The Theory of the Business, Falsification and Avoiding Managerial Unawareness
Abstract
Organizational strategy is based, too often implicitly, on a theory about the organization's environment. Although the falsity of this theory puts the entire strategy at risk, managers are usually unaware of both the theory and the peril. The issue of theory falsification is mostly associated with the philosopher Karl Popper, but unfortunately the management literature identifies with his rival, Thomas Kuhn. The wish to apply Popper's doctrine in the managerial context faces another difficulty – the formation of the theory. Whilst Popper sketches a hierarchical structure of a theoretic system, managers hold a one-tier theory-of-action that harms falsification. An adaptation of the Popperian method for the managerial context is suggested and examined through Action Research. The findings indicate that a careful extraction of an upper-level theory from the theory-of-action and its testing through derivable scenarios enables early falsification, namely before the actions are taken.Download Info
If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the proper application to view it first. In case of further problems read the IDEAS help page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS site. Please be patient as the files may be large.Bibliographic Info
Article provided by Faculty of Economics in Osijek, Croatia in its journal Interdisciplinary Management Research.
Volume (Year): 5 (2009)
Issue (Month): ()
Pages: 89-101
Contact details of provider:
Postal: Gajev trg 7, 31000 Osijek
Phone: 031 224 400
Fax: 031 211 604
Web page: http://www.efos.unios.hr
More information through EDIRC
Related research
Keywords: Organizational learning; Philosophy of science; Strategy; Theory-of-action; Unawareness;Find related papers by JEL classification:
- D81 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Criteria for Decision-Making under Risk and Uncertainty
- L24 - Industrial Organization - - Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior - - - Contracting Out; Joint Ventures
- M21 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting - - Business Economics - - - Business Economics
- M40 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting - - Accounting - - - General
References
References listed on IDEASPlease report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
- David Dequech, 2000. "Fundamental Uncertainty and Ambiguity," Eastern Economic Journal, Eastern Economic Association, vol. 26(1), pages 41-60, Winter.
Citations
Lists
This item is not listed on Wikipedia, on a reading list or among the top items on IDEAS.Statistics
Access and download statisticsCorrections
When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:osi:journl:v:5:y:2009:p:89-101For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Branko Matic, PhD).
If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.
If references are entirely missing, you can add them using this form.
If the full references list an item that is present in RePEc, but the system did not link to it, you can help with this form.
If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.
Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.