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Sociological paradigms and organisational analysis

by Gibson Burrell

The authors argue in this book that social theory can usefully be conceived in terms of four broad paradigms, based upon different sets of meta-theoretical assumptions with regard to the nature of social science and the nature of socity. They provide extensive reviews of functionalist, interpretive, radical humanist and radical sturcturalist paradigms which derive from quite distinct intellectual traditions, and present four mutually exclusive views of the social world. Presented are a number of important contributions to our understanding of sociology and organisational analsyis with a historical review and evaluation which provides a framework for appraising future developments in the area of organisational analysis, and suggests the form which some of the developments are likely to take.