Research and Publications

The Research Institute of Organizational Psychology, founded at the University of St. Gallen over 40 years ago, turned to social constructivist research early on. At the OPSY, Peter Dachler wrote articles as early as 1979 that questioned and criticised traditional, positivist positions in industrial and organizational psychology and in particular the individualised, heroic subject in leadership research. Together with Ken Gergen, Diane Hosking and others, he created as research community to develop alternatives to heroic subject positions, which was later called "relational constructionism" as it brought ideas from Berger & Luckman's social constructionism into psychological thinking.

Although social constructionism and also discursive psychology continue to be important epistemological and methodological starting points for us, our research has developed and expanded since these beginnings following the "linguistic turn". Today, we are engaged in researching social and discursive practices of gender, affect or entrepreneurship. By applying qualitative methods and developing new ways of analysing psychological phenomena, we contribute to the debates in organizational research, gender studies and social psychology.