Transcript The Building Block of Theory Development

“The mission of theory development is to challenge and
extend existing knowledge, not simply to rewrite it”
(Whetten, 2001)
Four building Blocks
What
Why
How
Who, Where,
When
Block 1: What
 The FACTORS that can explain the phenomena of
interest:
 Concepts
Concept
 Constructs
 Variables
Construct
V
V
V
Construct
V
V
What
 The issue is… to what extent we have included the
‘right’ factors
Deciding the ‘right’ factors will be based on two criteria:
Comprehensiveness
-Are all relevant
factors included?
Parsimony
-Which factors can be
deleted..little value to
our understanding?
But it is not simply adding or subtracting factors from an
existing model. The main concern is how the addition or
subtractions of these factors alter our understanding of the
phenomena
Block 2: How
 We have identified a set of factors (What)
 So the next question is:
 “How are they related?
X
Y
 Not all theoretical model must have “boxes” and “arrow”,
but a visual representation would clarify thinking
Block 3: Why
 Provide justification for the selection of factors and the
proposed relationship.
 The theoretical glue that bonds the model together :
 “The underlying theory” The logic underlying the
model.
 The fundamental views of human / organization / societal
process that justify the proposed conceptualization
 Model evaluation:
 Early stage..Conceptual: Logic
 Final Stage.. Verification: Data
 Once it has empirically verified, the model is ready to be
used
Why…
 “What” + “How”  Produces typical model / framework
 Based on this framework, we can derive testable
proposition/hypothesis..But do we really understand the
theoretical reasons or the logic behind the framework….
“reasoning”
 Technically, the statement “Y is caused by X” can be tested
without understanding the Whys underlying the model.
 HOWEVER this will lead to empirically dominated
discussion, rather than theoretically
 In short:
 What & How … Describe
 Why… Explain
 What & How & Why… essential elements of a simple theory:
Description & explanation.
Block 4: Who, Where, When
 Who, Where, When.. Contextual factors
 These condition place limitation of theoretical model
 Set the boundaries of generalization
 Sensitivity to context is especially important for theories based
on experience
 Observations are embedded and must be understood within a
context
Example :
 Personnel selection model…suitable for business setting
organization, but low predictive validity in a military setting.. So
we have to understand why this anomaly presents so that can
revise the What and How  Have theoretical merit
 Conversely, applying an old model to a new setting and showing
that it works as expected is not instructive. It has theoretical
merit if something about the new setting suggests the
theory should not work under those conditions
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