DC‑NO.MP · From Representation to Substitution: An Ontological Reconstruction of Management Measurement

Abstract

This volume is part of the DC‑NO.MP system. It derives from and refers to the permanently frozen core (V1) as its meta-axiomatic foundation. The core record is available at: 10.5281/ZENODO.22286075. The entire legitimacy of management studies rests upon the presupposition that measurement can represent reality. Extending Barad (2007) beyond performativity toward substitution, this paper takes Axiom I of the Sealed Version V1*—measurement-as-substitution—as its point of departure and proposes the substitution axiom: measurement is not the representation of a pre-given object, but the act of substituting a continuous existential excess with a discrete metric value. This yields the core formula Δ = x − m(x), where Δ is the ontological difference (the interval) produced by the act of measurement—a difference that can never be fully captured. This paper demonstrates that an organization is an organization *precisely because it cannot coincide completely with its own measurement—the interval is not a defect of measurement, but the very condition of organizational being. This lays the ontological foundation for the entire DC-NO.MP system. Highest Evidentiary Layer (Zenodo): 10.5281/ZENODO.21982945