The meanings of the death of the founder: the constructionist approach

Abstract

The aim of this article is to investigate the meanings constructed around the death of a university center's founder. For this purpose, the culture theory and the social constructionism approach formed the theoreticalmethodological basis. In this qualitative descriptive research, the triangulation of various data collection techniques was utilized and an analysis of the discursive practices was conducted. The reflections presented in this article could serve as a starting point for other researchers who are interested in investigating and constructing new theoretical and methodological reflections on this subject, which is absent from the theory of organizations. If this is the case, the researchers should bear in mind that the death of the founder of any organization takes on meanings that lie on the frontiers between the subjectivity of people and the organizational culture. The death of the founder, in any organization, cannot and should not be studied as something natural to those who have lost their historical reference, incorporating the figure of the hero, embellished with all his symbolism.

Social Management: Epistemology Beyond Paradigms

“…According to Gergen (1985), social constructionists are concerned with apprehending the processes by which people explain, understand, and describe the world they live in, including themselves. In this way, the constructionist approach seeks to overcome the epistemological dichotomy between realism and subjectivism constructed by positivist and idealistic researchers (Brito, Silva, & Muniz, 2010;Marra & Brito, 2011). With regard to hermeneutics, according to Gadamer (1960Gadamer ( /1997, its purpose is to search everywhere for the experience of truth, going beyond the control field of scientific methodology, and, at the same time, to inquire about its own legitimation, wherever it is found.…”

Gestão Social: Epistemologia para Além de Paradigmas

“…De acordo com Gergen (1985), os construcionistas sociais preocupam-se em apreender os processos pelos quais as pessoas explicam, compreendem e descrevem o mundo em que vivem, incluindo eles mesmos. Dessa forma, o enfoque construcionista busca a superação da dicotomia epistemológica entre realismo e subjetivismo construída por pesquisadores positivistas e idealistas (Brito, Silva, & Muniz, 2010;Marra & Brito, 2011). No que diz respeito à hermenêutica, de acordo com Gadamer (1960Gadamer ( /1997, seu propósito é procurar por toda parte a experiência da verdade, ultrapassando o campo de controle da metodologia científica, e, ao mesmo tempo, indagar sobre sua própria legitimação, onde quer que a encontre.…”