Thinking Driven by Doubt and Passion

Thinking Driven by Doubt and Passion:

Kierkegaard and Reflexivity in Organisation
Studies
Alexander Styhre

Organisation studies based on qualitative methodologies continually seek legitimacy in relation to

positivist research formulating nomological knowledge on administrative practices. One of the key
features regularly praised in qualitative research is the idea of reflexivity, the ability of the qualitative
researcher to critically examine his or her own analysis. This paper argues that the notion of reflexivity is
an uncontested area of qualitative organisation research which merits critical study. In contrast to the
reflexivity model which assumes an autopoietic double hermeneutic of the examined empirical material,
it draws on Kierkegaard’s notion of subjective thinking. For Kierkegaard it is not reflexivity that serves as
the primus motor for subjective thinking but doubt, paradox and passion. A critique of the notion of
reflexivity opens up alternative accounts of qualitative research which need not assume self-correcting and
self-directed analysis.

How can one learn the truth from thinking? As one learns to see a face better if one draws it.
Ludwig Wittgenstein1

The interpretative tradition within organisation studies has emerged as an antithesis to the positivist
tradition of research. In an early critique of positivism, Wilhelm Dilthey wrote: ‘Comte’s view
regards the study of the human mind as dependent on the science of biology and sees whatever
uniformities one can observe in the succession of intellectual states as the outcome of uniformities
in the body’s states’.2 Comtean positivism, envisaged by Comte as a ‘social physics’,3 has always been
modelled on the ‘hard sciences’. While positivist research favours the use of statistical methods,
rigorous and replicable research design, predictability and so forth, interpretative research
emphasises more detailed accounts of local, contextual, community-based practices.4 As a result of
this the notion of reflection and reflexivity is also emphasised.5 This implies that the qualitative,
interpretative researcher is expected to reflect upon his or her relationship with the researched object
as well as that with the scientific community. The idea of reflexivity thus appears as one of the
major virtues of qualitative, interpretative research. It is however by no means an uncomplicated or
uncontested concept.6 Used on a regular basis in qualitative research papers, and cited as a primary
capacity of the researcher, it remains elusive and not explicitly defined. Castoriadis offered one
insight when he wrote:

Almost all societies we know have instituted themselves in and through the closure of meaning. They
are heterogeneous; they cannot put into question their own institutions and they produce conformal
and heteronymous individuals for whom putting into question of the existing law is not just forbidden
but mentally inconceivable. These individuals are ‘conscious’ but not self-reflective subjectivities.7

This suggests a qualitative difference between ‘consciousness’ and ‘self-reflexivity.’ Being conscious
is being aware of the mechanisms of the social setting while being reflexive is being able to examine
such mechanisms critically. Reflexivity is thus of a higher order than consciousness.
1
Wittgenstein L (1967) Zettel Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press p 48
2
Dilthey Wilhelm (1983/1988) Introduction to the human sciences: An attempt to lay a foundation for the study
of society and history Detroit: Wayne State University Press p 139
3
Comte, Auguste (1975) Auguste Comte and positivism: Essential writings (ed) Gertrud Lenzer, New York:
Harper Torchbooks p 77
4
Alvesson M & Sköldberg K (2000) Reflexive methodology Thousand Oaks, London & New Delhi: Sage;
Denzin N K & Lincoln Y S (1994) Handbook of Qualitative Research London, Sage
5
Holland R (1999) Reflexivity Human Relations 52(4) 463-484
6
Pels, Dick (2000) Reflexivity: One step up Theory, Culture & Society 17(3): 1-25; Lynch M (2000) Against
reflexivity as an academic virtue and source of privileged knowledge Theory, Culture & Society 17(3) 26-54
7
Castoriadis C (1997) The Castoriadis reader Oxford: Blackwell

Philosophy of Management Volume 4 Number 2 2004 9

Alexander Styhre

This paper criticises the widely-accepted view of reflexivity in interpretative organisation theory. It
argues that reflexivity is a ‘black box’ claimed to enable self-critical assessment of the analysis of the
empirical material used in interpretative organisation research. Reflexivity is thus depicted as a
residual intellectual capacity safeguarding a proper and fair analysis of organisational activities. In
much qualitative, interpretativist research reflection appear as a deus ex machina that appears in the
end of the analysis, gathering all the loose threads and enabling adequate verification of the
findings. Rather than accepting the view that reflexivity is a higher cognitive capability that ‘clicks
in’ in the later phases of analysis to verify empirical findings, this paper relates reflexivity to what
Kierkegaard calls subjective thinking. In contrast to the ‘para-positivist view’, Kierkegaard offers a
more coherent philosophical framework in which the concepts of doubt and paradox replace the
idea of reflexivity. For Kierkegaard, there is no such thing as pure, objective thinking; thinking is
always based on the subject’s passion. Thus, thinking does not need reflexivity - a self-correcting and
self-assessing mechanism - because it is always located in the realm of paradox and doubt. Without
doubt there can be no thinking; without paradox there can be no doubt. With Kierkegaard’s
language we can escape from the autopoietic image of reflexivity widely subscribed to in qualitative,
interpretative organisation studies. When we acknowledge that interpretative thinking is subjective
we can dispose of crude definitions of reflexivity as the reflexive practices of the single management
writer transcending his or her own analysis and the monitoring of that analysis. For Kierkegaard, it
is doubt that enables continual analysis of a problem or event. And from a Kierkegaardian
standpoint the firm belief in reflexivity is nothing but a sign of the bad faith of qualitative and
interpretative research as it seeks to mimic positivist research. To examine qualitative empirical
materials, we need to reinforce subjective thinking rather than seek to exclude it. Hence the need for
criticism of the virtue of reflexivity.

