Paradigm Debate Research Articles

The Prisms of Management

Abstract This article makes a contribution to the ongoing paradigmatic debate concerning management science, aiming to define more precisely its constructs. At present, within this field there is a lack of definition, of a universally accepted way of seeing reality, which results in a clear deficit in pedagogical identity. Our proposal for a new paradigm is based on three descriptors or constructs (prisms): organization, knowledge, and safety (OKS); in this model, the leading role is played by human. The “organization” prism, in the classic sense, concerns the organization with an emphasis on the implementation of the personalistic vision of human. The “knowledge” prism includes the technical, social, and economic aspects of the collection, processing, and use of knowledge. The “security” prism is an aspect related to the identification and prevention of crises and threats to the functioning of the OKS triad as a whole.

Paradigm debates and marketing theory, thought and practice

Purpose– This paper aims to provide a history of a number of intellectual debates in marketing theory and consumer research. It outlines the key arguments involved, highlights the politics and acrimoniousness that often accompanied the competition for academic prestige or practitioner remuneration. It weaves the contents of the special issue into its narrative.Design/methodology/approach– This article engages in a broad historical survey of the history of marketing thought, as it pertains to intellectual debate and disputation.Findings– While scholars often articulate objectivity as an intellectual ideal, many of the debates that are explored reveal a degree of intellectual intolerance and this is refracted through the institutional system that structures marketing discourse.Originality/value– This account provides an introduction to the intellectual debates of the last century, highlighting the ebb and flow of marketing thought. It calls attention to debates that are largely under explored and highlights the politics of knowledge production in marketing and consumer research.

From Bretton Woods to the Global Financial Crisis: Popular Politics, Paradigmatic Debates, and the Construction of Crises

How do popular values shape constructions of crises and paradigmatic debates? In this paper, I offer a constructivist framework highlighting the popular bases of paradigmatic ideas and policy interests. In historical terms, I then trace the evolution of values, ideas, and polic]ies across three crises—the Bretton Woods-era inflation and currency crises of the 1960s, the South Korean and Long Term Capital Management crises of the 1990s, and the global financial crisis. In concluding, I stress implications for tensions not only between intellectuals and populists, but also among populists themselves—as in the affective divides between Tea Party and Occupy movements.

Towards an emerging paradigm of strategic communication: Core driving forces

Major forces such as globalisation, the digital network revolution and the empowerment of myriad new stakeholders have resulted in a blurring of communication genres such as marketing and corporate communications, and are redefining the role of the communications professional within business and society. Such fundamental changes require that both scholars and practitioners challenge their own assumptions and consider the implications of these paradigm shifts. The values of the modernist age, resulting in linear, top-down, consensus-seeking decision-making behaviour, must be revisited to make way for emerging values such as activism, dialogue, communal values and dissent, which allow for co-creation and a multiplicity of viewpoints. This article reflects on paradigmatic debates and identifies shifts from modern to postmodern organisational practice, and how these impact on communication practices and integrated communication. Consideration is given to some theoretical, practical, research and educational implications of these shifts as core driving forces towards the new emerging paradigm of strategic communication, which can best be conceptualised as purposeful communication to realise the organisational mission.

Political formations, discourses and actions

The articles in this issue explore a range of political themes connected to discourse, identification and power. The first article (Vardeman-Winter, Tindall and Jiang) considers how the descriptive theory of intersectionality has critical implications for public relations as a discipline and a practice, challenging situational theory and established conceptions of publics. Intersectionality implicitly politicizes public relations since identities are sociopolitical constructions and raises issues for research practices, explored by the authors through critical review of past empirical studies. The authors argue that their approach offers a better understanding of ‘phenomenological situations’ making use of ethnographic insights. The tensions between interpretations that respectively propose organizations or publics (activists) have more power is foregrounded as: ‘Intersectionality illuminates this “crisis of representation” over who has what power in public relations, based on their identities and how these identities are situated in sociological contexts.’ Identities and identity formation and maintenance are seen as central to the understanding of the acquisition, enactment and ‘management’ of power. Power is central to the second article (Place and Vardeman-Winter) where: ‘The public relations industry can be viewed as a site through which power is exercised, and public relations professionals are players in systems of power dynamics and relations.’ The authors discuss hegemonic discourses in public relations where the concept has had purchase in considering the impact of public relations practice in society as well as in paradigm debate within the field itself (L’Etang, 1996: 34; Roper, 2005) blending insights from subaltern and post-colonial theories while adapting Foucault’s concept of

