Problems with Burrell and Morgan Framework:

There are recognised problems with both the way of identifying paradigms, also their suitability for addressing the diversity and development of IS Use conceptualisation in the IS Use field.

It is doubtful whether Burrell and Morgan’ way of identifying paradigms would help to make sense of IS Use field, this is for several reasons:

1. It is limited to organisational analysis. Burrell and Morgan four-paradigm grid is helpful with organisational analysis. Whereas IS Use field as the literature shows goes beyond organisational life and tend to conceptualise IS Use in everyday life context as well as in organisational domains.

2. It offers only four distinct Paradigms, Burrell and Morgan’ positioning is well- known for their firm opposition to paradigmatic diversity:

"Our proposition is that social theory can usefully be conceived in terms of

four key paradigms based upon different sets of metatheoretical assumptions

84 So, it is not clear how it can help a researcher with explaining the diversity in the field. It is referring to one research at any given point in time and it does not tell us about a whole field with variety of paradigms. Even if we assume it can help us with the whole field, we are already limited to their four-paradigm grid which has not left the gate open for adding more paradigm, ultimately our explanation of the diversity of the field would be a repetition of their four paradigms. Review of the IS Use literature in chapter 3 makes clear that the diversity is wider than that. With Burrell & Morgan (1979), there can only ever be four distinct paradigms, since they arise from two by two dimensions.

3. In their pure forms, Burrell & Morgan's Paradigms are mutually exclusive.

“The four paradigms are mutually exclusive . . . they offer different ways of seeing. A synthesis is not possible . . . one cannot operate in more than one

paradigm at any given point in time, since in accepting the assumptions of one;

we defy the assumptions of all the others (Burrell & Morgan, 1979: p. 25).”

This is because Burrell & Morgan (1979) show another way of identifying paradigms which is on the basis of prior dichotomy. Burrell and Morgan selected two dichotomous dimensions, subjective-objective and consensus-conflict, the interaction of which provides four possible paradigms. The dimensions are prior to paradigm identification. The four ‘paradigms’ offer alternative view of social reality, and synthesis is not possible because they are contradictory in their pure forms.

This mutual exclusivity has been criticised by number of scholars. For example, Coleman (2013) draws attention to the complexity of such paradigms by pointing out that Chua (1986) argues that most philosophical traditions are not mutually exclusive.

85 Moreover, Willmott questions the dualistic mentality of paradigms and the validity of separating subjective from objective approaches, claiming it "transforms a dualistic tendency in organizational analysis into a metaphysical principle" (p.708). Willmott (1993, 682) also argues that the mutual exclusivity "unnecessarily constrains the process of theory development" because of "polarized sets of assumptions about science and society".

IS Use literature, however, in chapter 3 shows overlaps. Burrell and Morgan’s assumed dichotomies of conflict-consensus and subject-object are not dichotomies in the reality of IS Use, as depicted in chapter 3. This is affirmed by Grint & Woolgar (1997) arguing that dichotomous dimensions leads to those working in one paradigm overlooking the insights in others, in addition this mutual exclusivity does not mirror what happens in practice.

Deetz (2006) considers the problem in Subject-object dualism which is as old as Western theoretical writings (at least as reconstructed in the modern period). The discourse of "functionalist" researchers (or what is organized as such in Burrell and Morgan) as well as that of many humanist and interpretivist reproduces a basic psychological distinction between an interior and exterior world. Phenomena can either be interior or exterior. And, the research process itself is seen as directed by either the interior (thus subjective) or exterior (thus objective). Whereas in discourses associated with feature-based use of IS both objective and subjective are taken into account.

86 4. Whether their four-paradigm grid could help with providing any account of the development of the IS Use discourses is not clear. Their four-grid paradigm limits us into just four categories. Development of conceptualisation would probably be pointless if we know from the beginning that the criteria to account the development is the shift from one of the four categories to another, and that ultimately we find the whole field in one of the four.so it is not leaving any room for a researcher who is motivated for exploring unknown or neglected issue, which is crucial for the progress in the field.

5. Burrell and Morgan misunderstood what paradigms are. They define a paradigm as “the commonality of perspective which binds the work of a group of theorists together in such a way that they can be usefully regarded as approaching social theory within the bounds of the same problematic” (p. 23). It means theorists within a paradigm share the underlying meta-theoretical ‘taken for granted’ assumptions. They refer to Thomas Kuhn’s notion of paradigms as the underlying philosophy for their framework. However, they use the term “paradigm” in a broader sense than that intended by Kuhn (Kuhn’s notion of paradigm is explained and discussed in chapter 5).

Regarding the influence of Kuhnian paradigm in sociology as an influential reference discipline for IS, Eckberg & Hill (1979) raised their concerned about studies in sociology being true to Kuhnian theory. According to Eckberg & Hill (1979) these four paradigms are actually confounding epistemological approaches to research, not paradigms per Kuhn they argue that most sociologists are either unaware of the differences in, and subtleties of, Kuhn's conceptualization, or that they ignore them.

87 To give example from another field, Deetz (1996) in describing different approaches to organisational science rethinks Burrell and Morgan’s framework, reflects on the impact of ‘quick categorizations’, believes researchers ‘missed much’ with such a prescriptive grid view, and that the subjective objective problem is simply boring and misleading and reproducing simplistic distinctions and that it is not a very interesting way of thinking about research programme differences. Deetz (1996: p.199) argue that Burrell and Morgan’s four- paradigm grid does not help to better display the discourse differences in the organisational science and give insight to the field, and It would be a mistake to call these (organisational) discourses paradigms in Burrell and Morgan’s sense.