what is quality research in strategy? the strategy research initiative answers
The most recent issue of Strategic Organization has an article on high-quality research in strategy: “The Strategy Research Initiative: Recognizing and encouraging high-quality research in strategy” — written by a group of mid-career strategy scholars affiliated with the Strategy Research Initiative (members are listed here).
The table below summarizes what the authors are calling for.
“empirical designs and methods are chosen carefully to generate valid inferences…”
Teppo, can you give me some context? What’s the new message here?
fabiorojas
December 21, 2010 at 9:46 pm
Well, frankly, much of what is in that essay, I think, is sort of hard to disagree with. The essay could have been more provocative: they could have listed a bunch of low-quality streams of research and/or papers in top strategy journals. ;)
I suppose, beyond that table, the authors make the following points:
1 – verbal theorizing is imprecise (sure)
2 – formal modeling rocks and is more precise
3 – provocatively, there should be more specialization (per article) between theorizing (modeling) and empirics – we have a theory fetish in strategy (a la Hambrick), allow for “just facts”
4 – also a call for natural/quasi-experiments, freakonomics-type stuff (orgtheory guester Pierre Azoulay’s work is highlighted there)
5 – fragmentation and imprecision is an issue (related to point 1 — they illustrate using Teece et al)
Overall, the emphasis is on precision — modeling being exemplified — and I suppose a move toward more of a normal science-type model. That’s my quick read.
So, I guess I don’t have any issues with the above. But, in the end, “high-quality” of course is a matter of taste and I’m not sure I get a clear signal — other than modeling is great (which I agree with) — from the paper in terms of good work. Quality is hard to specify. Sure, we should be cumulative. Sure, precise.
The fact that verbal theorizing is singled out feels a bit strange to me. Yes, it’s imprecise. But, this type of theorizing of course has given us some classics (Coase 1937; Hayek 1945) and even some of the foundations of the field (e.g., Barney 1986) — I suppose these are the exceptions (amid a sea of bad verbal theorizing, though undoubtedly there is a sea of bad and unnecessary modeling out there as well). They of course qualify statements related to verbal theorizing – though I do get a vibe from the paper that strategy would be better served by looking more like mainstream economics. I could be off on that.
I know there was an AOM session last year dedicated to this topic, organized by folks from the Strategy Research Initiative (with folks like Huggy, Ezra etc commenting) — it would be interesting to get details on that discussion, unfortunately I could not make that session.
teppo
December 21, 2010 at 10:30 pm
Actually, some interesting, (very) broad similarities to Pfeffer’s call for paradigm development in organization science: http://www.jstor.org/stable/258592
teppo
December 21, 2010 at 10:52 pm
Are they ruling out ethnography and other forms of qualitative methods as quality research?
brayden king
December 22, 2010 at 12:17 am
“Are they ruling out ethnography and other forms of qualitative methods as quality research?”
I am sure they are not. It’s a short essay, so it’s hard to know (and nail down) what’s “in” and “out.” Though, based on citations, you do get a certain feel for the type of work they are talking about (which I agree, is excellent work — though, there is, of course, lots of other “quality” research as well). Everyone of course supports quality, but there are inevitable epistemological, methodological and taste-related divides.
teppo
December 22, 2010 at 12:45 am