Debate over the Methodology of Whyte’s Street Corner Society

William Foote Whyte’s Street Corner Society is a classic study in which research was carried out on an Italian slum in a large US city. The methodology and conclusions of the study, however, depart from the standard typology. It was not community research, or a case study, and it did not even fit the narrative model of qualitative research. Whyte’s study did not use quantitative methods and yet reached analytical conclusions. Interpersonal relations are its primary focus. It tries to reveal the patterns of recurring group activities with the objective of capturing the hierarchy in small groups and the rules these groups are guided by. This article examines the motivations of Whyte’s influential study, his research strategy and his main method – participant observation. In the concluding section of this article there is a discussion of the basic paradigmatic debate in which Norman K. Denzin, Laurel Richardson and others criticised the methodology of the Street Corner Society while Arthur J. Vidich and other scholars praised this study’s innovative approach

Bounded Generalizations Revisited: Is the Post-Communist Area a World in Reverse?

Since Valerie Bunce’s (2000) seminal work on big and bounded generalizations in the post-communist world, plenty of new research has time and again confirmed its main premise: these countries do not simply follow universal political trends. They may, for sure, adapt themselves to general movements, but when they do, they usually offer new, unexpected bounded tendencies. This applies not only to the key features and stages of political transition, but also to other important elements of political system and behavior, such as the levels of social capital and the dynamics of new radical right parties. This presentation has three aims. First, it will summarize the current research since Bunce’s work that falls within the category of big and bounded generalizations. Second, I will discuss my findings through the lenses of the paradigmatic debate between instrumentalist, positivist and constructivist epistemologies in political science. In other words, I will discuss whether the bounded generalizations approach makes the facts speak for themselves, or is freely imposed by rational researchers, or grows out of discursive communities. And finally, I will offer an interpretative understanding of big and bounded generalizations by presenting results of semi-directed interviews with researchers that work on post-communist countries and, therefore, must constantly position themselves on the big-bounded generalization map.

Slaves immersed in a liberal ideology

Paradigm debates have been featured in the nursing literature for over four decades. There are at least two opposing paradigms specific to nursing that have remained central in these debates. Advocates of the unitary perspective (or simultaneity paradigm) consider their theories to be more philosophically advanced and contemporary alternatives when compared to the older more traditional ideas characteristic of models they describe as originating from the totality paradigm. In the context of these debates, I focus on some theoretical positions embedded in the unitary perspective, noting their limitations with respect to integrating the individual and social mandates of nursing; nurses are responsible not only for individual health-related needs, but also for the health of the collective. I explore two hypotheses that may explain the powers of endurance of the unitary perspective. Paley, who outlines the origins of nurses' 'slave morality', inspires the first hypothesis. The second hypothesis speaks to the location of nursing knowledge development in the context of liberal ideology. In this work, I outline key conceptualizations of the unitary perspective in order to clearly illustrate the limitations of the unitary perspective for nurses' social mandate. Then, I explore how slave morality and liberal ideological assumptions might both work to sustain the unitary perspective. A paradigm for nursing must have utility in addressing both the health-related needs of individuals, and for addressing the health of the collective. To this end, I advance suggestions in three areas: first, to transform nurses' slave morality to more honest and noble aspirations; second, to examine liberal ideological premises; and third, to end paradigm debate by resituating elements of the unitary perspective to the level of mid-range theory, where it could be most effective for research and practice with specific populations.

Políticas de Agrocombustíveis no Brasil: Paradigmas e Disputa Territorial

O artigo versa sobre os sentidos das políticas governamentais, das ações dos movimentos camponeses e das corporações neste momento de intensificação da expansão das áreas de culturas para produção dos agrocombustíveis. Os autores analisam as relações e suas contradições a partir das influências dos paradigmas sobre as políticas de governos e sobre as ações das organizações. Discutem como as políticas e as ações modificam os parâmetros dos paradigmas. A partir de trabalho de campo, estudam três experiências de movimentos camponeses, sendo dois deles vinculados à Via Campesina. Estudam também documentos da Confederação Nacional dos Trabalhadores na Agricultura (CONTAG) para comparar as posturas dos movimentos camponeses frente às políticas e relações com o agronegócio. Com essas análises, os autores refletem sobre a relação existente entre território material e imaterial, confrontando as realidades, teorias, conceitos e ideologias por meio do debate paradigmático.