This paper is structured as follows. First, the notion of reflexivity as a privileged component of
qualitative research is examined. Second, Kierkegaard’s dichotomy of objective and subjective
thinking and its implications for qualitative research are discussed. Finally, some implications and
consequences are addressed.

Reflexivity in Organisation Studies

Reflexivity has been invoked as an important capacity of the interpretative researcher in areas such
as cross-cultural organisational co-operation,8 postmodern organisation analysis,9 organisational
learning literature,10 knowledge management and strategic management,11 qualitative research
methods,12 and action research.13

In many cases, reflexivity is depicted as the distinguishing feature vis-à-vis positivist research, the
public enemy of qualitative, interpretative research. One of the key criticisms of positivism by
qualitative researchers is of its claim to establish facts. For instance, Silverman claims: ‘According to
positivism, interview data give us access to ‘facts’ about the world; the primary issue is to generate
data which are valid and reliable, independently of the research setting’.14 Pels writes: ‘Comtean
positivism tends to berate reflexive self-contemplation (and all forms of psychologising) as an
illusion, since it is ‘manifestly impossible’ for the human spirit to observe intellectual phenomena

8
Easterby-Smith M & Malina D (1999) Cross-cultural Collaborative Research: Toward Reflexivity
Academy of Management Journal 42(1) 76-86
9
Chia R (1996) The problem of reflexivity in organizational research: Towards a postmodern science of
organization Organizations 3(1) 31-59
10
Schön D A (1983) The reflective practitioner, New York: Arena, Gherardi S (1999) Learning as problem-
driven or learning in the face of mystery Organization Studies 20(1) 101-124
11
Hedlund G (1994) A model of knowledge management and the N-form corporation Strategic
Management Journal 15, 73-90
12
Alvesson M & Sköldberg K (2000) Reflexive methodology Thousand Oaks, London & New Delhi: Sage
13
Reason P (1994) Three approaches to participative inquiry in Denzin N K & Lincoln Y S (1994)
Handbook of qualitative research London: Sage
14
Silverman D (1993) Interpreting qualitative data London: Sage p 90

10 Philosophy of Management Volume 4 Number 2 2004

 Thinking Driven by Doubt and Passion
during the act of observation itself. The thinking individual cannot subdivide himself into a person
who reason and another who watches the reasoning’.15 Thus the quest for facts in positivist research
is void of reflexivity. As Alvesson put it:

In so called ‘objective’ research, concepts and methods are held a priori, are unknown projections of
researchers’ own way of encountering the world, constitute the world as observed without ownership
or critical reflection.16

The distinction between facts and interpretative analysis has, of course, been a perennial issue in
social theory. Durkheim insisted that social processes and phenomena should be seen as ‘social
facts,’ faits sociales.17 Weber, on the contrary, rejected this idea and argued that ‘all evaluative ideas
are ‘subjective’18 and that all analysis takes place within the horizon of the Weltanschauung of the
researcher: ‘every meaningful value-judgement about someone else’s aspirations must be a criticism
from the standpoint of one’s own Weltanschauung; it must be a struggle against another’s ideals from
the standpoint of one’s own’.19

In the Durkheimian model, there are only facts removed from psychological beliefs and
mythologies. If Durkheim’s ideal of sociological research can be used as an argument for positivist
research, Weber’s claim for the importance of the Weltanschauung can be used when giving
legitimacy to reflexivity. But neither Durkheim nor Weber explicitly raises the issue of reflexivity as
a major trait of sociological method. In contemporary organisation theory, the idea of reflexivity is
derived from the critical tradition represented by Marxist theory or critical traditions20 or from the
phenomenological school represented by sociologists such as Schutz,21 Mead,22 and Berger and
Luckmann.23 In Marxist theory, critical theory and phenomenology, social systems are an outcome
from struggles and continuous re-negotiation about social reality. As social systems are fluid and
continuously evolving, there are ample opportunities for reflexivity. Marxists and critical theorists
talk of getting rid of false consciousness, phenomenologists talk of socialisation, externalisation and
internalisation of values and norms. These mechanisms enable us to reflect critically when seeking
new agreements on how society should be organised.

