Must I Grow a Pair of Balls to Theorize about Theory in Organization and Management Studies?

Abstract

This essay is a provocation to debate. I argue that work in organization and management studies addressing how to theorize and construct ‘good’ theory is inherently masculinized and embraces a limited pluralism that ignores alternative, reflexive and more human ways of theorizing. As I will illustrate, most of the articles on the topic of theorizing about theory are written by men, and espouse forms of theorizing that are based on a masculinized rationality that privileges abstraction, a logic of objectivity and proceduralization. And while journal editors espouse theoretical pluralism, we are often exhorted to develop ‘theoretical balls’ by conforming to limited definitions of theory that privilege particular ways of knowing and theorizing which are considered imperative to getting published. I argue that there are other equally compelling ways of ‘theorizing’ that focus on who we are as human beings and how we experience self, life and work. I begin with a critique of the literature on theorizing theory, moving on to argue that this currently limits theorizing more humanly and imaginatively, due to ontological blindness, epistemological defensiveness, hegemonic masculinity and myopic self-referentiality. Finally, I offer alternative ways of theorizing and interpreting theory from a more human and reflexive perspective.