Dennis Tourish’s book presents some dubious practices within organizational theories. Thus, the focus falls on the practices, and not on the authors who practice them. On the performances, and not on the actors.

            Tourish presents three practices in particular: p-hacking, harking and retractions (Ch. 4 & Ch. 5). They have causes in a black and by no means golden past (Ch. 1); they have manifestations in a present that imagines the school as a factory with multiple assembly lines (Ch. 2); and have effects in a future threatened by colonization by the rotten past and present (Ch. 3). Therefore, these practices can hardly by cured either by retreating to a glorious past or by colonizing a promising future. Even living only in the present and for the present does not offer any guarantee.

            Here is how those three practices are defined:

• p-hacking: “It encompasses a variety of practices: failing to report all dependent measures in a study, selectively reporting only those studies that deliver the desired p-value, terminating a study when a desired p-level has been reached, dropping items from survey instruments that are preventing the attainment of a <desirable> p-level, or rounding off a p-value by, for example, reporting that a lower one is actually 0.5” (p. 86)

• harking: “Hypothesizing After the Results are Known – [that means] presenting the hypothesis as ex post, rather than as a priori” (p. 89)

• retraction: the act to retract a piece of work that has been published and, on further consideration, has some major flaws like: fraud, deception or lack of meaning (see Ch. 5)

Once defined, they can be easily identified in examples from works of academic theoretical development (Ch. 6), leadership theories (Ch. 7) or management theories (Ch. 8)

            This is the problem presented in Tourish’s book. What would be the solutions to it? The author refers to Alvesson & Sandberg. First, we can fill unimportant gaps. This solution, presented in chapter 10, does not solve the problem, but only perpetuates it. Secondly, we can still do something, namely, to make radical contributions. Chapter 9 is dedicated to this solution which, at least on paper, seems to build something new and lasting from the ashes.

            In conclusion, instead of writing about the goods and bads of the book, creating a plinth from the Tourish’s work on which I can climb and marvel at my greatness, I prefer to remind you of the notes of some valuable authors like Yiannis Gabriel (2022), Jeffrey Muldoon (2021) or Nick Butler (2020). To those who are dissatisfied with the ideas of Tourish (2019a, 2019 b and Alex Fergani, 2023), and with the ideas of his interpreters (like Gabriel, Muldoon or Butler), I only could remind them that roses are grown from rubbish. So, I urge them to do what the others have not done.

The image:

Resources:

Butler, Nick (2020): “Review”, Promethesu, 36 (4), pp. 390-392

Foresight Wisdom by Alex Fergnani (2023): “Dennis Tourish. Present and future(s) of the crisis in management studies – 4Sight Chats SE2 Ep. 6” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bD5kuYFHg0w (Accessed 14.09.2024)

Gabriel, Yiannis (2022): “Book review”, Organization, 29 (4), pp. 786-788

Muldoon, Jeffrey (2021): “Review”, Relations Industrielles/ Industrial Relations, 76 (2), pp. 379-381

Tourish, Dennis (2019a): “The triumph of nonsense in management studies”, Academy of Management Learning & Education, 19 (1), pp. 99-109

Tourish, Dennis (2019b): “Management studies in crisis. Fraud, deception and meaningless research”, Cambridge University Press