There is increasing pressure for organisational accountability and performance measurement, not only to their immediate shareholders but in terms of their broader environmental and social responsibility. From a research and theory building perspective, this requires an alternative view of organisations and organisational activity in ways that reflect the multiplicity of views in a wider social context. This article argues that meta-theory approaches are a way to incorporate these multiple perspectives. This approach presents an alternative to conventional economic and organisational theories, which tend to limit understanding to “unit-level” thinking. Locating theoretical positions in a broader framework encourages greater critical questioning of theories and provides a sound conceptual platform from which to engage with transformative processes in dynamic and uncertain environments.