Discussion post which includes 500 words using both the chapter material which is attached in the post as well as additional external sources.

8 METHODS IN LANGUAGE AND ACTION

This chapter offers brief examples of what typical reasoning might sound like when parts of
studies and other activities that create knowledge are done – in other words, what language
and action in methodical procedures might look like in our three methodological views.
The examples are from the real world and they are intended to give the reader an extended
and improved living background for the theory that has been presented so far.

THE THREE WORLDS OF KNOWLEDGE

The chapter leads the reader (just as did the end of Chapter 2) into three different worlds of
creating knowledge (ANAlytical; SYStems; ACTors) at a practical level, relating language
and action to one world at a time. These worlds will look different from each other in this
comparison. The examples are deliberately chosen so that – in their individualities – they will
create the contrasts necessary for learning and will offer an extended kind of intellectual
feeling for language and action within each of the three knowledge-creating worlds. The
examples are not intended to present complete methodical procedures but only to illustrate the
actual ways of thinking within the different contexts of the methodological views.

ANALYTICAL PROCEDURES

ANA 1: Professor Peterson on good research

Professor Peterson is an experienced researcher. She has been employed by her university for
more than thirty years and has taught business research methodology for a long time. She has
three years to go until retirement and wants to leave something for her successors. She has just
compiled a compendium that she titled “ Research Methods”. In the first section, she
lays out eight criteria for what she believes represents good research:

1. The purpose of the research – the problem involved – should be clearly and sharply
defined in terms as unambiguous as possible.

2. The concepts used should be operationalized as much as possible.
3. The methodical procedures used should be described in such detail that it permits other

researchers to repeat it.
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4. The methodics of the research should be carefully planned to yield results that are as
objective as possible.

5. The researcher should, as frankly as possible, report flaws in procedural design and
estimate their effects on the findings.

6. Analyses of the data should be sufficient to reveal its significance; the analysis
techniques used should be appropriate.

7. Conclusions should be confined to those justified by the research data and limited to
those for which the data provide an adequate basis.

8. Confidence in the research is warranted if the researcher is a person of integrity.

ANA 2: The Service Bank questions

Consultant George Carter is asked to assist the new senior management team of Service Bank,
the oldest and largest of three banks in a rural district with about 50,000 inhabitants. Its CEO is
worried about the slump in the bank’s profits and wants to reverse the trend quickly. George
thinks that a good start to an ambitious study is to formulate the problem as a hierarchy of
questions; he has tried this before and found it useful. The first methodical procedure is to
formulate the management question. In this case, George and the CEO agree that this question
could be simply formulated as:

How can we improve the profits of Service Bank?

Admittedly, this question does not specify what kind of knowledge is to be created. First, it is
very broad; second, it is oriented only toward the symptom of an existing problem, namely, the
lack of profitability. But it does provide a start.
What George wants to do is to reformulate the management question into one or more

research questions, that is, into a problem of information collecting. Further discussions
between the CEO and George indicate that two of the questions have to be answered
simultaneously. One problem is a low growth rate in deposits, which seemed related to the
competitive situation. Another part of the deteriorating profitability seems to be associated
with negative factors within the organization itself. As the client and the consultant discuss the
management question with each other, it gradually evolves into two research questions. Both
parties finally accept the following formulations:

1. What are the major factors contributing to the lack of a stronger growth rate in deposits?
2. How well is the bank doing with regard to:

a. Quality of its work climate?
b. Efficiency of operations compared to industry norms?
c. Financial condition compared to industry norms?

George knows, however, that he must go further in his formulation of questions. The next step
is to develop the investigative questions with high validity. After much thinking (and

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discussion with the bank’s senior management) he arrives at the following investigative
questions regarding the deposit problem:

1. What is the public’s opinion of the bank’s financial services and how are these services
used?
a. What specific financial services are used?
b. How attractive are the various services?
c. What factors influence a person’s use of a particular service?

2. What is the bank’s competitive position?
a. What are the geographic patterns of Service Bank’s customers and those of its
competitors?

b. What conclusions can be drawn from the demographic differences between Service
Bank’s customers and those of its competitors?

c. How aware is the public of Service Bank’s promotional efforts?
d. What general opinion does the public hold of Service Bank and its competitors?
e. How does Service Bank’s growth compare with that of its competitors?

George starts then to break the organizational problem down in a similar fashion, even though
he knows that this does not get to the bottom of the hierarchy of questions. He knows that he
eventually must formulate several measurement questions, that is, questions that will represent
parts of questionnaires and will guide direct observations and studies of various source
materials. But that has to come later.

