Philosophy: an under-laborer serving researchers -- Explanation: different ways of answering "why?" -- Assumptions: not something to be assumed away -- Theory testing: a seemingly straightforward process -- Generalization: a controversial endeavor -- Replication: an ignored necessity -- Historiography: a neglected research method -- Looking ahead: to be, or not to be, a science
The field of management research is commonly regarded as or aspires to be a science discipline. As such, management researchers face similar methodological problems as their counterparts in other science disciplines. There are at least two ways that philosophy is connected with management research: ontological and epistemological. Despite an increasing number of scattered philosophy-based discussions of research methodology, there has not been a book that provides a systematic and more comprehensive treatment of the subject. This book addresses this gap in the market and provides new ideas and arguments for guiding management researchers.
Despite the growing popularity of the term 'organizational learning," writings on the topic have little consensus in terms of definition, perspective, conceptualization, and methodology. This article examines the dichotomy between two main streams of theorizing in the field. The first stream, prescriptive writings on the learning organization, is concerned with the question "How should an organization learn?" Targeting practitioners, these studies are usually based on the authors' consulting experience and seldom follow rigorous research methodologies. They also tend to overgeneralize their theories to all types of organization. Descriptive researches on organizational learning fall in the second stream which tackles the question "How does an organization learn?" These are academic studies striving for scientific rigor. Nevertheless, they often fail to generate useful implications for practitioners. In the final section of the article, brief suggestions are made to integrate the two streams of research.
We review 11 years (2001-2011) of management research using count-based dependent variables in 10 leading management journals. We find that approximately one out of four papers use the most basic Poisson regression model in their studies. However, due to potential concerns of overdispersion, alternative regression models may have been more appropriate. Furthermore, in many of these papers the overdispersion may have been caused by excess zeros in the data, suggesting that an alternative zero-inflated model may have been a better fit for the data. To illustrate the potential differences among the model specifications, we provide a comparison of the different models using previously published data. Additionally, we simulate data using different parameters. Finally, we offer a simplified decision tree guideline to improve future count-based research.
