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The purpose of this paper is to examine the importance and influence of the epistemologies: “empiricism”, “rationalism” and “positivism” in library and information science (LIS).

First, outlines the historical development of these epistemologies, by discussing and identifying basic characteristics in them and by introducing the criticism that has been raised against these views. Second, their importance for and influence in LIS have been examined.

The findings of this paper are that it is not a trivial matter to define those epistemologies and to characterise their influence. Many different interpretations exist and there is no consensus regarding current influence of positivism in LIS. Arguments are put forward that empiricism and positivism are still dominant within LIS and specific examples of the influence on positivism in LIS are provided. A specific analysis is made of the empiricist view of information seeking and it is shown that empiricism may be regarded as a normative theory of information seeking and knowledge organisation.

The paper discusses basic theoretical issues that are important for the further development of LIS as a scholarly field.

The purpose of this article is to chronicle the publication events in the 1980s and 1990s that framed the development of the series of controversies in marketing that are known as the “philosophy debates”.

The article uses a participant’s retrospective approach.

The article finds that seven publication events are key to understanding marketing’s philosophy debates. The seven are the publication of the “little green book” by Grid, Inc. in 1976; the philosophy of science panel discussion held at the Winter American Marketing Association Educators’ Conference in 1982; the special issue of the Journal of Marketing on marketing theory in 1983; three articles on the “critical relativist perspective” by the Journal of Consumer Research in 1986 and 1988; the “blue book” by South-Western in 1991; a trilogy of articles on truth, positivism and objectivity in the Journal of Marketing and the Journal of Consumer Research in 1990-1993; and an article on “rethinking marketing” in the European Journal of Marketing in 1994.

Chronicling the key publication events enables readers to understand what the debates were about and provides readers a starting point for further investigating the issues in the debates.

Presents the scientific methodology from the enlarged cybernetical perspective that recognizes the anisotropy of time, the probabilistic character of natural laws, and the entry that the incomplete determinism in Nature opens to the occurrence of innovation, growth, organization, teleology communication, control, contest and freedom. The new tier to the methodological edifice that cybernetics provides stands on the earlier tiers, which go back to the Ionians (c. 500 BC). However, the new insights reveal flaws in the earlier tiers, and their removal strengthens the entire edifice. The new concepts of teleological activity and contest allow the clear demarcation of the military sciences as those whose subject matter is teleological activity involving contest. The paramount question “what ought to be done”, outside the empirical realm, is embraced by the scientific methodology. It also embraces the cognitive sciences that ask how the human mind is able to discover, and how the sequence of discoveries might converge to a true description of reality.

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.

This article engages in a broad historical survey of the history of marketing thought, as it pertains to intellectual debate and disputation.

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.

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.

To discuss systemic thinking in relation to the naturalistic and anti‐naturalistic position in the philosophy of social science. To develop the theme in two parts: I and II.

A cybernetic approach is taken and a discussion on what is the foundation for the philosophy of social science for systemic thinking is developed.

The findings for Part I are that the rationalistic view of knowledge is based on reflection and reason. The empirical viewpoint on knowledge based on observations. The realistic view of knowledge is based on the link between the rationalistic and the empirical point of view. The systemic viewpoint is based on the realistic view of knowledge.

Provided assistance to social scientists who study social systems from the systemic or cybernetic point of view. Gives researchers studying problems/phenomena in social systems a systemic viewpoint.

It positioned systemic thinking in relation to the philosophy of social science.

The Legends in Marketing series presents compilations of the seminal works of marketing scholars who have made significant contributions to the discipline of marketing. This review discusses the structure and contents of the volumes that comprise Legends in Marketing: Shelby D. Hunt (Sage, forthcoming).

Organizational researchers live in two worlds. The first demands and rewards speculations about how to improve performance. The second demands and rewards adherence to rigorous standards of scholarship (March & Sutton, 1997, p. 698).Those of us who study organizations and are professors of management work on the front lines, so to speak, where the beliefs we have about how to improve managerial performance get passed directly on to practitioners. The question is, What right do we have to put our beliefs in a privileged position? Beliefs, by definition, are supposed to be true. According to Webster’s (1996) a belief is a conviction about the truth of some statement and/or reality of some phenomenon, especially when based on examination of evidence. Are all of our lectures based on consensually agreed upon evidentiary standards? What are these standards and who should maintain them?

This chapter extends the phenomenographical research method by arguing the merits of engineering the outcome space from these investigations to effectively communicate the outcomes to an audience in technology-based discipline areas. Variations discovered from the phenomenographical study are blended with pre- and post-tests and a frequency distribution. Outcomes are then represented in a visual statistical manner to suit the specific target audience. This chapter provides useful insights that will be of interest to researchers wishing to present findings from qualitative research methods, and particularly the outcomes of phenomenographic investigations, to an audience in technology-based discipline areas.

This paper aims at interpreting the epistemology of marketing. The paper investigates several research questions, proposing some initial reflections concerning their impact on marketing.

The paper addresses the research questions by conducting an analysis of the marketing literature. An analysis of philosophical postmodern literature is also carried out. The paper's attempt constantly to create links between the level of philosophical elaboration and that of marketing research leads to a proposal of new approach to marketing research: experiential research.

In the paper's review of the marketing literature the traditional pragmatic approach of marketing as a discipline is highlighted. Its strong managerial perspective has partly diverted researchers’ attention from the theory, and focused it mainly on the method. This has created an increasingly marked distinction between the marketing literature aimed at management, and that aimed at the academic community. The postmodern perspective on marketing calls for a rethinking of the “scientific nature” of marketing as an investigative field.

The main point is that marketing cannot be a scientific discipline only by adopting a scientific method. Marketing research is by definition different in nature: it cannot generate better but only different knowledge. This perspective shift has an impact on all research components. First, the field of research widens enormously, because researchers can deal with everything arousing their interest and to which their accumulated knowledge can be applied. Since the discipline does not become scientific, the researcher can use any method. All methods can originate scientific theories, and therefore incremental knowledge. Hence science is neither objective nor absolute.

This paper analyses the philosophical roots of postmodernism, in order to understand its impact on postmodern marketing better. It also focuses on the impact of postmodernism on marketing research, and proposes a new approach. This paper then explores the features of the experiential research in marketing, and its effect on the processes of generating knowledge.

This chapter traces the author's journey of change research from positivism to pragmatism and how different types of “engaged scholarship” shape how we know and do change. It takes readers through the ontology, epistemology, and methodology of different types of research and how these were expressed in studies of planned change interventions, mergers and acquisitions (M&A), cynicism and its consequences, “soul work” and community building in business, organizational transformation, and the development of more socially and environmentally conscious people, purposes, and practices. The paper reflects on the author's research as it relates to regulatory versus radical change and whose interests are and might be served by change research.