Organizing as Improvisations (Methodological Temptations of Social Constructivism)

Academic communities in social sciences are still dominated by neo-positivist paradigm, but communities of practice developing social constructivism have started to redress paradigmatic imbalances. According to the latter man-made organizational reality is processual and saturated with sensemaking (Weick). Social constructivists succeeded in reconstructing complex organizational disasters and contributed to organizational innovation and change (for instance in the wake of ICT challenges). They belong to postmodernist critics of modernity's failure to regulate social development and contribute to a better understanding of organizing (e.g. implementing a new technology or managing knowledge production) as patchworking and improvising. In spite of discriminating practices, they survive in academic communities.