Are We There Yet? Positioning Qualitative Research Differently

Almost two decades ago, Janice Morse launched this conference, and QHR as a venue for qualitative health research scholarship. The health research climate was then resistant to qualitative research methods. Qualitative scholars portrayed the rigor of their work in traditional scientific language and justified qualitative approaches in opposition to quantitative approaches. Emphasis on difference expanded as we embraced paradigm debates and argued about location of particular research approaches. Increasingly, I have been challenged to reconsider the boundaries between and among research methods and paradigms as I struggled to answer my most pressing emerging questions. The focus of this presentation is consideration of how the position of qualitative research has shifted over the past 20 years. Based on my program of women's health research, I will discuss the appeal and pitfalls of concrete distinctions, the challenges of flexibility and convergence, and the necessity of moving beyond difference toward a complete research toolbox that is useful for improving health.

Emotions Before Paradigms: Elite Anxiety and Populist Resentment from the Asian to Subprime Crises

Emotional forces shape not only market tendencies to ‘manias, panics and crashes’, but also policy debates as they predispose agents to definitions of state and societal interests. Nevertheless, IR scholars often downplay emotional influences, casting them as secondary to coalitional or cognitive forces. In this article, I address these limitations by disaggregating intersubjective understandings into popularly resonant traditions of thought and elite-based paradigmatic frameworks. Drawing on the insights of Reinhold Niebuhr and Richard Hofstadter, I then argue that elite anxieties regarding populism can engender the ‘technocratic repression’ of emotion from paradigmatic debates in ways that paradoxically render policy less stable and pragmatic. Firstly, such repression obscures the emotional bases of market trends and engenders overconfidence in the ability of monetary fine-tuning to restrain manias and to contain panics. Secondly, in isolating paradigmatic debate from everyday language, technocratic repression frustrates deliberation and can exacerbate populist resentments, requiring the construction of crises to advance change. Shifting to an empirical focus, I suggest that tendencies to technocratic repression in the 1990s and early 21st century engendered overconfidence in monetary fine-tuning. In the post-subprime context, the key question is the extent to which this bias in favour of monetary policy has been reversed, or whether constructions of the subprime crisis have legitimated a revived regulatory stress. In sum, this analysis highlights the reality of emotion as an influence on the international political economy.

Reading Professor David D. Monieson

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to present a selective survey of Professor Monieson's work, using the philosophy and sociology of science as a prism.Design/methodology/approachThe approach taken is a historical review.FindingsMonieson was an important figure in the development of marketing thought, whose research should be read by marketing scholars and students alike.Practical implicationsThe paper introduces Monieson's advanced epistemological and axiological reflections to an audience who might be unaware of his contributions. In addition, it connects Monieson's writings with issues and debates central to the history of marketing thought, namely the first paradigm debate stimulated by the German Historicist School.Originality/valueThis paper examines and interprets Monieson's somewhat difficult work for a new audience; and connects the work of a managerially minded scholar with emerging debates in critical marketing studies.

Economics are too important to leave to economists: The everyday – and emotional – dimensions of international political economy

John M. Hobson and Leonard Seabrooke (eds) (2007) Everyday Politics of the World Economy, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, US$36.99, ISBN 0521701635. Meg Jacobs (2005) Pocketbook Politics: Ec...

The Debate That Won't Die? Values Incommensurability, Antagonism and Theory Choice

In this article, I examine a recent turn in the paradigm debate towards the incommensurability thesis and the proposed possibility of adjudication between theories from different paradigms. In particular, I argue that McKelvey and Baum's views (among others) appear to be based on a desire to reduce paradigmatic pluralism and, in turn, reduce uncertainty about what is the empirically valid view among competing theories. By contrast, I make the case that an incommensurability of values still permeates any attempt to engage in theory-adjudication. Such values, I assert, will stall any attempt to adjudicate between theories from different paradigms. In the face of widespread cognitive bias, confirmation bias and belief perseverance, we cannot, I conclude, hope to deal with this issue in any satisfactory way.

