Reframing methodology: from craft to critique

Purpose “Craft” is a trope widely used to characterize diverse practices of scientific knowledge production and communication, including within the field of Management and Organization Studies (MOS). On examination, “craft” is found to have a deep etymological connectedness to science, ethics and politics. Attending to this etymology provides a basis for disclosing how the dominant, neopositivist normative order of knowledge generation and dissemination in MOS articulates and dissembles an ethics of dissociation and an exclusionary politics. Critique is commended as the means of identifying the tacit, constitutive role of ethics and politics in scientific knowledge generation and dissemination. The thesis is illustrated by reference to “Gioia Methodology” (GM) and abduction to which exponents of GM subscribe. Design/methodology/approach Critique is advocated and mobilized to show the mutually constitutive connection between science, ethics and politics. Gioia Methodology and Abductivism are given as examples. Findings The “findings” result from a critical excavation of the etymology of craft to demonstrate the relevance of critique as a way of reframing methodology. Research limitations/implications The limitations of the approach are discussed in the conclusion where critique is recognized to be dangerous when it becomes dogmatic. Critique of critique is commended as an antidote. The implication of the paper is that critique should be central, rather than marginal to, or excluded from, processes of knowledge production. Practical implications The practical implications for the practice of management are drawn out by arguing that its theory must be renovated through a transformation of the conditions that currently impede innovation. Social implications The social implications are far-reaching as a transformation of management knowledge would, in principle, involve a radical change of management practice by problematizing claims to value- neutrality and dependence upon a morally indifferent technocracy. Originality/value The originality of the article resides in its call for a radical reframing of methodology in which the constitutive presence of ethics and politics in knowledge production is fully acknowledged and embraced instead of being obfuscated behind a mask of value neutrality.