Lynch has criticised the notion of reflexivity as confused and far from radical: ‘Reflexivity is a
central and yet confusing topic: In some social theories it is an essential human capacity, in others it
is a system property, and in still others it is a critical, or self-critical act’.24 And he points out that
while ‘reflexivity is often claimed as a theoretical or methodological virtue that distinguishes a
contemporary intellectual movement from its outmoded predecessors...further examination of some
of these predecessors can often reveal that they too had their ‘reflexive’ modes and moments’.25 He
continues: ‘It is often supposed that reflexivity does something, or that being reflexive transforms a
prior ‘unreflexive’ condition. Reflexive analysis is often said to reveal forgotten choices, expose
hidden alternatives, lay bare epistemological limits and empower voices that had been subjugated by
objective discourse. Reflexive analysis is thus invested with critical potency and emancipatory
potential’.26 He concludes that ‘reflexivity is not intrinsically radical’.27

15
Pels op cit p 18
16
Alvesson M (1995) Leadership studies: From Procedure and Abstraction to Reflexivity and Situation Working
Paper Series, Institute of Economic Research, School of Economics and Management, Lund University p 8
17
Durkheim E (1938) The rules of sociological method Glencoe: Free Press
18
Weber M (1949) The methodology of the social sciences New York: Free Press
19
Weber op cit p 60
20
See Alvesson M & Deetz S (1996) Critical theory and postmodernism approaches to organizational studies,
in Clegg S R, Hardy C & Nord WR (eds) (1996) Handbook of Organizational Studies London: Sage
21
Schutz A (1962) Collected papers, Vol I: The problem of social reality The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff
22
Mead GH (1934) Mind, self, and society Chicago: University of Chicago Press
23
Berger P & Luckmann T (1966) The social construction of reality London: Penguin
24
Lynch op cit p 26
25
Lynch op cit p 34
26
Lynch op cit p 36
27
Ibid

Philosophy of Management Volume 4 Number 2 2004 11

Alexander Styhre

Reflexivity is thus a complicated and multidimensional concept. In this paper, we follow

Luhmann’s definition of reflexivity: ‘Reflection may . . . be defined as the process through which a
system establishes a relationship with itself . . . [r]eflection is a form of participation’.28 Reflexivity
is located within the system, aiming at examining its own components. Reflexivity is thus a
mechanism for self-correction serving as an ‘internal audit’ of the system. In qualitative,
interpretative research, reflexivity is the mechanism that enables an ‘analysis of the analysis’ of the
empirical material. Reflexivity thus enables a second-order analysis, an internal, autopoietic double
hermeneutic29 of the empirical material. As such, reflexivity remains located solely within its own
confines.

In organisation studies, the notion of reflexivity is praised as the capacity to analyse the mechanisms
inherent in a social system such as an organisation. The grounds for commending reflexivity rest on
a most complex genealogy comprising a wide variety of theoretical traditions, worldviews and
theories. However, in qualitative and interpretative organisation studies, reflexivity is used as a
mechanism to ensure that the analysis does not deviate too far from the privileged ‘factness’ of
positivist research. As qualitative, interpretative research is based primarily on subjective accounts
on an empirical, shared reality, the reflexive practices of the researcher are referred to as the warrant
for ‘facts’. This view is hard to maintain as the very idea of qualitative, interpretative research is, in
nuce, to offer subjective accounts. We therefore need another account of reflexivity and can find it in
the thinking of Kierkegaard.

Kierkegaard and Subjective Thinking

The Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard (1813-1855) is one of the most best known forerunners
to modern philosophy.30 As a staunch critic of Hegel’s system philosophy, Kierkegaard belongs to
the same tradition as Nietzsche and Heidegger, the influential German critics of Western
metaphysics. Kierkegaard is recognised primarily for his discussion of anxiety and his theological
texts and is now seen as a major contributor to existential thinking and theology.31 In social science,
his influence remains modest in spite of the importance of Heidegger and other ‘post-metaphysical’
thinkers.

Kierkegaard’s work addresses several themes, apparently distinct but also interrelated. The writings
on psychology, ethics and epistemology make a coherent whole and offer a continuing discussion
with Kierkegaard’s main antagonists such as Hegel and Plato. In Sickness Unto Death and The
Concept of Anxiety, Kierkegaard investigates the psychology of the subject. For him the subject -
‘Man’ - is a ‘synthesis’ of the psychic and the physical, brought together by ‘spirit’.32 Spirit gives rise
to anxiety which is therefore an integral part of the human experience and condition, and serves as
a force that drives human thinking and culture. Anxiety in Kierkegaard’s treatment is thus a
category similar to Freud’s Libido, an active force of life. Since the subject is a synthesis of the
psychic, the physical and the spirit, the self is in a state of becoming. It is not ‘present actually’ but is
always on the way to becoming a subject. Thus Kierkegaard - like Poststructuralist critics of the
subject – is unwilling to regard the subject as being constituted once and for all as an autonomous
cognitive entity.

