Summary Contemporary Theories on B&M
Summary of all articles
Contains all the articles of lectures 1,2,3 & 4
Articles of Contemporary Theories on B&M
Holmström, J., Ketokivi, M. & Hameri, A. P., 2009. Bridging Practice and Theory: A Design Science
Approach. Decision Sciences..................................................................................................................3
Contrasting Exploration and Explanation Research............................................................................4
Exploration and explanation research as complements.....................................................................5
From exploration to explanation: The four phases of research..........................................................5
Phase 1: Solution Incubation..........................................................................................................6
Phase 2: Solution Refinement.........................................................................................................6
Phase 3: Explanation 1 – Substantive Theory.................................................................................7
Phase 4: Explanation 2 – Formal Theory.........................................................................................8
Design science as part of om research...............................................................................................8
Conclusion..........................................................................................................................................9
Shapira, Z., 2011. “I’ve Got a Theory Paper – Do You?”: Conceptual, Empirical, and Theoretical
Contributions to Knowledge in the Organizational Sciences. Organization Science, 22 (5), pp.1312 -
1321......................................................................................................................................................10
Theories, models, and conceptual frameworks................................................................................10
Whetten, D. A., 1989. What Constitutes a Theoretical Contribution? Academy of Management
Review, 14 (4), pp. 490-495..................................................................................................................14
What are the building blocks of theory development?....................................................................14
Barney, J. 1991. Firm resources and sustained competitive advantage. Journal of Management, 17(1),
99-120..................................................................................................................................................17
Barney, J. B. 2001. Is the resource-based “view” a useful perspective for strategic management
research? Yes. Academy of Management Review, 26(1), 41-56...........................................................22
Critique 1: The Resource-Bases Theory is tautology.........................................................................22
Critique 2: Equivalence in the resource-based view.........................................................................23
Critique 3: The product market........................................................................................................23
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, Critique 4: The inapplicability...........................................................................................................24
Greve, H. R. 2021. The resource-based view and learning theory: Overlaps, differences, and a shared
future. Journal of Management, 47(7), 1720-1733..............................................................................26
Short summary:................................................................................................................................26
Summary:.........................................................................................................................................26
Two ways to compare theories.........................................................................................................26
Key overlaps between the theories..................................................................................................27
Path dependence..........................................................................................................................27
Organizational differences............................................................................................................27
Complex social technologies.........................................................................................................29
Key differences between the Theories.............................................................................................30
Different Methodology.....................................................................................................................32
Future research................................................................................................................................32
Conclusion........................................................................................................................................33
Campbell, J. L. 2007. Why would corporations behave in socially responsible ways? An institutional
theory of corporate social responsibility. Academy of Management Review, 32(3): 946–967............34
Donaldson, T. & Preston, L. E. 1995. The stakeholder theory of the corporation: Concepts, evidence,
and implications. Academy of Management Review, 20(1): 65– 91.....................................................40
Mitchell, R. K., Agle, B. R., & Wood, D. J. 1997. Toward a theory of stakeholder identification and
salience: Defining the principle of who and what really counts. Academy of Management Review,
22(4): 853-886......................................................................................................................................49
Semadeni, M., & Krause, R. 2020. Innovation in the Boardroom. Academy of Management
Perspectives, 34(2): 240–251. OLD Article (!!!).....................................................................................52
Recent innovations in corporate governance...................................................................................54
The rigidity of legitimacy and the problem with one-size-fits-all......................................................55
Aguilera, R. V., Marano, V., & Haxhi, I. 2019. International corporate governance: A review and
opportunities for future research. Journal of International Business Studies, 50(4), 457-498. (OLD
article)..................................................................................................................................................57
Introduction......................................................................................................................................57
Corporate governance of MNCs.......................................................................................................58
MNC Governance.............................................................................................................................61
Comparative corporate governance of the MNC..............................................................................61
Boivie et al., 2021 – Corporate directors implicit theories of the roles and duties of boards...............63
Connelly et al., 2010 – Ownership as a form of corporate governance................................................69
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,Holmström, J., Ketokivi, M. & Hameri, A. P., 2009.
Bridging Practice and Theory: A Design Science
Approach. Decision Sciences
The goal of making academic research relevant to practice remains elusive: theoretical and academic
research interests do not seem to coincide with the interests of management practice.
This article proposes a design science approach to bridge practice to theory rather tan theory to
practice. Building on the work of Herbert Simon that additional focuses on discovery and problem
solving can complement extant methodologies and enhance the practical relevance of our work
nowadays. Towards this end, design science has much to offer, which will be discussed in this
summary.
Operations management is a more practical field researchers become problem solvers. The goal
for this article is to examine the methodological basis for research where scientists assume an active
role in shaping the phenomena and to establish its link to more conventional theoretically oriented
explanatory research used in Operations Management (OM).
In OM, it is important to recognize and build upon the complementarity of problem-solving research
and theoretical academic research on each other. Because problem-solving oriented research
produces the building blocks that OM research then evaluates in an attempt to build an explanatory
theory.
The question here is if OM scientist should extend beyond theoretical explanation to actual problem
solving.
Design science focus on tackling ill-structured problems in a systematic manner and is fundamental
different from theory-building and theory-testing
Holmström et al. (2009) adopt a definition of design science that emphasise the process of
exploration through design.
Design science is research that seeks:
1. To explore new solution alternatives to solve problems
2. To explain this explorative process
3. To improve the problem-solving process
The common goal of design science is that researchers are interested in developing a ‘means to end’:
an artefact (object/tool) to solve a problem.
Action research, unlike design science, is about problem-solving processes or group dynamics in a
specific problem, without an explicit development of artifacts.
Action research focuses on problem-solving processes or group dynamics in a specific
problem situation.
Action research must focus on the design and implementation of a means to an end
to be considered design science.
The idea that scientists should be as much active problem-solvers and designers as
observer and theorists is well established.
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, The most familiar example of design science to the OM audience is Activity-based costing. For
example, Design science = activity-based costing and the balanced scorecard.
Activity-based costing = Labelled as action innovation research by Kaplan. A way of allocating
indirect costs to products and services. It is a technique used by controllers in determining the
cost.
Besides activity-based costing, design science is hardly used in OM
Contrasting Exploration and Explanation Research
The fundamental philosophical difference between exploratory and explanatory research is
ontological (=the question of which things (or a specific thing) really exist and what their essential
nature is). See Table 1.
• Explanatory research (theoretical science): phenomenon to be studied already exists and the
goal is to understand it.
• Exploratory research (design science): the phenomenon must be created before it can be
evaluated
The difference between the two is shown in the end product, and thus the goals of the researcher.
There are differences in the two research traditions and clearly indicate different research interests.
Explanatory theories are primarily focused on seeking theoretical explanations and perhaps
prediction. Explanatory focus could also be labelled as Theoretical-cognitive research.
The Design Scientist, while ultimately interested in explanation as well, is interested in
creating an artifact that solves a practical problem with empirical evaluation (=experiments).
Most of the existing OM research is more cognitive (Explanatory) than pragmatic (Exploratory) in its
orientation: the primary goal of research articles is to advance theory and to produce academic
publications, not to improve practice.
Finally, the disciplinary bases of the two traditions are different, and this may also be one explanation
for why design science research in OM is scarce.
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