60th Anniversary Essay: Constrained Comprehending: The Experience of Organizational Inquiry

Jerry Davis's (2015) question What is organizational research for? is ill-served by the narrow answer settled science. Constraints of comprehension may give the illusion that organizational research represents settled science. But the experience of inquiring actually comprises a greater variety of actions that increase the meaning of present research experience and the contributions it makes. I discuss acts of conjecture, differentiation, attachment, affirmation, complication, discernment, interruption, and representation to illustrate that meaningful contributions are generated by actions associated with connecting perceptions to concepts. ASQ's 60th anniversary is an opportune time to make these interim contributions more explicit.