THE FAILURE OF ORGANIZATIONAL AND ADMINISTRATIVE THEORY

Authors

  • Christopher Hodgkinson University of Victoria

Abstract

Questioning whether twenty-five years of theoretical discussion have advanced our understanding or our practice of administration, Hodgkinson inspects in turn the various views that have prevailed in the field and offers a humanist's verdict on each. Finding some promise in the phenomenological approach, he suggests the adoption of a "triplex reality" as a framework for experience which will permit the application, each in its place and in due proportion, of predictive science, probabilistic hypothesis, and individualistic interpretation. An as yet unestablished philosophy of administration must clarify the language games being played in each of these three dimensions, and must adopt a wide new range of methodology that would include the modes of the arts.

Author Biography

Christopher Hodgkinson, University of Victoria

Christopher Hodgkinson is Professor of Educational Administration at the University of Victoria, British Columbia. He has a book about to be published in England, predictably concerned with ethical and moral issues in administration. One of the few philosophers in the field, he favours an ethnographic approach to systems in education.

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Published

1978-09-01

How to Cite

Hodgkinson, C. (1978). THE FAILURE OF ORGANIZATIONAL AND ADMINISTRATIVE THEORY. McGill Journal of Education / Revue Des Sciences De l’éducation De McGill, 13(003). Retrieved from https://mje.mcgill.ca/article/view/7226

Issue

Vol. 13 No. 003 (1978)

Section

Articles

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