Deconstructing organisational politics: a causal layered approach

This study raises some theoretical issues about research methodologies and questions at what level research methods normalise power relations or make unproblematic various respondent accounts of the real. The paper is directed toward the epistemic level of transformation - towards the way we come to know the world. It describes an academic research project designed to elucidate the manner in which a group of executive understand the real, and had as its ultimate goal, the purpose of tracking social change. At one level, that purpose may have been achieved. At a deeper level, however, it illustrates the inadequacy of accepted research methodologies in attempts to identify a single reality or to create alternative futures. It points to the value of causal layered analysis in overcoming some of the problems of methodology.