I - Creating a Common Framework

Summary

Assume for the moment that you are convinced that these two fields of scholarship – the study of social movements and organization theory – can be usefully brought to bear on each other; that theories, concepts, and problems raised in one of the areas can be usefully used to focus on issues that are less prominently featured in the other area. How does one do that? Are there intellectual strategies for synthesizing and integrating somewhat disparate fields? One strategy, which no one in this volume attempts, would be to subsume both objects of analysis, organizations and social movements, within a larger or more abstract theory or framework of analysis. For instance, one could show how both social movements and organizations can be analyzed in the language of a general theory of action or of social systems. Another approach, which is in fact adopted by most of the authors of the chapters in Sections II to V, is to begin with a fairly concrete problem or issue in one or the other of the domains, and to seek guidance for understanding in the literature of the other or related domains.

To take one example, in Chapter 10 David Strang and Dong-Il Jung ask the question of how they can account for the adoption of innovations related to the movement for Total Quality Management (TQM) in a large corporation.