Double Hermeneutic

I came across this term (pronounced 'her men you tic') in my strategic management PhD travels and was quite intrigued by it as it's both simple (despite its name) and very enlightening.  Hopefully I'll do the simple part justice here!!!!

It was coined by Anthony Giddens, a famous British sociologist, and it reveals a major difference in the way we should (stress on the should) theorise about the natural world versus our social world and of particular interest to me, theories about how we should manage people.

In essence, a theory about our natural world has no impact on the natural world which remains the same no matter what we think.  For example it was previously thought that the world was flat (and yes there are some of you still out there) but that didn't change the shape of the earth which remained a sphere (oh yes it is).  This is a single hermeneutic.

However in the social sciences this isn't the case and, if for example, a management theory gains sufficient currency then this can start to influence how managers act despite the robustness or validity of the theory.  This is double hermeneutic, there is no universal truth to be discovered and our theories alter practice.

I blogged a while ago about the two management authors who brought 50,000 copies of their own book so as to push it up the best sellers list.  If managers then brought the book because it was a best seller and implemented their suggestions we end up with management practice being led via a cunning marketing strategy.

It is a rather interesting perspective (well I think so anyway)..............

Comments

  1. Marcus (Germany, Business Administration Student)May 5, 2013 at 3:31 AM

    Very comprehensible descritpion.
    Thanks a lot!

    ReplyDelete
  2. UnknownNovember 13, 2014 at 8:38 AM

    nicely explained

    ReplyDelete
  3. UnknownNovember 28, 2018 at 1:14 AM

    Very well explained! Thank you.

    ReplyDelete
  4. UnknownSeptember 8, 2019 at 1:53 PM

    Thanks for explaining! Am a politics student and found this one hard to grasp. Now it's clearer :)

    ReplyDelete
  5. Roger McEwanSeptember 9, 2019 at 1:29 PM

    I'm glad it helped and it is an interesting concept...

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Mintzberg and Waters' strategy model

Image
It is interesting how some strategic management models come and go whilst other ones seem to survive the test of time.  In 1985 Henry Mintzberg (one of the leading strategic management thinkers) and James Waters developed a model to demonstrate how the strategy that is ultimately delivered is made of two parts; deliberate strategy (what the organisation set out to do) and emergent strategy (what happened on the way). In their original paper the model looks just a little clunky, word processing not as it is today, but very recognisable for all scholars and practitioners. And although the concept of the model hasn't changed at all, it does look a little funkier with a 'lick of paint'. The model still communicates with a simplicity that belies the revolutionary nature of what it was at the time.  It looks obvious with hindsight that of course we haven't got a crystal ball and the world changes so where we end up is a combination of where we were heade
Read more

If planning is everything, Maybe its nothing.

A blog back on my subject area, strategic planning or strategic management to use the correct term for the academic field. I have been reading an interesting article entitled 'If planning is everything, Maybe its nothing' written back in 1973 by Aaron Wildavsky.  It is almost a fore runner to one of the largest debates in strategic management, whether strategy should be planned and deliberate or it emerges naturally as part of general management activities. The article makes some very interesting points but it does read a little gloomily as though Mr Wildavsky hasn't got a lot of time for planners in general.  His particular interest is planning in the 3rd world (although it wasn't called the 3rd world then) and he observes that in amongst all the money poured into formal plans and planning, the results have been pretty disappointing. It raises another interesting argument/point and that is the difference between the plan and the outcomes.  He appears to be arguing t
Read more