OTC focuses on generation of research and development of researches from multiple discipline. Research Capacity Building (RCB, and Research management (RM) are also the core functional areas of OTC.

What we do?

Research Management

• Managing Research around major research themes of contextually, reflexivity and multidisciplinarity.

Research Capacity Building (RCB)

• Research Capacity Building (RCB) focuses its activities around the development of researchers, in addition to rendering financial assistance to post graduates & post doctoral candidates.

There are three main motives of OTC

The first is embedded in the foundational diversity of the field. Organization Theory draws from multiple disciplines including, but not limited to, economics, psychology, sociology, philosophy, natural sciences, humanities, art, literature, history, linguistics, complexity sciences, critical theory, social constructionism, symbolic interactions and, phenomenology. The two broad opposing theoretical perspectives of Organization Theory, the dominant or dual functionalist and the critical or interpretive or deflective or retro- organization theory discourses are based on different inclinations towards these. foundational knowledge disciplines of the field. The Dominant discourse of OT grew out of the American Engineering and sociological discourse, rationality of Max Weber and the organizational paradigms of manufacturers and capitalists, whereas the Critical discourse is traced back to German thinkers such as Karl Marx with Karl Weick and other postmodern organization theorist to follow. The main purpose of Organization Theory Center (OTC) is to integrate the existing different Organization Theory discourses with the intent to create wholistic, contextualized and local epistemologies of disciplines such as arts and literature, religion, philosophy, linguistics, history and other knowledge fields. There are the first major objective of OTC is to create synthesis and synergy between the apparently opposing perspectives of Organization Theory.  

The second main stimulus for launching OTC is to promote contextualization of Organization Theory. Recently there has been an upsurge to contextualize the field around the constructs of culture, society and nation states. OTC’s objective s to ascend further and to utilize higher and whole constructs like civilization in cotextualizary endeavors. This perspective of civilization has the potential to challenge the monotony of globalization and to preserve and promote not only the localized and contextualized knowledge but also to provide an opportunity to learn from different perspectives and paradigms while transcending the national and geographical boundaries.

The third main motive of OTC is to encourage interdisciplinary learning and knowledge creation. The fields of medicine, physics, psychology and sociology are witnessing the emergence of new paradigms in the form of holography, quantum theory, symbolic interpretation and ethnographies. Organization Theory literature is paying isolated and scant attention to these advances. Organizations are made up of human beings who have the capacity to build and create collective and holographic organizational consciousness. OTC seeks to create interdisciplinary links with other knowledge fields so that the organizational individuals, processes, tasks and functions are understood in the realm of wholistic knowledge rather than as mere positivistic and empirical constructs.

The need for meta-theoretical reflection in organization theory

Organization Theory Center provides a forum for leading scholars in Organization Theory (OT) to engage in meta-theoretical reflection on the historical development, present state, and future prospects of OT. Central question facing the OT scholars is: What is the status of OT as a social science discipline?  It is to be noted in this meta-theoretical question: the object of analysis and debate is not a set of organizational phenomena, but OT itself. OTC aims at reviewing and evaluating important epistemological developments in OT, especially issues related to the kinds of knowledge claims put forward and the controversies surrounding the generation, validation, and utilization of such knowledge. In nutshell OTC focuses on the following five sets of questions:

Five sets of questions /themes.

1. What is the status of OT as science? What counts as valid knowledge in OT and Why? How do different paradigms of knowledge view OT?
2. How has OT developed over time, and what shape has the field taken?
3. How have certain well-known controversies in OT, such as, the structure/agency dilemma, objective/ constructivist, instrumental/communicative knowledge, realist/non-realist ontology, the study of organizational culture, the different modes of explanation, the micro/macro controversy, and the different explanations produced by organizational theorists, been dealt with?
4. How, and in what ways, is knowledge generated in OT related to action and policy? What features must OT knowledge have in order to be actionable, and of relevance to the world? How have ethical concerns been taken into account in OT?
5. What is the future of OT? What direction should the field take? What must change in the way research is conceptualized and conducted so that OT enhances its capacity to generate contextualized valid and relevant knowledge?

In nutshell the objectives of OTC can be summarized as creation of contextualized organizational knowledge, its integration and unity with other and different organizational knowledge, focus on qualitative and theoretical routes to knowledge and, creation of multi-disciplinary and wholistic Organization Theory.