A Very Short, Fairly Interesting and Reasonably Cheap Book About Management Research by Emma Bell & Richard Thorpe

Author:Emma Bell & Richard Thorpe
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: SAGE Publications, Inc.
Published: 2013-03-15T16:00:00+00:00

5

Theory in Management Research

Nothing is so practical as a good theory. (Kurt Lewin, 1945, cited in Van de Ven, 1989: 486)

This chapter is concerned with the process of theorising. Interestingly, it is surprisingly difficult to say what theorising really is, or even what constitutes theory in management research, despite the fact that generating theory is the primary goal of research. The importance of this issue in management research therefore cannot be underestimated. And yet some have argued that we don’t train students adequately in theory construction. Consequently, it is feared that there are just not enough members of the research community who ‘have that ineffable something that makes a good theorist’ (Sutton and Staw, 1995)! Why does this matter? Is it because research careers are influenced by our ability to publish research in elite academic journals, which require new contributions to theory (Sutton and Staw, 1995; Rynes, 2005; Colquitt and Zapata-Phelan, 2007)?

We often take for granted what we, as social scientists and management scholars, mean by theory. Here we take theory to be a ‘unified, systematic explanation’ of phenomena that is explanatory and empirical (Schwandt, 1997: 154). Theory-building can be said to be three activities – ‘creating, constructing and justifying a theory’ (Van de Ven, 2007: 141). But even if we know what theory is, there are differences of opinion about the point in the research process when theory should be developed. For example, grounded theorists are of the view that theoretical ideas should only be developed after the data has been collected, and theory should not be used to formulate hypotheses or develop research questions prior to data collection. However, latterly, writers like Charmaz (2005) have encouraged a move away from the idea that grounded theory involves the researcher entering the research scene without a frame of reference. And most other researchers assume that theory shapes the interpretation of data to a greater or lesser extent.

One person who was particularly concerned with theory was the researcher Kurt Lewin, who studied group dynamics, leadership and learning (Van de Ven and Poole, 1995). Lewin was influential in setting up a kind of laboratory for studying human behaviour in the 1940s. The lab pioneered a small-group discussion method, called T-group, which involved people participating in decision making and simultaneously analysing each other’s behaviour, all of which was recorded by the researchers. Lewin believed that even complex social phenomena like organisations could be understood through close and detailed observation, which in turn could enable identification of consistent patterns of human behaviour (Lewin, 1951). He is widely credited with the quote at the start of this chapter. What we understand Lewin to mean by this aphorism is that management theory should not be about developing complex, abstract theoretical models that an intelligent, thoughtful worker or manager would find difficult to relate to their lived experience. Rather, it should be about developing and using theory as a catalyst for meaningful change: a goal that contains an ethical and political dimension.

On maps and navigation

One way of

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.