ANA 3: A causal experiment

Eve Bacon works in a welfare organization. The organization is short of funds and wants to
send out a written appeal to drum up contributions. The organization has approximately 50,000
members; a letter sent to each one should elicit the help required. The only question is whether
the appeal should be based on emotion or on logic. In order to resolve this question of
methodical procedure before the letters are sent, Eve presents a proposal for an experiment
that she thinks will give a good indication of which will be the more successful appeal,
emotional or logical.
The proposal suggests choosing a sample of 300 names from the membership list and

dividing these into two groups of 150. One group will be designated the experimental group (it
does not matter which one of the two it is) and will receive the emotion-based letter. The other
group will be the control group and will receive the logic-based letter.
Eve knows there are three requirements before a relation can be called causal: (a)

Covariation, which in this case can be expressed by the percentage of responses. Suppose, for
instance, that 50 per cent of those receiving the emotional letter respond, whereas only 35 per
cent of those receiving the logical letter respond. It will then be possible to conclude that using
the emotional version will increase the probability of getting an answer.

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In this case, the (b) temporal order between dependent and independent variable does not
present a problem. Obviously, nobody answers before they get a letter, so there is no chance
that the number of letters with contributions will influence the number of letters being
distributed.
The main problem, however, is to ensure that (c) no other variable biases the result, that is,

that no factor other than the type of appeal will be at work here. For instance, Eve thinks that
honorary life members may feel more reason to answer the appeal. One way of preventing this
factor from exerting influence will be to exclude this specific category from the experiment. A
second way will be to match the two groups against each other. For example, there may be
reason to believe that age will make a difference. In order to control for this factor, the age
distribution has to be the same in the two groups. The third way, and the one Eve thinks is best,
will be to randomize, to let chance determine who receives what type of letter. This means that
both groups contain a similar proportion of different possibly influential factors. Every
deviation shall be completely random.

ANA 4: How to improve response rates

John Parson, who teaches marketing at university, has a feeling that a piece of the course
covering marketing research is missing. He has always warned that a non-response error is to
be expected when conducting interviews. He knows that the largest rate of non-response is
usually obtained for mailed questionnaires, but he has never in his methodical procedures
really thought about how to improve this rate. He therefore decides to find out what the
literature suggests as possible steps to take. After only a few hours’ search he is able to put
together a list of steps (reproduced below), but is uncertain about what it means for his future
work.

Reminders. Reminders, or a second follow-up, seem generally accepted as a way of
increasing response rates. Because every successive follow-up leads to more answers,
the very persistent (and well-financed) researcher can potentially achieve an extremely
high response rate. However, the value of gaining more information has to be traded off
against the cost resulting from further contacts.

Advance Notices. It seems that advance notices, especially by telephone, are effective in
increasing response rates. They also lead to quicker responses. However, reminders are
probably better investments than advance notices.

Questionnaire Length. Common sense suggests that shorter questionnaires should lead to
higher response rates, but studies do not support this opinion.

Sponsorship. There is little research on the importance of who is behind a questionnaire.
A few cases, however, suggest that the response rate is higher for official or “respected”
sponsors.

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Return Envelopes. The few studies that exist concerning the importance of a stamped
return envelope point at increased response rates, because the envelopes facilitate the
return.

Postage. There is nothing to show that the response rate will increase because stamps are
used instead of a postage machine, or because first-day or other commemorative stamps
are used instead of “ordinary” stamps.

Personalization. Empirical studies do not usually indicate a significantly higher response
rate if personal introductions or individually signed letters are used. A few studies,
however, have shown this to be the case.

Cover Letters. It seems logical that questionnaires with cover letters will have a higher
response rate, but very few studies have been able to show that this is so.

Anonymity. Experimental studies indicate that promised anonymity does not have a major
impact on the response rate.

Size, Typeface and Colour. Here, also, experimental studies have shown no significant
differences.

Money Incentives. A number of studies suggest that attaching monetary rewards can be
very effective in increasing response rates. However, costs have to be measured against
the increase in information.

Deadlines. The few studies available do not indicate a higher response rate if a deadline
is given for return; however, deadlines do serve to accelerate returns.