Another body of texts addresses ethics and theology. In Fear and Trembling and Either/Or
Kierkegaard criticises Hegel’s notion of the ethical life – Sittlichkeit – as a social practice embedded
in social relations. For Kierkegaard, ethics is not simply a matter of conventions or what is socially
accepted but involves ‘transgressing the universal’ and derives from faith. In his famous analysis of
Abraham’s controversial readiness to follow God’s will and to sacrifice his beloved son Isaac,
Abraham is a great man because he manages to overcome himself and his own preferences. In
Either/Or, Kierkegaard envisaged two ‘stages of life’, two modus vivendi, the aesthetical and the
ethical that represent two different ways of living one’s life. (Later he added a third, the religious
stage.)
28
Luhmann N (1982) The differentiation of society New York: Columbia University Press p 327
29
Giddens A (1990) The consequences of modernity Cambridge: Polity Press
30
Weston M (1994) Kierkegaard and modern continental philosophy London: Routledge
31
See eg Derrida J (1995) The gift of death Chicago: Chicago University Press
32
Kierkegaard S (1980) The concept of anxiety Princeton: Princeton University Press, pp 43, 81

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 Thinking Driven by Doubt and Passion
Kierkegaard’s epistemological writings deal with the Socratic/Platonist ‘recollection thesis’
advocated in dialogues such as Gorgias and Meno. In books such as Philosophical Fragments,
Johannes Climacus and Concluding Unscientific Postscript to Philosophical Fragments he criticises the
Platonic view that objective knowledge is the primary form of knowledge, an eternal and
transcendental phenomenon that can be ‘recollected’ through philosophical training and that
underlies mere beliefs and opinions.33 In contrast to this impartial account of knowledge, he
emphasises subjective forms of thinking, a stance that shares some characteristics with French
contemporary thinkers such as Gilles Deleuze who seek to ‘overturn Plato’. Kierkegaard writes that
in Plato’s philosophy, ‘[t]he admired wisdom turns out to be that the subject’s task is to strip away
more and more of his subjectivity and become more and more objective’.34 But getting away from
subjective thinking, Kierkegaard argues, is impossible: ‘Modern speculative thought has mustered
everything to enable the individual to transcend himself objectively, but this just cannot be done’.35
The individual cannot think outside of the self, outside of subjective categories; philosophy has
always to be written by someone, from the perspective of somebody’s life and despair. 36
Philosophical texts are therefore grounded primarily in passion rather than in ratio:

[F]or an existing person it is impossible to think about existence without becoming passionate,
inasmuch as existing is a prodigious contradiction from which the subjective thinker is not to abstract,
for then it is easy, but in which he is to remain.37

‘The subjective thinker’s task is to understand himself in existence’.38 While objective thinking seeks
what Ryle39 calls propositional knowledge, i.e., facts and statements, subjective thinking leads to
personal knowledge. For Kierkegaard, ‘objectively the emphasis is on what is said; subjectively the
emphasis is on how it is said’.40 He continues: ‘the subjective thinker’s form, the form of his
communication, is his style’.41 To think subjectively is to develop a certain style of thinking, a mode
of formulating propositions and arguments in the form of personal accounts. The subjective
thinker is one who formulates poetic views of the world. Thus, the subjective thinker grapples with
him or herself in relationship with the world. In writing organisation theory, an objective thinker
might treat a management practice as fixed and ready-made and take most interest in its effects and
consequences for day-to-day work. The subjective thinker, by contrast, would examine how certain
managerial practices have become part of the working subject’s life world and experience of
everyday work. The objective and the subjective thinker thus differ in terms of their aims, the
content of their thinking and the results. The objective thinker studies the formal relations between
entities and events while the subjective thinker makes his or her life world and experiences the
foundation for thinking. The objective thinker wants to dispense with the subjective components
of thinking; the subjective thinker refuses to make claims to objectivity. Objective thinking
addresses the potential deviations from the objective norm (eg, issues of reliability, validity, and so
forth); the subjective thinker holds that such concerns need not be addressed but that one should
rather emphasise one’s own beliefs.

While the objective thinker aims at propositional knowledge, the subjective thinker is determined
to discuss and examine what he or she doubts. Doubt is derived from the paradox. Paradoxes are
problems that the subjective thinker cannot resolve because he or she cannot find a point of view
from which a problem can be determined and fully understood. And doubt gives rise to passion, a
passion for thinking:

33
Plato (1921a) Theaetetus Indianapolis and Cambridge: Hackett Publishing, Plato (1921b) Sophist London:
William Heinemann, Plato (1956) Protagoras & Meno London: Penguin, Plato (1994) Gorgias Oxford:
Oxford University Press
34
Kierkegaard S (1992) Unscientific concluding postscript to philosophical fragments Vol 1 Princeton:
Princeton University Press p 131
35
Kierkegaard Sop cit p 191
36
Weston op cit pp 30, 53
37
Kierkegaard S (1992) Unscientific concluding postscript to philosophical fragments Vol 1 Princeton:
Princeton University Press p 350
38
Kierkegaard S op cit p 351
39
Ryle G (1949) The concept of mind London: Penguin
40
Kierkegaard S (1992) Unscientific concluding postscript to philosophical fragments Vol 1 Princeton:
Princeton University Press p 202
41
Kierkegaard S op cit p 357

