ABSTRACT
It is important that one has confidence in the validity of all scholarship on epistemological grounds, and also for its relevance to the understanding of the society or section of society for which the scholarship is relevant. The way scholarship is represented has implications for the ‘forming, framing and delimiting’ of the concepts and discourse surrounding a topic and affects people’s understanding of the issues (Chia 1996, p. 213). It also has the potential to influence policy makers in government and other institutions. In the case of management studies1 it has the capacity to influence the discourse about what organisations are, what they represent, how they function and crucially who has the power to effect policy. Because scholarship in this area also has, as it should, the capacity to instruct not only university and college students, but also professional managers and consultants, it becomes vital that the knowledge imparted meets pedagogic as well as epistemological standards.
