A Critically Appreciative Valuation of Social Constructionist Contributions to Organizational Science

Modernist approaches to research in the social sciences dominate academia, including much of organization science. Discovery
through reason, observation, and analysis are the quintessential modernist quests. However, this reductionist approach to
essentialize the social through the usage of language, a product of culture with its inevitable entanglement with cultural
ideology, values, sensibility, intelligibility, and history, is akin to capturing a moving target on shifting grounds. Positing
social constructionism as an alternative, we explain it has revolutionalized the social sciences and organization science
alike; offer an array of social constructionist inquiry methodologies to fuel generative possibilities for organization research;
compare and contrast modernist and social constructionist organization theories, research methodologies and assumptive metaphors
to accentuate the textual and dialogic potential social constructionism brings to organization science; and conclude with
creative ways social constructionism can realize actionable knowledge through co-creation among communities.