Philosophy of Management Volume 4 Number 2 2004 13

Alexander Styhre
[I]t would be a misunderstanding for someone to think that doubt can be overcome by so-called
objective thinking. Doubt is a higher form than any objective thinking, for it presupposes the latter
but has something more, a third, which is interest or consciousness.42

Doubt is the primus motor for all forms of thinking. In Johannes Climacus, Kierkegaard argues: ‘All
modern philosophy begins with doubt’.43 Doubt is what uproots beliefs and initiates thinking and
discussion. He remarks that etymologically ‘doubt’ derives from the word ‘two’ and that it always
depends on the third that is outside the relation between the two: ‘If there was nothing but
dichotomies, doubt would not exist, for the possibility of doubt resides precisely in the third, which
places the two in relation to each other’.44 What Kierkegaard suggests here is that once one
questions binary distinctions such as right-wrong and good-bad, everything becomes more
complicated and decisions more complex. Rejecting Platonic dichotomies opens up not only
freedom but also doubt. Doubt is therefore always inter-esse, a state of ‘inbetween-ness’. In contrast
to this state of being in between the two, Kierkegaard describes reflection as being ‘disinterested’, an
activity always preceded by doubt and in which doubt is never suspended.

To Kierkegaard, the notion of doubt is an existential predicament, a component of the human

condition.45 It makes us human and is related to the paradox that is the basis for the passion of
thinking: ‘[O]ne must not think ill of the paradox, for the paradox is the passion of thought, and
the thinker without the paradox is like the lover without passion: a mediocre fellow’.46

The subjective thinker expresses his of her view of paradox and how it gives rise to doubt. The will
to deal with the paradox is based on passion, the passion for thinking. Passion is what is needed for
the subjective thinker, not reflection. Kierkegaard says: ‘What we lack today is not reflection but
passion’.47

In Kierkegaard’s philosophy the thinker should escape the belief in objective categories, in the
ability to formulate objective statements and propositions. The subjective thinker should rather
acknowledge his or her passions, doubts, and the puzzling paradoxes in life. Reflexivity belongs to
the realm of objective thinking, to the positivist ideal of offering facts removed from the researchers’
Weltanschauung. To become a subjective thinker, one must break with the Platonic view of
knowledge as a transcendental resource recollected through various practices and routines embodied
in philosophy conceived as an activity dealing with eternal truths. To Kierkegaard, these Platonic
ideas veil the possibilities of subjective thinking.

Rethinking Reflexivity in Organisation Studies

Criticism of the positivist research ideal in organisation studies often focuses on the ‘view from
nowhere’ perspective claimed by positivist researchers, one from which objectivity is claimed,
notwithstanding the researcher’s underlying assumptions and objectives. The notion of reflexivity
in qualitative, interpretative research, however, itself presupposes such a ‘view from nowhere’
perspective. While the analysis of the empirical material is accepted as inherently subjective in
nature, the reflexive practices of the qualitative researcher are said to be capable of transcending his
or her subjective limitations. This autopoietic double hermeneutic of the empirical material is
named reflexivity. And the ability to be reflexive is in general praised as one of the most
distinguishing features of qualitative, interpretative research.48 When taking reflexivity seriously, as

42
Kierkegaard S (1985) Philosophical fragments/Johannes Climacus New Jersey: Princeton University Press p
170
43
Kierkegaard S (1985) Philosophical fragments/Johannes Climacus New Jersey: Princeton University Press p
169
44
ibid
45
Kierkegaard S (1980) The concept of anxiety, Princeton University Press, and Kierkegaard S (1989) Sickness
Unto Death, Penguin. London.
46
Kierkegaard S (1985) Philosophical fragments/Johannes Climacus New Jersey: Princeton University Press p 37
47
Kierkegaard S (1985) Fear and trembling London: Penguin p 71
48
Alvesson & Sköldberg op cit

14 Philosophy of Management Volume 4 Number 2 2004

 Thinking Driven by Doubt and Passion
for instance, Lynch49 does, it is important to recognise this ‘God trick’50 of the researcher. The
researcher is said to offer a merely subjective account of empirical material; but then also the same
researcher is said to be capable of offering an objective view from nowhere of the same material.
This view on reflexivity is ontologically and epistemologically complicated and merits critical
analysis. This emphasis on reflexivity implies that paradoxes in organisations are being ignored or
not recognized. Keith Grint argues: ‘Management theory may not be composed entirely of
’pragmatic paradoxes’...but, like many other forms of thought, it does tend to rationalise away the
paradoxes, chance, luck, errors, subjectivities, accidents, and sheer indeterminacy of life through a
prism of apparent control and rationality’.51

For Kierkegaard, the notion of reflexivity is located within the realm of objective thinking.
Reflexivity, it is claimed, enables the subjective thinker to transcend his or her subjective thinking
and attain objectivity. But this idea of reflexivity as a virtue and a capability is mistaken as it fails to
recognize the notions of doubt, paradox and passion, the key components of subjective thinking.
The subjective thinker’s thoughts are driven by doubt and passion, not by a will to establish a
relationship with oneself in order to correct subjective interpretations of the empirical material. If
we agree with Lynch that reflexivity - very much an uncontested virtue of the qualitative researcher -
is in fact complicated, we need to examine the consequences of reflexive practices in organisation
studies. If we assume that reflexivity is ‘good’ per se, we need to clarify how it in fact enables more
qualitative and credible organisation studies. As reflexivity is discussed today, it remains obscure to
its critics. As a consequence, reflexivity needs to become a subject of discussion among organisation
researchers working with qualitative research methods.

