful and effective explanation activities. As David silverman pointed out: "The task of interpretation lies in understanding the interpreted, and the creation of interpretation lies in providing understanding to the interpreted." For example, when investigating administrative communication, phenomenological (or hermeneutic) interpretation will focus on the activities of explaining communication content, so as to understand and draw the significance of communication experience between communicators. Therefore, from the perspective of the relationship between the interpreter and the content (or information), meaning may be explored and described. At this level, explanation is a qualitative description. As can be seen from this connection, meaning is created.
Third, because individuals exist not only for themselves, but also for others' * * *, it is necessary to understand the interaction between the subjects of various organizations and the * * * of the same body, even if there are conflicts between people. For example, in the workplace, people not only have personal interests, but also communicate with others. Shu Ci describes people's social interaction as "our relationship", that is, two people are aware of each other, understand each other and share experiences in face-to-face contact. Through mutual reflection and dialogue among the subjects, we can reach a consensus on the meaning of a certain situation. To realize the mutual influence between subjects, "our relationship" must be an interactive social process: two people must contact, expand and enrich their understanding. In an organization, mutual understanding among subjects makes it possible for members of the organization to participate in collective activities.
Fourthly, explanatory theorists believe that functionalism ignores the theoretical premise and limitations of positivism and empiricism. The fundamental mistake of functionalism lies in its assumptions about people and actions. Functionalism assumes that people are passive objects and are subject to environmental factors such as organization, economy, politics and society. Explanatory theorists define people as active, purposeful and creative subjects. The reason why people make their behavior conform to the organizational and external requirements such as laws or professional rules is because it is an obligation that anyone who works for government organizations can't escape and must fulfill. However, for administrators and managers, members of the organization should be forced to act in a certain way, and people should obey and cooperate. Individual members engaged in practical activities must understand the legitimate reasons required by these norms. If members believe that in order to treat all parties equally, they must abide by unified rules and regulations, then from their own point of view, their own actions can be proved absolutely justified. Therefore, the reasons for belief and action are inevitably related to the actors' interpretation of obligations and their voluntary belief in organizational norms and goals. In this way, the organizational obligation without considering the individual's interpretation of the specification requirements will only become a specific organizational need. As Max Weber pointed out: "Action includes all human behaviors when the actor gives subjective meaning to the action and to this extent."
Fifth, because people's values are extremely complex, often homeless, irrational and generally not specific, we must understand people's actions in an indeterministic (non-causal) way, that is, we must understand them from the perspective of the subject. Understanding is not determined by theory, but obtained by transplanting the subject by researchers. The main research methods are to explain human expressions, emotions, conversations, artifacts and symbols.
As the explanatory and qualitative researchers can see, the humanities focuses on the study of people's experience in the daily world, and it is in this daily world that the dynamic administrative process can be produced. Human order can only be established and rebuilt through action and interaction, so the main task of researchers is to study this flowing human world by listening, observing and explaining the significance of subjective experience. Functionalism and positivism, as the basis of mainstream administration, aim to explain and predict social phenomena by acquiring obvious knowledge instead of qualitative, implicit and tacit knowledge.
Because all kinds of organizational problems are deeply rooted in history and administrative organizational culture, it is necessary to use such a method: it helps us pay attention to the fundamental problems that people find under the conditions of social content. In fact, interpretation and criticism methods are less concerned with acquiring or verifying empirical knowledge, but more concerned with understanding various meanings. Qualitative research methods, such as on-the-spot observation and interview analysis, aim to learn from social content involving human actions, symbols, communication, experience, values, emotions, history, traditions, culture and language. In order to understand a social situation, researchers must use some unpretentious methods to collect information, so that they can learn from the theme and critically reflect on the research ideas and procedures. The combination of theory and practice in qualitative and explanatory research methods is not a deterministic process of positivism and empiricism, but an open process that can constantly interact with the subject and social environment and learn through social practice.
In a word, the explanation method aims to seek * * * hypothesis (though it is usually unclear) to understand why events happen like this and how people will act in different situations. Melo-Ponty pointed out: "Understanding always constructs, establishes and leads to the synthesis of objects here and now. When we analyze a person's body and feelings, we actually reveal a deeper relationship between us and the object than this process. " For hermeneutics, understanding social reality from a subjective point of view is the basis of all human activities, and social life and collective action can be realized in this way.
Second, the necessity of critical reflection.
