Organizational Theories How a Theory is Created

1. Organizational Theories: Some
Criteria for Evaluation
-Samuel B. Bacharach
What I Understood

2. Person, place or thing to
be measured connected
through Propositions
Concepts/ideas
connected through
Hypothesis
Relationship
Boundary -Assumptions
Generalizability

3. What is the underlying factor?
Matrix (Background) of criteria for
evaluating the variables (a person,
place, thing, or phenomenon that the
researcher is trying to measure in some
way), constructs (concepts/ideas) and
relationships that together compose a
theory.
This matrix may be useful for defining
the necessary components of good
theory and for evaluating and/or
comparing the quality of alternate
theories.

4. How theories are conceptualized?
• Theories fit together to provide a comprehensive and broader picture of
empirical reality (studies conducted to validate) and a closer look at how two main
criteria for evaluating theory match each other (lines of tension-how they stretch
each other).
• Statement of relations among concepts within a set of boundary assumptions
and constraints- Theory however is set in the empirical world with the purpose of
organizing (in tight language- academic writing) and communicating (clearly and
understandable).
• Earlier, set of rules for the examination of the constructs (concepts) and variables
and rules for the examination of the relationship among these units have been
tried to develop.

5. Describing Theory?
• While articulating the definition of theory, it is important to consider
that it adequately describes the objects and events and also
establishes theories by which events and objects can be explained and
predicted, meaning in a given set of conditions the assumptions can be
tested with the least errors.
• Descriptions may refer to the source material of theories but they
themselves are not theoretical statements, especially three modes of
descriptors like the categorization of raw data, typology (classification
of observation based on their attributes), and metaphors
(understanding of events through the familiar process).

6. Descriptions are not Theories?
• Most of the work in organizational and management science falls
under categorization/description and not theory.
• As aptly described in the paper - Typologists have implicitly emulated
Weber's ideal construct, in that most typologies meet his classic
definition of an ideal type - "a mental construct formed by the
synthesis of many diffuse. . . individual phenomena which are
arranged, according to certain one-sidedly accentuated points of view,
into a unified analytical construct.” (Bacharach 1989)

7. 3 wives and 1 Husband?
• Research ideally should revolve around creating a solution for
problems revolving around What, Why, When and How (3 wives 1
husband), typologist are limited to addressing the primary question
asked by descriptive researchers – the question of What, rather than
more theoretical Why, When and How.
• Metaphors are popular in organizational research. Within the
constraints of imagery of metaphors, it should help in deriving specific
prepositions and must add as precursors to the theories.

8. What theory actually is?
The theory is defined as a system of
constructs and variables where
constructs are related by propositions
(a statement or assertion that
expresses a judgment or opinion) and
variables by hypothesis (a supposition
or proposed explanation made on the
basis of limited evidence as a starting
point for further investigation) and the
whole system is circumscribed by the
assumptions made by the theorist,
which sets the limitation in applying
the theory.

9. What theory actually is?
• While both propositions and hypotheses are merely statements of
relationships, propositions are the more abstract and inclusive of the
two. If a theory is to be properly tested and used, the boundaries or
assumptions made by the theorist, which may be spatial or
temporal, must be understood well. Some theories unbounded in
both space and time may have a higher level of generalizability.
• The evaluation of a theory is possible after broad criteria for
evaluation have been established.

10. What theory should achieve?
• Considering the agreeable fact that theories can only be disproven
rather than proven, the falsifiability (empirical refutation) of a theory,
despite the fact that the idealistic goal of science is the pursuit of
universal truth, comes into the picture. (Innocent until proven guilty).
• The theory is useful if it can both explain and predict.
• For a theory to be falsifiable, it must be validated, have reliability,
and must be noncontinuous.
• “An explanation establishes the substantive meaning of constructs,
variables, and their linkages, while a prediction tests that substantive
meaning by comparing it to empirical evidence”

11. How to conceive a Theory?
The paradox of conceptualization
• Understanding of the components of theory while connecting the
dots of variables, constructs and the relationship through abstraction,
within the overall ambit of falsification and utility, the application of
these areas can be applied to the theory.