ABSTRACT
The idea of reflexivity is at the heart of the approach to research we have been considering. If we assume that people are continually in the business of constructing and reconstructing the self-same world of meaning that supplies the context and essential point of reference for their own activities, it makes no sense to assume an a priori existence of that context, as if it were written in stone. It is still under construction. To imagine otherwise would be to return to the discredited way of thinking that Smith (1993) called the metaphor of communication-inorganization. That route leads to a reification of organization, treats it as merely a fixed parameter of interaction, a house built by someone else and temporarily occupied by the current members. At best, they can decorate their own offices and hallways to make them livable. At worst they feel alienated, dismayed, depressed.