ANA 5: Know and “Don’t know”

Bert Lazon wants his research to find an explanation of people’s appreciation of their jobs. He
has done several studies on the topic, and in this latest survey he tried, among other things, to
find a connection between the length of time a person has held a job and whether the person
appreciated the job or not.
One question used was: “Do you like your present job?” The alternative answers were

“Yes,” “No” and “Don’t know”. What now makes him worried is the high rate of “Don’t
know” answers. Are these answers from people who really did not know, or is it that many
people were not interested in taking a position or giving their opinion? It seems that there is a
correlation between the number of years in service and the degree of well-being felt. Because
more respondents with shorter service answered, “Don’t know”, this pointed at many “Don’t
know” answers really being “No”.
Bert can, in his methodical procedures, see three ways of handling these “Don’t know”

answers in his tabulation:

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1. keeping them as a separate category in the table
2. excluding the category from the table
3. distributing them among the other answers in the same ratio that the other answers

occurred.

Bert chooses the third alternative. He is aware that this means he has to assume that the “Don’t
know” answers consist of the same proportion of “Yes” and “No” answers as that already
found in the distribution of these two answers, but he feels that this is the way failure rates in
returned questionnaires – missing responses – are generally handled. Researchers usually
assume that those who have not answered would have answered according to the pattern
established by those who have answered. Furthermore, Bert needs all 950 units in the sample
for various calculations (correlations with the answers to other questions that are part of the
study, etc.).

ANA 6: Dr Stone’s test

This is the eleventh year in a row that Dr Ruth Stone has taught the same course. This year
there are twenty-five students in the class, and the average examination result is 64 per cent,
with a standard deviation of 9 per cent. The average result for the previous ten years is 61 per
cent. Ruth asks herself whether this year’s batch of students is better than their predecessors
and decides to answer the question by using a statistical test. She does not need much time in
her methodical procedure to decide what test she will use. The prerequisites for applying a t-
test seem to be present:

1. The observations must be mutually independent.
2. The observations have to be made in normally distributed populations (Ruth had diagrams

of the examination results for each of the past years; they looked like normal
distributions).

3. Populations shall have the same variance (these variations had not been large over the
years, according to Ruth).

4. The measurement scales shall be of at least an interval type (Dr Stone’s school used an
interval scale for examination results).

SYSTEMS PROCEDURES

SYS 1: Professor Anholts’s introductory lecture

Professor Anholts has a keen interest in research methodology. He is also a devoted user of the
systems view in his research and has written several books and a number of scientific articles
on this topic. He has, on several occasions, been a member of public investigations

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commissioned by the government in his country.
Professor Anholts has for a number of years been teaching a course of systems view

research for doctoral candidates in his faculty. Below follows some excerpts from the latest
introductory lecture to this course:

The fact that the world is full of systems is known to all of us. Some well-known
examples are computer systems, information systems and transportation systems. We are
all aware of their existence and most of us use them daily. And I can assure you students
that we have a well established and thoroughly tested system in place in this school for
measuring and grading your study efforts…

Why has this word “system” become so popular? The answer is, of course, that we can no
longer afford to, and also should not, solve the problems in our society in a one-
dimensional and piecemeal fashion. We must provide more holistic solutions in order to
be able to sustain our welfare system and have our economy grow stronger…

We have come quite far in our attempt to explain and to understand how systems are
functioning and how we should regard them as researchers. First of all we see them in our
methodical procedures as complex and comprehensive. Every system out there in reality
should therefore be searched for facts from many different perspectives and in many
different dimensions. Nevertheless, a systems study can never be complete; there is
always room for unpredictability and every systems study at least partly depends on who
is doing it. And because systems can be so complex, we normally have to restrict our
studies to look only at a few cases at a time and we often have to dig into the history of
systems to understand their present…

But I think systems research is thrilling and hope you will too. To dress a situation in
terms of components and relations, structures and processes, synergy and variety can be
very rewarding…

As part of this course you are to write papers. You are to do it in groups and the objective
of the work will be to provide analyses of real problems and to come up with realistic
solutions in at least some of the cases. Some examples of topics that have already been
suggested to me are:

An assessment of the system for recruiting new staff to the laboratory of New Bridge
Chemicals.
Clusters in operation in the southwest part of our country – identification and
possibilities.
A survey of opinion among our students on the business incubator system at our
university…

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I can proudly tell you that the latest doctor who graduated at our school received a Best
Thesis of the Year Award for her study “Know-Who Networks in Technology Innovation
Systems”.

SYS 2: The bank as a system

Vice President Julia Linden has just read a report from a consulting company engaged by her
bank two months earlier. Their mission was to make a diagnosis of the corporate culture of the
bank. The conclusions from the consultant are, by and large, as follows:

1. The bank contains a mix of different corporate styles. This is partly a result of often
recurring changes in the market orientation of the bank and partly because of a large
turnover of personnel at the top.

