Pluralist Epistemology and the Knowledge-Based Theory of the Firm

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Abstract
Our focus is the differences between monist and pluralist epistemologies. We want to illustrate how the adoption of a pluralist epistemology can reshape our theorizing about firms, organizations and their management. We can then build theories that are inherently dynamic and treat firms and organizations as the processes of creating the values which markets distribute. But to do this we must move beyond today's positivist monist conventions to a kind of epistemological pluralism that some might describe as postmodern. Given this shift we can then address the kinds of dynamic non-equilibrium systems that are proving of increasing interest to social and economic systems theorists. Our conclusion is that useful knowledge-based theories of the firm are less theories of objective entities `out there' than sets of contextualized heuristics guiding managers' intervention in their organizations as quasi-autonomous systems.

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