In the historical process of modern administration, there is an amazing theoretical concept that lasts for a long time, and that is rationalism. Between administrative management and organizational theory, rationalism is widely discussed in institutional activities and human activities. Of course, there are also some scholars, such as Nietzsche and today's postmodernists, who appear as anti-rationality. Anti-rationalists have undertaken the task of anti-tradition, but they have not successfully overcome the theoretical mistakes that irrationalism is easy to make. Anti-rationalists are not interested in constructivism, but focus on complex and fragmented problems. In this way, it is impossible to provide meaningful suggestions on dealing with basic organizational issues such as social order, efficiency, output capacity, communication, organizational change and problem solving. Although postmodernists appear in an anti-traditional way and oppose rationalism, their main concern is the content decomposition and interpretation in the process of interpretation.
On the contrary, critical theory mainly focuses on the interdisciplinary dialogue among functionalism, institutionalism and constructivism, and provides reports for management activities. Critical theory has become an important knowledge force to criticize mainstream social theory, and the reason for criticizing visual dimension is obviously supported by post-constructivism and post-modern social theory. As Chelner implied, in the field of sociology, critical theory (including the original Frankfurt School) and post-modern social theory have brought multidisciplinary research orientation to administrative management theory, and introduced research perspectives from philosophy, sociology, political theory, psychology, cultural theory, political economy and history. Critical theory (not without controversy) criticizes the theories and methods of mainstream administration; Critical theory provides a new theoretical choice for reforming the current system, and promotes administrative personnel to take democratic actions on the basis of collective understanding, which is a powerful driving force for reform.
Although critical theory has not been fully developed, many theorists, such as Adenauer, Hawke Harmo, Habermas, Jay and Schloyer, insist on ideas that are directly related to understanding the problems in administrative management. Building administration based on critical theory tries to influence the fundamental institutional change, and advocates the critical synthesis of institutional issues and human values, subject and object, empirical analysis science and interpretation (historical interpretation) science, value neutrality position and value involvement position, and positive and negative aspects of human nature. Critical theory opposes the essential difference between subject and object or between researcher and research object.
Critical theory holds a value critical attitude towards administrative management research. For example, because the choice or design of a theoretical framework and the analysis of factual knowledge are both influenced by researchers' personal values, and ultimately make social reality objective, it is necessary to explain the limitations of theoretical (or hypothetical) experiments and empirical data obtained through objective research, and critically re-test the value neutrality of hypotheses (as Weber pointed out). Therefore, explaining and criticizing the visual dimension has made great contributions to the selective study of administrative issues.
Another important aspect of critical theory is to recognize the advantages and limitations of many explanatory dimensions and critically integrate them into a broader explanatory framework. In this respect, critical theory provides an explanation method for administrative management. The critical administrative management theory abandons the inhuman rule of the system on people and the habitual behavior of administrative personnel, and understands and explains the existing behaviors and actions according to how behaviors conform to ethics and how behaviors are responsible. Through the interaction between the old and new interpretation schemes and the integration into a dialectical process, changes can be made.
If people want to openly face critical analysis from different theoretical perspectives and selectively change their systems and actions, then they must reflect on themselves. Self-reflection is to use self-consciousness to ignite the light of reason and illuminate the internalized hypothesis on which personal knowledge is based, so as to construct personal social knowledge about social order and legal behavior consciousness and form the basis of understanding and action. MichaelHarmon described self-reflection as "a process in which people monitor the flow of their inner life in order to clearly understand the connection between conscious and purposeful actions and the inconspicuous deep psychological thoughts reflected in those actions". Harmon emphasized that managers must individualize their responsibilities again through self-reflection and obligations to others. Self-reflection means that administrators actively "create" their roles and tasks instead of passively "obtaining" or "accepting" their responsibilities.
The world of organizational management that we know and embody in action, as we clearly realize, is a world of organizational management with subjectivity and mutual subjectivity, and its ultimate ontology is not rooted in nature, but the historical accumulation of individual consciousness activities. It is a field that subjectively shares the world and daily life with each other. In this way, in this world, self-reflection embodies rationality, provides a method for theoretically understanding the relationship between self and social reality, and is a humanitarian means to understand the mysterious nature, self, reality, significance and order of consciousness. Self-reflection is just a kind of practice given to human beings. It is a radical internal rational activity oriented to the ideological basis and social order presupposition. A self-reflective person focuses on the basis of this judgment in order to consciously adhere to his own idea through faith, or to change it to make it more suitable for human needs.
