Fabian Corver

In the first chapter of Foundations of Social Theory, James Coleman advances a meta-theoretical framework that specifies an ideal explanatory structure for social science. This is often represented by the Coleman “bathtub,” which distinguishes three linked components: a macro-to-micro component, an individual-action component, and a micro-to-macro component. In management research, the bathtub has become a widely used heuristic for articulating microfoundational explanations. At the same time, a growing literature has criticized or rejected the bathtub as an inappropriate framework for management theorizing. This article responds to these critiques by reconstructing and defending the Colemanian project in management research. We begin by clarifying Coleman’s distinction between meta-theory and first-order theory and by situating the bathtub within his systems-oriented and interventionist conception of social explanation. We further argue that the bathtub embodies a pragmatic and generative meta-theoretical orientation that places relatively weak constraints on first-order theoretical commitments, allowing flexibility in how agency, social organization, and change are theorized. We then show how the microfoundations movement in management research illustrates this generative potential by mobilizing the bathtub across a diverse range of theoretical perspectives, extending well beyond Coleman’s own rational choice commitments. This diversity helps explain both the widespread uptake of the bathtub and its continued usefulness for management theorizing. Finally, we argue that many contemporary critiques overlook these explanatory payoffs by advancing ontology-first objections that neglect Coleman’s fundamentally methodological and explanatory concerns. Recasting the Colemanian project in this way clarifies both the value and the limits of the bathtub and highlights its continuing relevance as a flexible meta-theoretical framework for management theorizing.

Progressing toward corporate sustainability requires organizational change, but how should we conceptualize its nature and dynamics? To date, the literature has modeled corporate change processes primarily through prescriptive notions of sustainability transformation. By treating sustainability problems as externally defined precursors to internally driven organizational responses, this approach reflects a conception of knowledge production that overemphasizes the role of models as finished products and struggles to account for the lived practice of corporate sustainability change. Specifically, we identify two core problems inherent in existing sustainability change models: a representational-adequacy problem and a knowledge-transfer problem. In response, we develop a Deweyan pragmatist conception of corporate sustainability change in which problem descriptions and experimental problem solving are dynamically co-constituted through situated, open-ended processes. Building on this reconceptualization, we propose a pragmatic modeling approach grounded in a co-creative inquiry between scholars and practitioners aimed at producing actionable knowledge for organizational sustainability problem solving. We outline how the activities of model construction and model use are deeply intertwined and point to a complex set of modeling actions in support of the collective pursuit of corporate sustainability change.

In the business ethics and management literature, it is widely recognized that corporate sustainability is a complex concept that remains strongly contested. While some scholars highlight the current utility of the concept when used contextually, others claim that new conceptual foundations must be sought in order to improve the concept. In this article, I demonstrate that these contextualist and foundationalist strategies for conceptualizing corporate sustainability both must confront the ongoing, dynamic interplay between empirical and normative theorizing. Using the requirements of practical usefulness and theoretical robustness, I consequently argue that adopting the “pure” strategy of either contextualism or foundationalism is problematic. Instead, I defend the position of conceptual pluralism by claiming that it can partially reconcile contextualist and foundationalist commitments and thereby enable a flexible, multilevel corporate sustainability framework. I conclude by highlighting the key implications of this approach to concept formation for business ethics.

Collective agency is often defended in terms of an interpretivist conception of agency. The idea is that the externally observable behavior of organized collectives is interpretable, and thus explainable, via the posits of beliefs, desires, and intentions. From this perspective, collective agents can be treated as black boxes. Just as an interpreter can ignore the brain processes of individual agents, she can disregard the inner workings of a collective agent. Here, I argue against such externalist versions of corporate interpretivism and defend an internalist alternative. My core claim is that knowledge of the intentional states of individual members involved in the internal processes of collectives should form the primary source of evidence in ascribing corporate intentional states. Hence, collective agents can be interpreted in an accurate manner only if the black box is opened.