Evidence-based dialectics

In: Organization: the interdisciplinary journal of organization, theory and society, Band 19, Heft 4, S. 461-479

Abstract

'Evidence-based policy' and 'evidence-based management' are increasingly popular ways of describing the relationship between research and practice. The majority discussing the evidence-based approach have tended to be in favour: here, 'believers'. Yet this approach has also attracted critics: 'heretics'. Understanding of such a division can be enhanced by dialectics: a process which tries to destabilize, reconcile or transcend apparent opposites. This divide is not simply a consequence of differences relating to epistemology, but also aesthetics: a set of reactions to the world seen as art. So, to analyse this divide requires a correspondingly rich model of dialectic. Nietzsche's Birth of Tragedy offers this in its account of Apolline and Dionysian responses to the world. Dialectics supports a move beyond synchronous critique, and allows speculation as to the future development of the evidence-based approach.