The Pursuit of Visions and Ideas: Thomas Barr Greenfield - Building an Ideography

Abstract

This is an interpretivist study. It tells a story and tries to understand the events of such from the perspective of characters in the story. The main character is Thomas Greenfield, educator, theorist and critic. The background of the story is the world of educational administration with its logical positivist ways of knowing and its science-based methods of inquiry. In 1974 Greenfield shattered the prevailing orthodoxy and presented an alternative view of organisations and administration and spent the next eighteen years defending and developing his subjectivist theory of organisation. This theory taught that organisations are "invented social reality" and are built upon "a moral order" (1975c). By and large, Greenfield felt that his work was either pilloried or ignored, most particularly in the USA, and that what he had to say went unheeded. Other scholars differed in their perception of events.In order to see the Greenfield story holistically, the study blended biography and ideography and reflected upon the relationship between experience and ideas as it sought an explanation of Greenfield's notoriety and fame. The context for the study was the historical and cultural understanding of educational administration as it emanated from the USA, the birthplace of the discipline.