Comments on: Occupational Psychosis http://organizationsandmarkets.com/2008/04/28/occupational-psychosis/ Economics of organizations, strategy, entrepreneurship, innovation, and more Wed, 03 Dec 2008 23:59:15 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=MU hourly 1 By: Peter Klein http://organizationsandmarkets.com/2008/04/28/occupational-psychosis/#comment-70205 Peter Klein Wed, 30 Apr 2008 18:47:27 +0000 http://organizationsandmarkets.wordpress.com/?p=1505#comment-70205 Well, I'm all for methodological pluralism, just not sure if it's a good thing for individual scholars to embrace such diversity in their own work. There's an intellectual division of labor, after all, with comparative advantage and specialization and gains from trade applying here as much as anywhere. Maybe economists and sociologists (for example) should be like laywers in the US-model adversarial judicial system, with the public, or whoever consumes our work (hopefully somebody does), sorting it all out as judge and jury. Well, I’m all for methodological pluralism, just not sure if it’s a good thing for individual scholars to embrace such diversity in their own work. There’s an intellectual division of labor, after all, with comparative advantage and specialization and gains from trade applying here as much as anywhere. Maybe economists and sociologists (for example) should be like laywers in the US-model adversarial judicial system, with the public, or whoever consumes our work (hopefully somebody does), sorting it all out as judge and jury.

]]> By: randyw http://organizationsandmarkets.com/2008/04/28/occupational-psychosis/#comment-70193 randyw Wed, 30 Apr 2008 04:35:45 +0000 http://organizationsandmarkets.wordpress.com/?p=1505#comment-70193 Peter, I'd argue that any body of scholarly inquiry that is hard-wired to a particular explanandum/explanans is self-limiting. The Cazas went a bit farther to scold against management scholars always studying what is "broken" in organizations. I'll grant that in any particular study, one must choose a particular explanandum; to have multiples will confound the story. Yet, shouldn't we bound blithely from one research design to another over time? I am reminded of the plea of Zajac and Olsen (Jan 1993 Journal of Management Studies) to use transaction value analysis as an alternative to transaction costs in examining interfirm strategies -- fighting against the tide, indeed. For more than 12 years, I have used transaction value as Zajac and Olsen described it in executive education modules, but not in research. I like the approach, but I have a trained incapacity to apply it in research. Peter, I’d argue that any body of scholarly inquiry that is hard-wired to a particular explanandum/explanans is self-limiting. The Cazas went a bit farther to scold against management scholars always studying what is “broken” in organizations. I’ll grant that in any particular study, one must choose a particular explanandum; to have multiples will confound the story. Yet, shouldn’t we bound blithely from one research design to another over time?

I am reminded of the plea of Zajac and Olsen (Jan 1993 Journal of Management Studies) to use transaction value analysis as an alternative to transaction costs in examining interfirm strategies — fighting against the tide, indeed. For more than 12 years, I have used transaction value as Zajac and Olsen described it in executive education modules, but not in research. I like the approach, but I have a trained incapacity to apply it in research.

]]> By: Peter Klein http://organizationsandmarkets.com/2008/04/28/occupational-psychosis/#comment-70192 Peter Klein Wed, 30 Apr 2008 02:17:45 +0000 http://organizationsandmarkets.wordpress.com/?p=1505#comment-70192 Randy, I haven't had time to read Caza and Caza carefully (just a quick glance), but I have to wonder if "negative framing" is such a bad thing. To understand a complex world, we have to deem something the explanandum and something the explanans. Economists and sociologists often have these swapped (e.g., the former seek to explain "culture" in terms of purposeful human action, while the latter use culture to explain the choices of embedded individuals). Taking one of these perspectives seems to preclude taking the other, such that we define our problem, and our research design, by exclusion as much as inclusion (as you note above). But what's the alternative? Randy, I haven’t had time to read Caza and Caza carefully (just a quick glance), but I have to wonder if “negative framing” is such a bad thing. To understand a complex world, we have to deem something the explanandum and something the explanans. Economists and sociologists often have these swapped (e.g., the former seek to explain “culture” in terms of purposeful human action, while the latter use culture to explain the choices of embedded individuals). Taking one of these perspectives seems to preclude taking the other, such that we define our problem, and our research design, by exclusion as much as inclusion (as you note above). But what’s the alternative?

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