In anthropology there has been a longstanding and fruitful debate on the nature of ethnographic
research.52 In these critical reviews of anthropology as an academic discipline in post-colonial times,
little is said about reflexivity and being reflexive; at stake instead is the writing of the
anthropological text and the representation of the object of analysis. For instance, Marcus and
Fischer argue that the crisis of representation in the field of anthropology ‘arises from uncertainty
about adequate means of describing the world’.53 In a similar manner, in good ethnographic works
in organisation studies, in service work,54 manufacturing work,55 white-collar work56 and in studies
of bureaucracies,57 reflexivity is not a major concern. Ethnographers are concerned about the stories
they tell and the way they are represented in the text, but do not make an issue of their ability to
reflect upon the social realities they encounter. Great ethnographies are written as subjective
accounts; they deal with paradoxes and ambiguities; they draw on the doubts and passions of the
writer. Such texts are not justified or approved on the basis of their ability to provide legitimate
reflections but rather as being credible, readable and above all telling interesting stories of
organisational life. Subjective thinking of this kind, grounded in doubt and passion, seeks to delve
into the paradoxes, puzzles, and ambiguities of everyday organisational life rather than to maintain a
reflective distance that would enable analytical thinking.

49
Lynch op cit
50
In the formulation of Haraway Donna J (1989) Simians, cyborgs, and women: The reinvention of nature
London: Free Association Books
51
Grint K (1997) Fuzzy management: Contemporary ideas and practices at work OUP, Oxford p 9
52
See e.g Marcus George E & Fischer Michael M J (1986) Anthropology as cultural critique: An experimental
moment in the human sciences Chicago & London: The University of Chicago Press, Clifford, James & Marcus
George E (1986) Writing culture: The poetics and politics of ethnography Berkeley: University of California
Press, Clifford James (1988) The predicament of culture: Twentieth-century ethnography, literature, and art
Boston: Harvard University Press, Marcus George (1998) Anthropology through thick and thin Princeton:
Princeton University Press
53
Marcus & Fischer (1986) p 8
54
Leidner Robin (1993) Fast food, fast talk: Service work and the routinization of everyday life Berkeley:
University of California Press; Hochschild A R (1983) The Managed Heart University of California Press,
Berkeley; Orr Julian E (1996) Talking about machines: An ethnography of a modern job Ithaca and London:
Cornell University Press
55
Collinson David L (1992) Managing the shop floor : Subjectivity, masculinity, and workplace culture Berlin: de
Gruyter Burawoy M (1979) Manufacturing Consent: Changes in the Labor Process under Monopoly Capitalism
Chicago, University of Chicago Press
56
Kunda G (1992) Engineering Culture Philadelphia: Temple University Press
57
Jackall Robert (1988) Moral mazes: the world of corporate managers Oxford & New York, OUP

Philosophy of Management Volume 4 Number 2 2004 15

Alexander Styhre

Thinking Driven by Doubt and Passion: Examples from Management Studies

As we have noted, the focus of qualitative research differs from the truth-claims that are the pursuit
of science. Qualitative research focuses rather on formulating Lyotard’s58 petit récits, small stories
and accounts of administrative and organisational practices. Qualitative organisation studies are
based on paralogy, thinking able to deal with paradoxes, offering many complementary accounts
rather than one single univocal truth.59 As a result, the findings of qualitative organisation studies
are a function, at least partially, of the stylistic capabilities of the researcher.60 Stylistic capabilities
here refer to the writer’s ability to describe empirical experiences and formulate findings and
theoretical reflections or conclusions that persuade the reader. John Van Manen’s paper ‘Style as
theory’, to take an example, is a highly rhetorical piece in which he argues that writings skills matter
in making an argument. Van Maanen writes: ‘Theory is a matter of words, not worlds; of maps, not
territories; of representations, not realities . . . there is no escape from rhetoric: from the informal,
hidden arguments carried in the texts, to the figures of speech, the metaphors, the tropes and the
appeals of to good sense or tradition or authority made by writers to support their claims’.61 On the
other hand, Oliver Williamson’s Markets and Hierarchies62 - to quote just one example – is, I would
argue, a poorly written book. It represents what Czarniawska63 calls a ‘scientistic style of writing’: it
is lifeless, tedious and overtly ‘objective’ (e.g., the central construct of transaction costs are treated as
given rather than constructed and calculated). Yet it has enjoyed extraordinary influence in terms of
its theoretical framework, formulated by Ronald Coase64 and further developed by Williamson, that
has helped many researchers make sense of the practices of organisations and firms.

