ABSTRACT
This collection is motivated by two beliefs: one positive and the other negative. The positive belief is that critical realism, and especially its ontology, has much to offer in the analysis of organisation and management. Evidence for this is provided not only in the following chapters where contributors have rooted their theoretical and empirical work in critical realism to good effect, but also in the growing number of critical realist-inspired articles found in the organisation and management studies literature.1 The negative belief is that much current organisation and management study is committed to one of two mistaken ontological positions: the empirical realist ontology in which positivistorientated analysis is rooted; and the social constructionist ontology in which postmodernist or post-structuralist-orientated analysis is rooted. Despite contributions that postmodernism and post-structuralism have to offer, the recoil from (correctly) abandoning positivism appears to have ‘catapulted’ postmodernists and post-structuralists into substituting one mistaken ontology for another. If unchecked, this could easily take organisation and management studies down an alley as blind as the positivist one from which it has struggled to escape. This would be tragic given that critical realism can provide a viable ontology of organisations and management, allowing positivism and its empirical realist ontology to be abandoned without having to accept a social constructionist ontology.2
