Change in organizations : a critique of the dominant assumptions of identity and determinacy

The instituted assumptions of identity and determinacy are elucidated regarding their implications for our understanding of the sources of constitution and change of social and organizational action. Built upon these assumptions, mainstream organizational research locates these sources in exogenous environmental forces and ascribes to the significative aspects of action and language a reflective-representational ontological status. We question these assumptions and their implications upon two premisses. First, that practical aspects of action and perceived environmental constraints lack any intrinsic meaning, since meaning is ascribed to them by the significative aspects of action and language, mainly by the instituted central imaginary significations of society or civilization. Second, that these latter lack any inherent determination of meaning, for they constitute magmas of meaning. An alternative approach is outlined upon these premisses.