Revisiting the Concept of Practice: Toward an Argumentative Understanding of Practicing

Abstract

In recent years, the topic of organizational practices has come to the fore in organization studies. A practice perspective is meant to provide a new method for studying organizations beyond the formal, quantifiable and abstract. But despite, or because of, its prominence the concept of practice has been used in a variety of ways and to evoke different associations. This article is intended to critically review the current approaches of practice-based studies in organizational analysis. The discussion shows that approaches that understand practice simply as `what actors do' are not unfolding much critical power in organization studies, as opposed to epistemic-normative conceptions of practice which open a non-cognitive, non-positivist and non-rationalist avenue in organizational analysis. In order to enrich our understanding of practices in organizations—particularly in circumstances of breakdowns and conflicting ethical values—a Habermasian conception of practice is introduced which distinguishes between life-world practices following a narrative mode of communication and discourses which are argumentative in nature.