Lost in space, out of time: Why and how we should study organizations comparatively
Studying Differences between Organizations: Comparative Approaches to Organizational Research
ISBN: 978-1-84855-646-1, eISBN: 978-1-84855-647-8
Publication date: 31 July 2009
Abstract
In our 1983 paper, McKelvey and I (McKelvey & Aldrich, 1983) took the field of “organization science” to task for not paying sufficient attention to the scope conditions under which research findings are valid. (Today I would argue that the field also had not paid sufficient attention to matching theoretical ambitions with research designs.) We argued that the field fell short on three critical criteria: classifiability, generalizability, and predictability. We noted that samples of organizations were so poorly described that classifying them was impossible, that generalizations were being carelessly drawn, and that the predictive power of most theories was extremely weak.
Citation
Aldrich, H.E. (2009), "Lost in space, out of time: Why and how we should study organizations comparatively", King, B.G., Felin, T. and Whetten, D.A. (Ed.) Studying Differences between Organizations: Comparative Approaches to Organizational Research (Research in the Sociology of Organizations, Vol. 26), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 21-44. https://doi.org/10.1108/S0733-558X(2009)0000026003
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2009, Emerald Group Publishing Limited