Rigour
Modeling of idealized and generalized organizational problems, often far
removed from reality (descriptive); as for example physics.
Relevance
Producing good solutions for concrete problems in specific organizations
(normative, design, aims for improvement); as for example medicine.
Reactions to non relevant management studies:
Arrogance, Blocked aqueduct, Trade-off, Crisis
Law-based
A law is roughly a universal relationship between quantitative facts. Physics
Ideographic
describing/categorizing stuff, not looking for general explanations. History
Formalized
Every model of a complex system involves idealizations, some aspects are
modeled, others ignored. Geeft problem van idialisatie.
Theory-driven models
Start from a set of relations among sharply defined quantities. (rigorous)
Data-driven models
Are aimed at finding relations between quantities (relevent)
*Data
Are scarce, usually not reproducible, often not gathered for the model at hand,
perhaps unreliable (people lie/cheat/try to look good)
Descriptive statements
Represent facts, or explain them in terms of other facts
Prescriptive statements
State what one should or might do to change reality, command and suggestions
are included
Scientific research
Stepwise progression to complete empirical adequacy is the minimal goal.
Rationality unbound
Design research
The task is practically constrained; the bridge or organization has to be improved
now, and all material that is useful for this purpose is welcome. Rationality bound
Three criteria for determining rigorousness (True?, then rigor)
1. Conceptual Adequacy: Use of frameworks/theoretical concepts from
literature
2. Methodological rigor: Preference of quantifiable data (semi-structured
interviews) over subjectively oriented interpretive techniques (qualitative)
used in empirically examine the research question.
3. Accumulated empirical evidence: Are the research findings based on an
empirically validated theory.
Five criteria for determining the practical usefulness (True?, then relevant)
4. Meaningfulness: Does it provide a solution to the company’s problem?.
5. Goal relevance: The commonalities between organizational goals and the
goals of the research project
6. Operational Validity: Action plans for the company can be derived from
the results
7. Innovativeness: How non-trivial is the solution/new design compared to
existing literature?
8. Cost of implementation: Is it feasible to implement the design in terms of
costs and (restricted) time? And how much attention is paid to this?
Making it more Rigour
1. Use more objective, quantitative methods
2. Give more details about the specific circumstances of the research to
allow comparing.
3. Search extensively for frameworks in literature and relate these to the
current, specific circumstances.