Subjective thinking, we might say, implies that one is interested and concerned with the practice of
writing for subjective thinking is bound up with the creative and personal use of language. If
language is regarded solely as a vehicle for objective accounts of the world, then subjective thinking
might not be what you favour.

In addition, theories based on qualitative research are tools for sense making rather than being
mirrors of an external reality.65 Qualitative organisation studies therefore do not aim to offer truths
but ‘understanding’.66 When the notion of ‘understanding’ is invoked below, it draws on the
etymology of the subject, the Latin subiectum, a direct translation of the Greek work hypokeimenon,
‘that which lies beneath’. To understand, then, is to examine an event, occurrence or entity from the
position of the subject, from the ‘underside’ of things, or rather from the vantage point of the
subject, no matter if that is in-between or below things.67 Understanding is thus bound up with a
subjective view of things. To understand the mechanisms and processes of complicated and complex
social configurations requires what Gilbert Ryle68 and later the anthropologist Clifford Geertz69
called thick descriptions, 70 descriptions which are contextualised and detailed accounts of
organisational activities and events. They aim to offer insight into the small nuances and transient
moments that make up social reality. In ethnographies of organisations, for instance, not only are
events and occurrences reported and described; they are also related to the organisation’s culture,

58
Lyotard J-F (1984) The postmodern condition: A report on knowledge Manchester: Manchester University
Press
59
Czarniawska B (2001) Having hope in paralogy Human Relations 54(1) 13-21
60
Van Maanen J (1995) Style as Theory Organizational Science 6(1) 133-143
61
Van Maanen J (1995) p 134
62
Williamson OE (1975) Market and hierarchies New York: Free Press
63
Czarniawska B (2004) Narratives in social science research London, Thousand Oaks & New Delhi: Sage
64
Coase RH (1937/1991) The nature of the firm in Williamson OE & Winter SG (eds) (1991) The nature of
the firm: Origin, evolution, and development New York & Oxford: Oxford University Press
65
Weick Karl E (1989) Theory construction as disciplined imagination Academy of Management Review 14(4)
516-553, p 519
66
Czarniawska B (1998) Who is afraid of incommensurability? Organization 5(2) 273-275 p 274
67
Whitehead for instance, preferred to speak of inter-standing rather than understanding and superjects rather
than subjects See Whitehead, AN Process and reality New York: Free Press 1978.
68
Ryle Gilbert (1971) The thinking of thoughts: What is “le Penseur” doing? in Collected papers Vol 1
London: Hutchinson
69
Geertz C (1973) The interpretation of cultures New York: Basic Books
70
See also Perrow C (1984) Normal accidents New York: Basic Books

16 Philosophy of Management Volume 4 Number 2 2004

 Thinking Driven by Doubt and Passion

history, conventions and shared beliefs. An event that appears paradoxical, ambiguous or irrational
may be given a thick description that makes it intelligible. An excellent example of one such thick
description is Michael Rosen’s71 analysis of a company breakfast meeting at a New York City based
advertising company. He treats this annual breakfast meeting as an integral part of the firm’s history
and culture; the various rituals and ceremonies at the meeting are examined at the same time as
details such as the participants’ gestures, clothing and talk are described. Qualitative research,
instead of seeking the ideal of ahistoricial, acontextual, and universally applicable knowledge,
remains closely connected to the local research setting. It deals primarily with local knowledge.72
The body of organisation studies based on qualitative methodology is therefore no more and no less
than the accumulated amount of accounts of organisational activities. There are few ‘laws’ or
predictable ‘relationships’ based on qualitative approaches to research. So to make their analyses of
organisational practices credible, qualitative researchers need legitimating mechanisms and one such
is the body of reflexive practices praised by numerous researchers. Here Kierkegaard’s account of
objective and subjective thinking can offer a more persuasive legitimation of qualitative research.

To Kierkegaard, the subjective thinker is removed from any claims on truths or laws inherent in his
or her thinking. The subjective thinker is trying to deal with personal doubts and to handle the
paradoxes of life he or she experiences. Here, ‘deal with’ and ‘handle’ mean that the subjective
thinker is making his or her own beliefs and concerns an integral component of their thinking.
Instead of treating one’s prejudices and preconceptions as something to be overcome, the subjective
thinker treats them as the point of departure for the analysis. For instance some academic
researchers within management studies tend to view popular management texts (eg the writings of
Tom Peters and similar ‘management gurus’) as problematic and worthy of contempt. For the
subjective thinker, one’s own relationship with such a corpus of popular literature is as much a
proper matter for reflection as the work itself.. ‘Dealing with’ and handling’ thus denote the
subjective thinker’s turning back on him or her self to further explore relationships with the object
of analysis and previous experience.

