Hermeneutic philosophy and organizational theory

Our aim in this chapter is twofold: first, to review briefly the history of the hermeneutic traditions; second, to examine its influence in organization studies. We begin with a review of hermeneutic philosophy including ancient Greek origins and Biblical hermeneutics. We then delve more deeply into the work of 20th-century hermeneutic philosophy, particularly Heidegger, Gadamer, and Ricoeur, to demonstrate how hermeneutics became a field that is concerned not only with texts but also with verbal and nonverbal forms of action and the preunderstanding that makes any interpretation possible. Finally, we explore how hermeneutic philosophers claim that interpretation is the mode by which we live and carry on with one another. In the third section, we suggest that the field of organizational studies has discovered the relevance of hermeneutic theory, a rarely explicitly acknowledged debt. In particular, we outline the influence of hermeneutic theory on several figural areas, including culture, sensemaking, identity, situated learning, and organizational dialogue.