The browser you are using is not supported by this website. All versions of Internet Explorer are no longer supported, either by us or Microsoft (read more here: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/windows/end-of-ie-support).

Please use a modern browser to fully experience our website, such as the newest versions of Edge, Chrome, Firefox or Safari etc.

Portrait of Mats Alvesson. Photo.

Mats Alvesson

Professor

Portrait of Mats Alvesson. Photo.

The hegemonic ambiguity of big concepts in organisation studies

Author

  • Mats Alvesson
  • Martin Blom

Summary, in English

The use of concepts is a vital part of the research process. Many researchers overexploit popular concepts by adding more and more vague and poorly defined meanings to them, thereby making their boundaries unclear and the concepts increasingly unwieldy. We will refer to these types of concepts as hembigs – an acronym for hegemonic, ambiguous, big concepts. The article demonstrates the problem in three domains: leadership, strategy and institution. It suggests ways to mitigate the problems with dominant scientific concepts, overloaded with more or less incoherent meanings.

Department/s

  • Strategy
  • Organizational Studies

Publishing year

2022

Language

English

Pages

58-86

Publication/Series

Human Relations

Volume

75

Issue

1

Document type

Journal article

Publisher

SAGE Publications

Topic

  • Business Administration

Keywords

  • institutional theory
  • leadership
  • method
  • organization studies
  • reflexivity
  • strategy

Status

Published

ISBN/ISSN/Other

  • ISSN: 0018-7267