Abstract
Combining multiple methodologies works in practice, but not yet in theory. One of the reasons is that current theorising is dominated by a paradigm mentality, preoccupied with wholesale philosophical legitimation. ‘Paradigm’ and the associated ‘incommensurability’ were once revolutionary heuristic tools; now they are mistaken for the basis of an essentialist foundation. The result is a stifling of intellectual innovation and a diminishing of practical relevance. For OR research to make a positive difference again, it is time to move beyond paradigm-based theorising. After paradigm, there are many opportunities. This paper explores a pragmatist alternative that is action-oriented, multiplicity-embracing, ethically concerned and politically sensitive. Incorporating ontological flexibility, it allows OR workers to enact multiple realities, craft ontology-in-use, weave available methods with situated particulars, justify methodologies based on practical consequences, so as to get jobs done and enhance competences. Promoting ontological flexibility and methodology-in-use is a useful starting point for after-paradigm theorising that supports innovative mixing-methodology practice.
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Appendix
Appendix
Meaning of some philosophical terms used in this paper
- Metaphysics::
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Beliefs of the way(s) things are in the world.
- Ontology::
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Views of what we deal with in OR interventions.
- Epistemology::
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Theories of how we create and evaluate knowledge.
- Methodology::
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Studies of crafting and using methods in OR interventions.
- Paradigm::
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We differentiate a technical and a commonsense meaning of the term paradigm. The technical meaning refers to a complete set of fundamental philosophical assumptions shared by a particular scientific community. As such, paradigms are internally consistent but externally exclusive. This meaning is associated with Thomas Kuhn's idea of ‘scientific revolution’ in which one paradigm is replaced by another. A commonsense meaning of paradigm, in contrast, denotes patterned configuration of tacit beliefs, craft skills and problem-solving styles that evolves in continuing experience. In OR, this meaning is compatible with the idea of strands and webs of competence.
- Actor-network-theory (ANT)::
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A research approach to socio-technical analysis that discards subject-object dualism, treats entities, human and non-human, as relational effects, and explores the continuing associational performance of entities.
- Natural ontological attitude (NOA)::
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An attitude that takes scientific practice as historically situated experimentations under various internal and external pressures without the need of an overall interpretation, legitimation or direction.
- Ontological flexibility::
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An ontological proposition that rejects pre-given, permanently structured reality or realities readily supplied by philosophical authorities while accepts reality as plural, open-ended, emerging effects of continuing interactions among participants in the face of ever-unfolding particulars.
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Zhu, Z. After paradim: why mixing-methodology theorising fails and how to make it work again. J Oper Res Soc 62, 784–798 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1057/jors.2010.31
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/jors.2010.31