What Can Management Research Learn from Scientific Perspectivism

Abstract

Scientific perspectivism is a kind of scientific philosophy developing based on logicism and its core thought lies in the emphasis on conditional scientific knowledge. This paper analyzes existing management research paradigm and discusses the motivation for the introduction of scientific perspectivism and feasible strategies. At present, popular research paradigms in management field include the emphasis on theoretical basis, the bias of confirmatory research and the pursuit of statistical significance of research results. So researchers may adopt some questionable research behaviors to pander to these requirements. But these behaviors give rise to a serious consequence: existing management knowledge base is filled with a lot of false positive results. It is no doubt that it is not beneficial to the development of management. This paper analyzes the origin of science philosophy of the above research paradigm, and points out the profound effect of logicism on this research paradigm. It confirms the management research taking scientific perspectivism as the guidance thought: on the one hand, it helps to reduce questionable research behaviors and on the other hand, it also can get rid of the disadvantages of current management research ignoring the assumptions and contextual factors.