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Two organizational paradigms have emerged historically and are in competition with one another: the conception of the organization as an information processor, a vision in which management is identified as a control function; and the conception of the organization as a system of collective action, a vision in which management is identified as a methodological support function for investigations that are carried out independently by teams doing their own work. The concept of rational representation—the representation of action (Taylorism) and the representation of thought about action (cognitivism, Herbert Simon)—is at the heart of the first paradigm. At the heart of the second paradigm is the concept of inquiry, stemming from pragmatist philosophy and developed in the business world by the quality management movement. Taking into account the complexity and variability of situated action, the concept of inquiry emphasizes two methodological rules: that all organizational improvement is experimental and that there is no abstract substitute for experience.