Different methodologies are applied by researchers in their attempt to explain problems faced by organizations. There’s interrelationship with other disciplines such as economics, industrial relations, sociology, political science, psychology among others to this regard. As time goes by, newer organizational constructs as well as theories are developed to address certain phenomenon that have not yet been identified while others attempt to develop new mechanisms of dealing with old problems. Such organization research studies include the Discourse of Globalization, Fuzzy-set approach to typologies in organization research, healthcare safety and quality improvement research among others.
Within Fuzzy-set approach to typologies in organization research, importance is given to the use of typologies in the designing of the complicated cause-effect linkage in organizations. The researchers apply data related to high technology organizations to study empirically typological configurations. The fuzzy-set qualitative-comparative analysis approach thus comes in handy. The inferences depict how the theoretical view provides room for the full analysis of core, peripheral and asymmetrical causal processes.
What this particular research aims at is mapping out and explaining managers’ reasoning as regards the causal relationship between the firm’s performance and competition in the market. Typologies are thus viewed to be useful in building coherent and simple accounts from complicated twists that are the cause-effect relationships. Typologies provide configurations useful in predicting variance in expected outcomes and are, therefore, important in building theories. They are heuristic tools as they simplify these relationships into simple and memorable profiles, and because they are multidimensional they help form integrative theories vital in accounting for several causal relationships that unite strategy, structure and environment together.
On the other hand, typologies also have a defect in that they are based on the notion of consistency. This assumption is likely to mislead researchers especially in a situation where the typologies in use contain inconsistencies. Another problem that may also emanate from this is the determination of what is actually relevant and thus essential in detecting the causal link that exists. This is specifically because typologies are holistic in nature. The researcher in this case provides another explanation to help solve the above problems. He suggests that typologies mostly consist of a periphery as the less important elements and a core as the vital elements. The core represents those elements upon whose evidence shows powerful causal relationship between the causal conditions and the expected outcome whereas the peripheral refer to those that have a much weaker causal relationship between the causal conditions and the outcome.
The use of strategy archetypes on top of typologies has been of importance in directing strategic analysis and map out the competitive environment. Typologies have been inspirational in empirical research and have immensely contributed to conceptual development in this area, as well. It has been established that typologies are able to accommodate relatively more causal complexities unlike traditional linear contingency theories that accommodate few causal complexities. Miles and Snow use a typology based on Analyzer, Defender and Prospector as the organizational types. However, their perspective fails to depict which are the relevant elements and which are the irrelevant ones. Despite the Prospectors and the Defenders being the extreme strategies, the Analyzers tended to outdo both of them.
The researcher employed an analytical approach to address the questions on typology. In the derivation of the empirical solution, the researcher applied an inductive approach that is based on cluster analysis while applying the deductive approach based on analysis of the deviation score to evaluate the appropriateness of the approach. Such methods as fuzzy-set QCA are employed in testing typological theory. The data on the high technology organizations based in the UK were acquired in the year 1999 through a survey. It consisted of measures of these firms’ performance, structure, strategy and the environment. The firms in question as well were only manufacturing firms but in different industries and thus easy comparability and the provision of variation with regard to uncertainty.
The analysis was through the set-theoretic fuzzy-set approach that is deemed to be uniquely appropriate for full analysis of the relationship between the causal condition and the expected outcome. The researcher’s expected outcome in this case was organizational performance. It is given as the rate of return on assets. The sector’s average rate of return from the research was 7.8 percent. Other independent measures used together with the Miles and Snow typology such as the formalization, centralization, administrative flexibility and size were also employed. Porter’s firm framework was the measure of firm strategy used by the researcher. Variable raw scores were then transformed by use of a direct calibration method.
This research established that there exists a positive relationship between administrative complexity, size and formalization. On the other hand, however, centralization had a negative co relationship with other measures. This depicted consistency with the idea that smaller firms with few hierarchical levels concentrated their decision making powers at the executive. Just as anticipated, there was also relatively negative relationship between the strategy of cost leadership and uncertainty.
The healthcare safety and quality improvement research’s priority was patient safety portfolio. This second case of research targeted to review submissions related to the identification of hazards and risks that may result in medical errors with an aim of providing solutions to ensure prevention of injury to patients in the delivery of medical care. The research, wishing to identify causes of injury to patients put its focus on Medicare associated injuries while at the same time taking into consideration effective means by which to change systems for safe healthcare delivery. Not only were quasi-experimental and experimental designs applied but also qualitative research methods and demonstrations. The findings for this particular research entailed the information concerning the scope as well as the impact of healthcare errors on the efficiency of care, the quality of care and the cost implications.
The third organizational research study is the discourse on globalization. The appropriateness of the research approach that connects framing and sense making is thus demonstrated by looking at the changes within the discourse of globalization. The emergence, diffusion, and the increased interest in globalization will be evaluated by use of the quantitative and qualitative analyses in press releases and newspaper articles. The researchers in this study depended on such disciplines as organization theory, sociology, economics and media studies. Such events as political reforms, labor disputes, industrial accidents, riots and protest events were also taken into account.
Sense making according to this researcher entails epistemological and sociopsychological processes in which parties come together to analyze and come to a general understanding concerning their circumstances. Framing, on the other hand, looks at processes through which individuals form frames of meaning to lobby support for their individual stands. The findings of this research study established where and how globalization discourse came about as a consequence of increased involvement in the international economy by the United States, and the emergence of frame contests depending on interests of parties involved in trying to explain the meaning of globalization.
It was hypothesized that globalization discourse will be dependent on macroeconomic fluctuations, generally with regard to US integration in the international economy. It was also hypothesized that globalization discourse will appear first in the discursive financial field. The researchers again hypothesized that there would be more contention experienced in framing by actors in more heterogeneous communities that use globalization as their explanation.
Both secondary and primary sources of information were used to obtain the data used in the study. s addressing this topic were obtained from corporate press releases and newspapers. Three dependent variables were applied to operationalize the location, volume and framing of this topic. Monthly and annual counts of articles mentioning globalization were used to measure the volume; the discursive field in which the article belonged indicated the location, whereas negative frame implied that globalization caused increased capacity for economic crisis hence poverty and unemployment. The neutral frame depicted globalization as being a naturally occurring inevitable developmental phenomena while a positive frame described globalization as the potential benefits. An independent variable in the name of an index of integration was also put into use.
The analysis of the study proceeded in three distinct steps based on the different dependent variables. Volume of discourse of globalization was modeled by use of the negative binomial regression. Secondly, series of models of logistic regression were estimated as an analysis of the location. Finally, multinomial logistic regressions were used for purposes of predicting the occurrence of the frames. The outcome of this research study was that there’s a significant increase in awareness concerning globalization in the US.
Reference
Bendersky, C., & McGinn, K. L. (2009). Open to Negotiation: Phenomenological Assumptions and Knowledge Dissemination. Los Angeles: University of California.
Fiss, P. C. (2008). Building Better Causal Theories: A Fuzzy Set Approach to Typologies in Organization Research. Academy of Mnagement Journal , 1-69.
Fiss, P. C., & Hirsch, P. M. (2000). The Discourse of Globalization: Framing and Sensemaking of an Emerging Concept. American Sociological Review , 1-24.
U. D. (2011). Healthcare Safety & Quality Improvement Research (HSQR). Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality , 3.