Three. Issues related to administration.
There are some problems in explaining and criticizing this theory and applying its theoretical concepts and methods: first, the non-universality of terms; Second, the customary (non-critical) method to treat administrative phenomena; 3. Difficulties in combining theory with practice.
The first difficulty, that is, the non-universality of terms in these two theories, is the reason why scholars often completely confuse the theoretical vocabulary and abstract metaphor used. Most scholars are not familiar with the literature that explains the theory, nor with some introduced languages. In order to try to criticize the theoretical hypothesis of a certain theory and the practice of social administration, it is necessary to use professional terms or create new metaphors. Its purpose is to get rid of the deadlock characteristics of the current administrative management theory. The main task of radical and liberal theorists is not to convince people of the shortcomings (or weaknesses) of theoretical assumptions, but to prove the concept of selectivity through debate in order to stimulate intellectual exchange. Therefore, separatist academic efforts will continue.
Another difficulty comes from the habitual thinking mode formed by people's non-critical attitude towards well-known theoretical assumptions and activities. Most administrative scholars and practitioners are used to working under the theoretical framework of paying attention to the system, function, economy and politics of administrative management, but most of these scholars and practitioners are not interested in or concerned about cognitive selection methods that do not conform to the familiar framework. For example, when I assign problem-solving tasks to my graduate students or practitioners of semester training groups, such as designing a new organization, they often start with applying the basic elements of formal organizations, such as describing the hierarchical structure, outlining the authoritative model, and describing the functions and responsibilities of newly hired personnel. Usually, some people pay attention to the problems related to traditional organizational methods and insist on exploring the broader positioning and assumptions of organizational activities from the aspects of humanitarianism, learning, change, cultural diversity and sustainable development.
Finally, for many people, the utility of theoretical concepts lies in that they are related to practical considerations of administrators, such as improving efficiency, performance and productivity. Most administrative researchers are concerned with obtaining factual information through deductive theory and explaining the reality of administrative management through the assumption of administrative situation; In the research of positivism, a unique theoretical perspective is adopted to explain and predict the phenomenon of administrative management. Most interpretive approach is usually qualitative; Describing and providing the results of qualitative research is not very convincing for most empirical administrative scholars.
Despite the above limitations, any new theoretical dimension as an anti-mainstream force deserves the attention of administrative scholars. At first, the cause of administrative management was to rationally manage government functions. However, the scope of administration today is much larger than what government organizations do and how to do it. From this field, it is absolutely necessary to look at it from a wide range of contents-human beings, the same body, society and the world. In this sense, today's administration is different from the previous days.
If we, as managers, want to understand complex relationships, take the role of advocacy, and work with people inside and outside the community, then we must go beyond those obvious facts. Critically speaking, many traditional and narrow methods in administrative management lack rational essence. The author does not imply that there are no effective and reasonable results in the research of efficiency, productivity, quantitative policy research, performance evaluation and explanation of human behavior. This paper tends to think that responsible administrative scholars should be rational and curious, have a critical sense of urgency for some trivial concepts and knowledge, and devote their energy to diligently exploring the selective dimension.
Four. conclusion
Modern administration, to a great extent, as reflected in bureaucratic management, is determined by the application of a series of rules and regulations in decision-making and problem solving. The management process always flows from the organizational level to the individual level. In order to understand the key points of explaining and criticizing theories in administrative management, an administrative researcher needs to classify his or her rational dimension at least temporarily, and should try to understand social (or administrative) reality from the perspective of human dimension (human activities or practices). It is necessary for scholars who study administrative management to regard management process and social interaction as the flow from individual level to organizational level. Without a full understanding of social reality, it is impossible to establish a meaningful balance (based on critical synthesis) between management (from the upper level) and social interaction (from the lower level).
Through reasonable communication, explanation and critical analysis between organizations and members of the same institution, it can be implemented meaningfully and strictly in administrative management. Therefore, it is necessary to implant a critical attitude in administrative thinking, not only to critically examine the cognitive assumptions used to generate administrative knowledge, but also to understand the preset basis of administrative order in which the administrative system structure can be formed. The remarkable function of explanation and critical research is to help people see and understand the administrative reality reflected by the incomplete information and behavior of administrative managers more clearly. Interpretation horizon tries to reveal the problem level of administrative presupposition and touch on the knowledge base and practice of administrative management. Here, practice always makes the program no longer sufficient as a prerequisite for solving problems.