Theorising collective behaviour in OR interventions with Searle’s social ontology

To understand the efficacy of OR processes, it is necessary to theorise in order to explain collective cognitive and behavioural processes in OR interventions. We propose an action-oriented interpretation of Searle’s social ontology as a process-based view of the collective construction of social reality in OR practice. By conceptualising Collective Intentionality as at once situated and yet irreducible to the individual mind, this may provide an alternative perspective on the complex fabric that makes up problem structuring processes. We argue that Searle’s social ontology serves both pragmatic as well as theoretical purposes in disambiguating the processes involved problem structuring interventions.