In this ASQ Forum essay, Hinings and Greenwood look back over the body of work on organizations to trace the directions that scholars have taken in answering the early defining question in the field, What are the consequences of the existence of organizations? They consider the question in terms of how organizations affect privilege and disadvantage in society and how privilege and advantage are distributed in organizations. How the consequences of organizations are studied, they propose, has been affected by organization studies' move out of the disciplines (especially sociology) and into business schools, as well as by declining attention to history. The essay concludes with implications for research agendas that consider power and privilege.

Bartunek uses the corporate scandals of 2002 as a springboard to comment on Hinings and Greenwood's view that business schools may not be the best place for organizational scholarship. Beginning with ethics as taught in business school, possible conflicts of interest for professors, and the gap between what researchers produce and what practitioners can use, she discusses three questions that contribute to understanding the proper place of organization studies: (1) Who are the appropriate stakeholders of the research? (2) What are the implied relationships between scholars and stakeholders? and (3) How is research likely to have an impact? The commentary concludes with cautious optimism that business school professors can produce relevant scholarship that speaks to the issues of power and the societal impacts of organizations that concern Hinings and Greenwood.

Clegg's commentary builds on Hinings and Greenwood's distinction between asking questions from a disciplinary sociological perspective, in which the focus is on control and its consequences, or from a business perspective, with a focus on the organizational design of efficient and effective solutions to the problems of business owners. He discusses the Holocaust, ignored by most organization scholars, as an example of organizational efficiency resulting in the worst in human action and asks where in organization theory focused on the design of effective solutions does one find a concern with questions of power and responsibility? He traces a genealogy of moral questions in the study of organizations and reviews theories of organizations and power outside mainstream organization studies, comparing North American scholarship and training with work and academic work and training elsewhere. Concluding thoughts center on the current climate of both business and scholarship and possibilities for change