Hi Ken,
I am glad that you were amused and thanks again for replying. Although it will take away the amusement, it is useful to contain the general question in the context which it arises. To repeat: the context was my reading of popular and professional accounts of the success of Apple under Jobs. I wanted to know whether the impression I got from the reading was correct and whether this impression represented a more general problem among researchers who study successful business / management / innovation / engineering / design cases. So my question is more specific than you have taken it to be.
My impression was that there was a tendency for the journalists, bloggers, or even researchers to read or use the success of Apple to support their theory or point of view.
I am aware of the values and difficulties of case study research and I know Nonaka’s work a little bit. And precisely because of this background knowledge, I was even more struck to find that despite the theoretical discussion and careful analysis (which of course sets apart his paper from other more casual commentaries) , this particular paper of his left the same kind of impression mentioned above.
He probably has done more work since to substantiate his theory of innovation management and I am not at all questioning his theory (which I actually like but this is not the point). I am curious: in this particular paper he used the cases studies to support his theories without, in my judgment, the kind of robust argument that you said needed for an ex-post facto analysis. For a positivist account of good theory building from Case Study research, I have located this paper:
http://intranet.catie.ac.cr/intranet/posgrado/Met%20Cual%20Inv%20accion/Semana%203/Eisenhardt,%20K.%20Building%20Theories%20from%20Case%20Study%20Research.pdf
However, my focus is not on evaluating Nonaka's paper, but rather on my impression stated above. I would be happy to hear that my impression is not correct and there is no problem at all in the research on successful cases and Nonaka’s paper was written this way because it was at the beginning of a theory building or whatever …. I am completely open ...but I would appreciate some pointers.
Many thanks.
rosan
-----Original Message-----
From: Ken Friedman [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Donnerstag, 2. Februar 2012 13:34
Subject: Re: Is claim/research on 'success' one-sided? RE: Apple Success under Jobs
Well, I’m just sitting here laughing. This is the big question: “is there a genuine problem when it comes to ex-post facto analysis of successful? If yes, how is it overcome in research?”
As history, all analysis of cases is ex post facto. No one can properly isolate all the key variables in historical analysis, and no one can re-run historical cases to see whether alternate choices would actually have made a difference.
On a limited basis, one can attempt to simulate the effects of minor differences in situations where one can analyze and conceptually isolate those differences, but there is no way to be sure.
The way through this is robust, reasoned analysis. Nevertheless, historical analysis – including the historical analysis of business cases – always involves judgment calls.
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