Journal of Management Inquiry, specifically the 1994 and 2005 articles that I now turn to assess his impact on management and my thinking. It is right to do so, for while Shelby may have won the philosophy of science wars in marketing, management has proved to be a stubborn discipline with many still attacking a scientific realist perspective in management by mischaracterizing management as based upon the discredited philosophy of positivism, or defending relativist and subjectivist approaches such as narratives, post modern or post structuralist approaches (Hatch, 1996; Giogia, 2003; Lounsbury, 2003). Management had been inflicted by all sorts of Subjectivism (e.g., Kuhn, 1962, 1970; “isms:” Lincoln and Guba, 1985), symbolic or interpretive interactionism, (e.g., Blumer, 1962), social constructionism, (e.g., Berger and Luckman, 1966) and especially what others label “post modernist” or positivistism” perspective (e.g., Alvesson and Deetz, 1996; Burrell, 1997; “post Clegg, 1990; Deetz, 2000). All of these have used positivism as the whipping boy, and “isms” equate positivism with contemporary social science as is practiced. In fact, several management scholars have commented on the fact that management has an antiquated view of the philosophy of science (McKelvey, 1997; Baum and Dobbin, 2000). But, it is left to Shelby to set the record straight about what positivism was and was not, and how it differs from modern scientific realism. Here I turn to the primarily to the article in the Journal of Management Inquiry (Hunt, 1994b) to lay out Shelby’s position, though I also draw on his book and the many articles he has written for marketing. To begin with, Shelby asserts a realist ontology. All forms of realism hold that the world exists independently from the observer. There really is something out there (Moore, 1903; Russell, 1929). This reality can be inferred by its consequences, much in the same way a physicist infers the existence of a black hole by the effect it has on surrounding gas clouds, stars, and so forth.
Journal of Management Inquiry, specifically the 1994 and 2005 articles that I now turn to assess his impact on management and my thinking. It is right to do so, for while Shelby may have won the philosophy of science wars in marketing, management has proved to be a stubborn discipline with many still attacking a scientific realist perspective in management by mischaracterizing management as based upon the discredited philosophy of positivism, or defending relativist and subjectivist approaches such as narratives, post modern or post structuralist approaches (Hatch, 1996; Giogia, 2003; Lounsbury, 2003). Management had been inflicted by all sorts of “isms:” Subjectivism (e.g., Kuhn, 1962, 1970; Lincoln and Guba, 1985), symbolic or interpretive interactionism, (e.g., Blumer, 1962), social constructionism, (e.g., Berger and Luckman, 1966) and especially what others label “post modernist” or “post positivistism” perspective (e.g., Alvesson and Deetz, 1996; Burrell, 1997; Clegg, 1990; Deetz, 2000). All of these “isms” have used positivism as the whipping boy, and equate positivism with contemporary social science as is practiced. In fact, several management scholars have commented on the fact that management has an antiquated view of the philosophy of science (McKelvey, 1997; Baum and Dobbin, 2000). But, it is left to Shelby to set the record straight about what positivism was and was not, and how it differs from modern scientific realism. Here I turn to the primarily to the article in the Journal of Management Inquiry (Hunt, 1994b) to lay out Shelby’s position, though I also draw on his book and the many articles he has written for marketing. To begin with, Shelby asserts a realist ontology. All forms of realism hold that the world exists independently from the observer. There really is something out there (Moore, 1903; Russell, 1929). This reality can be inferred by its consequences, much in the same way a physicist infers the existence of a black hole by the effect it has on surrounding gas clouds, stars, and so forth.
Shelby%20D%20Hunt.docx