106. "The God of Variance Has Feet Partly of Iron and

Partly of Baked Clay"

The number of outlets for research in the organization sciences continues to grow. Despite this outpouring of effort, the results seem meager. There ia a proliferation of paradigms and a lack of cumulation of the science. This paper argues that this is due to the adoption of an inappropriate philosophy. Early on, the field adopted the variance-theoretic instead of a process-theoretic approach. The dominant paradigm is not one of theory, but one of method. The argument bgins with a reassessment of randomness and its effects on research. These effects include truncating observations, limiting scientific inquiry, imposing additional constraints that can distort phenomena of interest, and stifling curiosity. The rise and decline of variance theories follows Mohr's 1982 discussion. The alternative to variance-theoretic thinking is process philosophy. The paper includes a discussion of why group and organizational phenomena are inherently processual in nature and goes on to discuss the applications of processes, process frameworks, and related issues.