Organizational Inquiry as a Rhetorical Process: The Role of Tropes in Organizational Theory and Methods

Abstract

We develop a discursive understanding of organizational inquiry in order to challenge the status quo characterized by a positivistic approach to organizational inquiry. Specifically, we reconceptualize organizational science as an inherently rhetorical process. We propose that the language of theories and methods used within a particular paradigm move from figurative to literal and back to figurative, following a distinctive topological sequence from metaphor to metonymy to synecdoche to irony. We also link the researchers use of four master tropes to particular types of scientific reasoning as well as to particular types of scientific tools. We discuss the research implications of the rhetorical model of organizational science.