Abstract

RENDON COBIAN, Marcela Victoria. The relevance of context in organizational analysis: Tradition and modernity in a family business in Chiapas. Nova scientia [online]. 2014, vol.6, n.12, pp.321-355. ISSN 2007-0705.

Context is an essential element in understanding social action. Within the study of organizations, it incorporates elements of sense -history and culture- as well as rationality -decisions- and subjectivity -emotional- that influences the way to interpret both personal experiences and future life projects. Context includes aspects of environment, understood as mediate and perceptible references for individuals, but it has not to be confused with it. Context is a powerful tool to frame the organizational action without reducing it to a simple reflection, upsetting, however, its capacity for strategic action. It implies, for its complexity, a multidisciplinary approach. In this paper we introduce at first a discussion of the concept of context, and environment. In the second section we point out some salient features of traditional society and its necessary intermingles with modernity. We consider each one of them as well as the interaction between these two fields provides a contextual framework in which to frame the analysis of the dynamics of the organization, followed by an analysis of the relevance of the context into the case study and the limitations it brings in the generalization process. Briefly pointed out, some of the tools used in the field research are described. Later, we conduct a semblance of the study region where the organization is located in order to highlight some aspects of its environment. In the fifth section we present the main results of the field study in a family business in Chiapas. Finally, we present, as a final thought, some conclusions.

Keywords : context; tradition; modernity; case study; family business.

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