2. The bank’s strategic planning encourages brainstorming and creativity, but, on the other
hand, there are no suitable profitability criteria for this. Numerical skills in combination
with conservatism tend to put strategic tasks off until tomorrow and foster only marginal
improvements. Personnel policies isolate people, reward good news but punish bad, and
lead to people both seeking out personal friends and striving for independence. The
marketing philosophy is simultaneously to satisfy every customer, to serve all markets,
and to observe competitors’ moves.

3. The bank’s decision pattern is reactive and internally focused. Formal decisions are very
centralized, and none of the decision processes have a particularly broad support in
senior management. Every person watches his or her turf, and appointed committees can
rarely reach constructive solutions. This leads to information and decision requirements
flowing down the organization without being followed by any decision criteria.

4. Three subcultures can be identified:
Central administration

short-term investment criteria
risk avoidance
partial assessments
make easy decisions first

Individual banks

oriented toward reaching agreements with customers on a case-by-case basis
guarding one’s own turf
“fire prevention”

Operative areas (the bank has four operative areas)

follow the competition
send decisions to the top
function “satisfactorily”

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Julia reads the report with concern. Interested as she is in the systems view and in
methodological issues, she is disappointed that the consulting firm has very little to say about
how the bank functions as a system. She is absolutely convinced that to study the bank as a
system and make improvements along systems criteria is the only way to move forward. Had
she done the study herself, she would have had a holistic orientation in her methodical
procedures, tried to find a suitable magnifying level, stressed processual aspects more than
structural ones and interviewed everyone of importance face-to-face. The consulting firm
seems to have relied on questionnaires. She knows that a common saying in her bank is to look
at it as a “constructive culture of giving and taking in the name of progress”, and she would
have had all respondents comment on their feeling for, and understanding of, this. Somewhat
distressed, she thinks about tomorrow’s senior management meeting at which the consulting
group is to present its findings.

SYS 3: Calmex Co. as an amusement park

Jon Craig is on vacation. He has brought his whole family on a two-week trip to California.
But he cannot completely stop thinking about his research study back home in Sweden, which
looks at the connection between how companies are constructed and the degree to which they
are successful. He has just been in contact with an interesting case: Calmex Co. The company
is obviously very successful and has grown from practically nothing into a dominant force in
the special market where it operates.
What surprises Jon to some extent (after having visited the company a few times) is that

Calmex Co. seems so disorganized, almost chaotic. It has several special characteristics that
he has so far seen only in recent theoretical literature:

Every department works quite independently. Nobody seems to take orders from
headquarters. On a few occasions, however, Jon has experienced that the central
management (if “central management” is the right term) has been contacted for advice or
ideas.
Several functions have been contracted out to other, smaller companies. What surprises
Jon the most is that sorting and distributing the post is run by an independent service firm!
Employees always seem engaged in something having to do with customers or suppliers.
But that is not all. Customers and suppliers always seem to be present (physically) in one
way or another in meetings, at lunches in the company’s cafeteria (which is run by one of
the restaurants in town), and even in the laboratory. Calmex Co. seems to have no secrets!

Jon is looking in his methodical procedures for an analogy, a descriptive and developing
metaphor by which he can place his image of Calmex Co. He feels that such a picture can “put
into place seemingly independent phenomena occurring in the company”. He feels that an apt
simile will give him a “framework” for developing a more “total” understanding of Calmex
Co.’s behaviour and its success.
After spending an entire day with his family at Disneyland near Los Angeles, Jon gets such a

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picture. Calmex Co. can be compared to an amusement park! There are several aspects that
“fit”:

One can say that Calmex Co. works in “the entertainment industry,” even if the company is
not in showbusiness.
Rather like the different attractions at Disneyland, the several departments of Calmex Co.
operate independently and are attractive to their customers in their own right. They are
also held together by a common concept and a common theme.
“Irrelevant” activities are contracted out to other companies.
The customers (or “the guests”, as they are called at Disneyland) are constantly present on
Calmex Co.’s premises. In fact, the company depends on their active participation.

Jon is very satisfied with his analogy and looks forward to continuing the work on his study.
He has already a number of new questions on his mind triggered by his metaphor!

SYS 4: Rose’s final term paper

Rose Campdon has chosen finance as her undergraduate specialization in business, because her
father worked in that area. The more she immerses herself in the subject, the more it seems to
contain. Her final term paper is to be about financial planning and control in multinational
companies.
Rose has just drawn a diagram of what can, in principle, be the content of financial flows

between a mother company and two subsidiaries. Rose’s first impression of her …