more eVectively’ (Starbuck 2003 : 171 – 4 ). This theme can be identiWed with the
‘opportunities’ that organizations were perceived to be oVering mankind. The
second theme, however, was one identiWed with perceived ‘threats’ presented by
bureaucratic organization. This was the theme of ‘bureaucracy and its defects’
(Starbuck 2003 : 162 ). A key role in bringing these two themes into a single
organization theory was played by Selznick ( 1948 ) who, inXuenced by various
managerial writers like Chester Barnard, ‘departed from the sociological focus on
‘‘bureaucracy’’ and framed his discussions in more general language about ‘‘organ-
izations’’ and ‘‘formal organizations’’ ’ (Starbuck 2003 : 170 ). And, says Starbuck, by
the 1960 s organization theory had ‘arrived’—but with that arrival and the subse-
quent ‘expansion and aZuence’ of the subject (coming about with the massive
expansion of degree programs in business) there has been signiWcant fragmentation
( 2003 : 174 ). This is a matter with which we must now come to terms. Organization
theory is anything but a uniWed subject and, in examining its relevance to
and connection with HRM, we have deal with the fact that, in eVect, there is more
than one organization theory that HRM has or to which HRM might relate.
6.4 Varieties of Organization Theory
.........................................................................................................................................................................................
Anyone wishing to turn to organization theory as a resource for the analysis of
activities like HRM faces the diYculty that there is no single coherent OT frame-
work readily available to them. Instead theyWnd themselves presented with a
variety of theoretical perspectives. One recent overview of organization theories
covers over thirty of these (Vibert 2004 ) whilst another assembles the variety of
approaches into three main perspectives: the modern, the symbolic, and the
postmodern (Hatch 2006 ). And things have perhaps been made even more daunt-
ing by the arguments among organization theorists themselves about the extent to
which the mainparadigms(the clusters of assumptions about the world and about
scientiWc knowledge adopted by diVerent theorists) allegedly underlying these
various approaches are compatible with each other. Some argue, for example,
that the diVerent theoretical, methodological, and political orientations of the
various sets of theorists are fundamentally incompatible with each other. Thus, it
is argued that any given researcher needs to locate themselves within one particular
paradigm—a functionalist, an interpretative, a radical humanist, or a radical
structuralist paradigm, say (Burrell and Morgan 1979 ; Jackson and Carter 2000 ).
An alternative approach is to switch back and forth between these various para-
digms toWnd insights pertinent to the area being analyzed. Hassard ( 1993 ) has
demonstrated the advantages of this strategy for organizations generally and
organization theory and hrm 111