To Kierkegaard, it is passion and doubt rather than reflexivity that serve as the foundation for
thinking. When conducting ethnographic research in an organisation, the researcher is thrown into
a social setting he or she is trying to understand, gain insight from, and later transform into a
written account. The researcher listens to stories being told, experiences events in the organisation,
smells the coffee in the company cafeteria and joins company parties or goes camping with his or
her temporal colleagues.73 The researcher becomes immersed in everyday work experiences and
events. In Kierkegaard’s view, reflexivity would help the researcher distance him or herself from
these immediate, embodied, emotional and other experiences. Reflexivity would serve as a
withdrawal mechanism to distance the researcher from everyday life experiences. It thus represents a
reminiscence of a research methodology favouring distanced position and emphasising objectivity;
it contains a trace of the very positivism that the proponents of reflexivity want to overcome.
Doubt and passion, on the other hand, would enable the researcher to fully acknowledge the
subjective component of the study conducted. Doubt and passion transgress the narrow confines of
reflexivity and in fact overturn the entire notion of objectivity as such. They are embodied and
emotional experiences that can enable the researcher to fully exploit the potential of a study. Thus
reflexivity represents a trace of subjectivity within the realm of the objective while doubt and
passion is the full recognition of the subjective thinker’s style and finds expression in his or her
writing. In excellent ethnographies of organisations, such as Gideon Kunda’s Engineering Culture74
and Michael Rosen’s article Breakfast as Spiro’s,75 the writers tell interesting stories, point at
ambiguous events and conditions, and break through the taken-for-granted nature of everyday life.
These studies are, even if the authors do not use those terms themselves, based on doubt and passion
and do not attempt to be ‘reflexive’; they do not reflect, they create insights and understanding. In
the words of Lyotard, they are based on the inventor’s paralogy, not the expert’s homology.76 Other

71
Rosen M (1985) Breakfast at Spiro’s: Dramaturgy and dominance Journal of Management 11(2): 31-48
72
Geertz C (1983) Local knowledge: Further essays in interpretative anthropology New York: Basic Books
73
See eg Rosen M (2000) Spinning words, turning worlds Amsterdam: Harwood.
74
Kunda G (1992) op cit
75
Rosen Michael (1985) loc cit
76
Lyotard op cit p xxv

Philosophy of Management Volume 4 Number 2 2004 17

Alexander Styhre

ethnographies, no less excellent but definitely more inclined to ‘tell it like it is’ and more orientated
toward an objective style of writing, (Fucini and Fucini’s Working for the Japanese for instance77), do
not make the writer’s own position and doubts as central as do what we may call subjective
ethnographies. In other words, subjective thinking and objective thinking belong to two different
traditions of writing within organisation theory and management studies. And the objective
thinker’s notion of reflexivity needs to become subject to criticism among subjective thinkers.

In organisation studies, the positivist ideals of research still haunt the qualitative researcher.
Alluding to Derrida,78 we can talk of the spectre of August Comte haunting qualitative research.
Comte’s79 rejection of any psychologising or theologising of the empirical material is manifested in
his rejection of subjective thinking. And while there is no such thing as reflexivity in subjective
thinking, reflexivity is still put forward as a major component of qualitative research. In this respect,
qualitative research is in bad faith. Bringing Kierkegaard’s writings to the discussion allows a more
elaborated view of what he calls subjective thinking. Although largely neglected in the continental
tradition in organisation studies, he contributed to many contested terrains in the social sciences
and the humanities. We will hopefully see more studies of his texts on epistemology, ethics and the
subject. And it would be of great interest to see some discussions in organisation studies on the
relationship between positivist and post-positivist (i.e. subjective) thinking drawing on his work.

Conclusion

Qualitative organisation studies are still concerned with their legitimacy vis-à-vis the positivist role
model in natural science. As a result, various mechanisms and practices aimed at safeguarding
objectivity, validity and reliability are espoused and used. One of the least contested virtues of
qualitative research is the idea of reflexivity. This paper has criticised the idea of reflexivity as it is
used at present by drawing on Kierkegaard’s notions of objective and subjective thinking. Subjective
thinking is not dependent on the ability to reflect but is rather based on doubt and passion. The
subjective thinker neither offers objective, acontextual or ahistorical truths, nor does he or she give
quasi-objective accounts of empirical reality formulated on basis of reflective practices. The
subjective thinker is concerned with the paradoxes and beliefs that constitute social reality and with
understanding them from the position of the subject. Such thinking never claims to be self-reflexive.
It is always constituted through the thinkers’ relationship with his or her own puzzles and concerns.

Alexander Styhre

Alexander Styhre is Associate Professor at Chalmers University of Technology, Gothenburg, Sweden

and Research Fellow at the Institute of Innovation and Technology (IMIT), Sweden. His recent
research has been focused on knowledge-intensive work in for instance new product development
activities in pharmaceutical industry and the automotive industry. Styhre has written and published
many articles in the fields of knowledge management, organisation learning and project work and
his work has appeared in the Journal of Management Studies, Organization Studies, Organizations and
elsewhere. His most recent publications include Understanding Knowledge Management
(Copenhagen Business School Press, 2003) and Collaborative Research in Organizations (co-edited,
Sage, 2004).

Email: Alexander Styhre@[Link]

77
Fucini J J & Fucini S (1990) Working for the Japanese New York: Free Press
78
Derrida J (1994) Spectres of Marx London: Routledge
79
Comte Op cit

18 Philosophy of Management Volume 4 Number 2 2004