Crossroads—Mediation in Moderation

In their thoughtful response, Connell and Nord (this issue) are positively (in the ordinary, not the “quicksand,” sense of the term!) Aristotelian in their search for a golden mean between extremes. Even where they were critical of our paper, the persuasive power of their gentle, reconciliatory eclecticism mostly left us nodding rather than shaking our heads. In particular, we appreciate their identification of what they call the “emancipatory interest” in our paper, and their support for the more normatively oriented scholarship we advocate. Nevertheless, they spend so much time redefining terms and staking common ground that they did not address the validity—using whatever standards they wish to employ—of our central challenges to Barley and Kunda's account of theory development in management.