A Call to Practice Context in Management and Organization Studies

Abstract

We put forth a call to management and organization studies (MOS) researchers to practice context in their research. Context is not, as it is so commonly treated, a stable object to be invoked as a background for our work. Contexts are inherently plural and fluid, and they shift depending on our phenomenon of interest and philosophical framing. We need to engage with context respective to our paradigm of choice, embed context into our research, explain how and why the relevant context was formulated, and acknowledge that the relevant context we have formulated influences both the questions we ask and the answers we find. In this article, we review the use of context in MOS, discuss the current understandings of context across paradigms and offer reasons for why MOS does not practice context, and draw on work done in other social science disciplines to help us practice context.