Ontology And Epistemology Essay

When studying organizational theory, two different belief systems help to determine which theory stream that each individual person follows. These are a person’s ontological beliefs or epistemological beliefs. It is important to recognize how both Ontology and Epistemology apply to organizational theory, and for each person to decide where they fit inside these branches. First a person must decide and realize where their beliefs lie. Also it is important to understand what both Ontology and Epistemology mean. According to Hatch (2013), ontology is defined as a “branch of philosophy that studies assumptions about existence and definitions of reality” (p.11). While this quote allows one to know the definition of ontology, it does not delve

However, interpretivist epistemology relies on the belief that knowledge is discovered through experience, and the context that a person places on the experience (Hatch, 2006). A person’s ontology and epistemology coincide with one another in that people who have an objective ontology also have a positivist epistemology, while the reverse is also true (Hatch, 2006). This causes these two groups of people to view the world very differently. A good comparison would be to compare how a scientist views the world and how an artist views

The contingency theory is one that accounts for the various factors and subsystems in organizations, and is used to try and prepare for any number of situations that can arise (Hatch, 2006). A situation where contingency theory was observed and determined to be a good theory to use was one involving a marketing firms. When often looking at organizational structure in marketing, there were generally four different types of organization used (Ruckert, 1985). However while these were useful, it was determined that more efficient methods could be used in the company. Three different methods were tried but it was ultimately determined that the contingency theory that was developed worked out the best. The study found the way that the theory proposed activities should be grouped was effective, and believed that some firms should adopt a similar direction (Ruckert, 1985). Through having a modernist perspective and looking at hard data to analyze problems, along with using theories, such as the contingency theory in conjuncture to be ready for any situation, I view this as an extremely efficient and effective way to run an