ORGANIZATION AS EVENT: CONCEPTUAL AND THEORETICAL IMPLICATIONS OF THE ADOPTION OF A STRONG-VIEW PROCESSUAL ONTOLOGY

Organizational studies based on process metaphysics generated increasing interest over the past few decades. According to this ontological perspective, a process view demands the replacement of simplifying explanations of reality based on the idea of substance by more complex explanations based on the notion of process and relationality. The main objective of this article is to discuss implications of the adoption of an event-based theory from a strong-view process ontological basis in the field of organizational studies. To this end, this theoretical essay was developed based on (i) exploration of the concept of event based on the process ontology of Alfred North Whitehead and (ii) identification of implications of the adoption of this event-based theory for organizational studies. As the main result of the work, we highlight the discussion of six principles or propositions related to the concept of organization based on this strong-view notion of event: organization as a structure of events, organizational ontology anchored in its temporality, events as units of organizational analysis, the organization as a continuous process, the organization as a result of dynamic stabilization mechanisms, the organization as the reiteration of standards.

Keywords:
Event; Processual ontology; Whitehead; Organization.