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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.

This article aims to explain the role of philosophical anchors and research paradigms in business research, and how they can be extrapolated in the transformative era of automation, digitalization, hyperconnectivity, obligations, globalization and sustainability (ADHOGS) in the midst of disruption, volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity (DVUCA).

This article entails a general review based on the 3Es of exposure, expertise and experience, delving into the ontological, epistemological, methodological, axiological and rhetorical aspects of the major research paradigms—i.e. positivism, post-positivism, constructivism, interpretivism and pragmatism—and their interplay with the emergent trends shaping business research.

This article underscores the multifaceted nature of business research in the modern day, with an increasing need for blending, or shifting between, research paradigms to address the complex issues arising from automation, digitalization, hyperconnectivity, obligations, globalization and sustainability (ADHOGS). This article also highlights the nuanced interplay between research paradigms and theoretical perspectives, demonstrating the rich, diverse potential of business research inquiries.

While this article provides a broad overview of the interplay between research paradigms and emerging trends, future research could explore each of these interplays in greater detail, conducting empirical studies or utilizing specific case studies.

Researchers and practitioners should be open to adopting, combining or switching between different paradigms according to the demands of their research questions, context and trends shaping the business landscape, thereby underscoring the need for methodological flexibility and reflexivity in business research.

The shift toward embracing digital transformations and integrating sustainability in business research holds significant implications, driving socially responsible and sustainable business practices at the micro-level, and by extension, industrial revolution and sustainable development at the macro-level.

This article offers a holistic and contextualized view of the philosophy of science and research paradigms for business research, bridging the gap between philosophical foundations and contemporary research trends.

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.

Methodological pluralism in consumer research is usually confined to post‐positivist interpretive approaches. Argues, however, that a positivistic stance, radical behaviourism, can enrich epistemological debate among researchers with the recognition of radical behaviourism′s ultimate reliance on interpretation as well as science. Although radical behaviourist explanation was initially founded on Machian positivism, its account of complex social behaviours such as purchase and consumption is necessarily interpretive, inviting comparison with the hermeneutical approaches currently emerging in consumer research. Radical behaviourist interpretation attributes meaning to behaviour by identifying its environmental determinants, especially the learning history of the individual in relation to the consequences similar prior behaviour has effected. The nature of such interpretation is demonstrated for purchase and consumption responses by means of a critique of radical behaviourism as applied to complex human activity. In the process, develops and applies a framework for radical behaviourist interpretation of purchase and consumption to four operant equifinality classes of consumer behaviour: accomplishment, pleasure, accumulation and maintenance. Some epistemological implications of this framework, the behavioural perspective model (BPM) of purchase and consumption, are discussed in the context of the relativity and incommensurability of research paradigms. Finally, evaluates the interpretive approach, particularly in terms of its relevance to the nature and understanding of managerial marketing.

Since the 1950s, the unifying epistemological perspective in American public administration has been logical positivism, most notably as defined and promoted by Herbert Simon. In recent years, logical positivism has been under attack for limiting inappropriately the scope of inquiry within the field, forcing it to ignore important, value‐laden issues critical to government and the public sector. The willingness to address value‐laden issues was at the core of what was to become the field of public administration in the early twentieth‐century. This article examines the philosophical roots of logical positivist movement, its dramatic effects upon public administration, and the subsequent counter attacks on the movement. The article concludes that although logical positivism’s attack on public administration initially weakened the field, as a result practitioners and scholars were eventually to demand increased rigor and higher standards of inquiry for research in the field.

Beginning in the late 1940s, classical Public Administration was challenged by the works of Herbert Simon and the movement he started, logical positivism. Although only writing in the field for a few years, Simon shifted the locus and focus of the field so dramatically, for a time it almost disappeared from view. This article examines Simonʼns legacy, first by exploring its philosophical antecedents and its later epistemological progeny. The article concludes with an assessment of how the field of Public Administration responded to Simonʼns challenge in the late twentieth century and now, early in the twenty first century.

The versions of positivism that are critically assessed in Bruce Caldwell’s Beyond Positivism bear two dominant sets of implications. One is that knowledge growth is monistic in nature; the other is that science has a specific deductivist structure. Caldwell focuses mainly on the former and its critics. I argue here that the second set of implications always did, and still does, perhaps more than ever, warrant critical attention.

When Beyond Positivism was published 35 years ago, it presented a compelling case for methodological change in the economics profession. That case remains equally compelling in the present day as, tragically, economics remains largely without the methodological pluralism at the heart of Beyond Positivism’s message. Among the costs of an environment of methodological myopia are widespread misinterpretations and the diversion of scholars from efforts at economic understanding to methodological wrangling, which we illustrate using the experience of Austrian economics in the 20th century. Beyond Positivism, we suggest, continues to provide the intellectual case for a pluralist discipline of economics, but one that requires complementary institutional reforms to come to fruition.

No scholar or researcher is able to provide robust evidence that counters the scant reflection on metatheory – mostly ontology and epistemology – underlying management studies in general, and industrial marketing and purchasing research in particular. This paper is a contribution to the indispensable discussion of metatheoretical alternatives in research, and most importantly, the strengths and shortcomings thereof, and respective implications on research questions, objectives, and findings.

Understanding the most appropriate research philosophy to underpin any piece of scholarly inquiry is crucial if one hopes to address research problems in a manner distinct from those already evidenced across extant literature. Distinct philosophical ideas and positions are often associated with specific research designs, therefore influencing the research approach adopted in any given study. Identifying an appropriate philosophical approach requires robust comprehension of how philosophical positions differ, alongside a reflective understanding of one's own perceptions and beliefs regarding what knowledge and reality “are” and how new knowledge is discovered, developed, and/or confirmed. This chapter therefore discusses different research paradigms and philosophies in order to identify core distinctions therein, highlighting the advantages and the challenges associated with different philosophical approaches to research along the way.