The Political Discourse of International Order in Modern Japan: 1868–1945

This article discusses what constituted Japan's conception of the world order, by analyzing political discourse of international order in modern Japan. It has been generally assumed that the Japanese vision of international order in the pre-World War II years was dominated by a belief in the supremacy of the sovereign state. Contrary to the conventional supposition, this paper will argue that modern Japan actually abounded in discourses of transnationalism, and that most of them cannot be seen as the product of liberal ideas but rather the result of an unstable image of the sovereign state system. Surveying the historical development of political discourse of sovereignty and colonial administration in modern Japan, the way in which the ambivalence of Japanese transnationalism had affected the theoretical construction of the international order will be elucidated. Keeping in mind that previous studies on the genealogy of international relations have focused exclusively on the paradigmatic debate over the League of Nations, this article will also pay more attentions to the fact that rearrangement of empire had occupied the significant place in building the image of the world order. Based on the historical considerations mentioned above, the conclusion will offer generalized consideration of what constituteｄ Japan's conception of the world order.

Book Review: Paradigm Debates in Accounting

Book Review: Paradigm Debates in Accounting

Strengthening Structured Abstracts for Education Research: The Need for Claim-Based Structured Abstracts

Recent policy recommendations involving the putative primacy of randomized clinical trials in educational settings have reignited research paradigm debates. The authors of this article use the vehicle of strengthening structured journal abstracts to point out the argumentative character of all education research claims. They offer suggestions to authors to help inform academic and policy-oriented consumers of research articles about the various logical and evidentiary limitations that temper research-based claims, whether they emanate from quantitative or qualitative methods.

The ordering of marketing theory: the influence of McCarthyism and the Cold War

Following Peter and Olson’s seminal contribution to the marketing of ideas literature, this article explores the marketing of theory. It is argued that marketing discourse should be viewed as an ordering attempt, not as an order. From this perspective it becomes important that we explore how marketing theory comes to be ordered in the way it presently is, and the manner in which certain ideas develop or face extinction, in order to better understand what can or cannot be said in marketing theory. In response, this article argues that a much needed turn in the paradigm debate should be toward the exploration of the institutionalization of marketing theory. It examines the social, economic and institutional logic underpinning theory production in marketing and demonstrates the influence of McCarthyism and the Cold War climate on marketing theory.

Syncretism and Fundamentalism: A Comparison

In several ways, syncretism and fundamentalism can be viewed as opposite reactions to the processes of modernization and globalization. Within religious contexts, syncretists and fundamentalists make different choices when confronted with alternatives and with challenges to the accepted practices of daily life. The power dimension is an important aspect for this comparison. But the study of these two modern religious phenomena also points to a similarity with a paradigmatic debate, the contrast between positivist and constructivist approaches. Though the comparison is not the most obvious, there are striking similarities between fundamentalists and positivists, on the one hand, and between constructivists and syncretists, on the other.

‘That dog won’t hunt’: the cottage industry of realist criticism, or must you play that Waltz again?

Debates over realism seem endless. The neoliberal tenor of the decade ending with September 2001 has given way to another popular revival of conventional realism, as if that paradigm were once again the only true reflection of world politics. This resurgence, however, is best considered within the context of longer-term debates over realism and its spin-off, neorealism: their accuracy, applicability, and — some would say — morality. This article asks how and why a paradigm that has been incessantly attacked has survived. It argues that, to answer these questions, one must look beyond issues of internal theoretical consistency to the historical context within which structural realism has unfolded. In addition, one must entertain the possibility that the incessant focus on internal theoretical debates downplays both the results of empirical research and the personal prejudices or worldviews that ultimately may underlie preferences for models. Much of the discussion revolves around Kenneth Waltz's Theory of International Politics (TIP), a central focus of the debate, but also assesses implications from other studies thought to be extensions of neorealism and TIP. We conclude that progress in international relations (IR) and IR theory ultimately requires less energy being spent on the broad paradigmatic debates, and more effort being dedicated to evaluating what empirical investigations can contribute as well as recognizing what lies outside their domain.