David and all,

David wrote an interesting story about discovering our lack of rigor and
knowledge:

"Well, in a sense what we had done was to discover that there was no cannon
in the field in which we were asked to investigate. This is not an unusual
experience in advanced
research work. This has happened to me and to many other researchers many
times over. And I am quite excited about this 'discovery'. But the first
time it happened to me was quite scary and disorientating. I think I felt
much like Rosan when she said:
>While I was listening to the discussion, I felt like
>I was standing on a crossroad. But if I want to get somewhere, I need a
point
>of a departure. I fee l a need to make a decision into which ideas I
should
>buy, without a decision I can never find out if I am right or wrong, or
worse,
>I can't change my mind. I need a canon!"

I like these anectotal accounts to illuminate a theoretical point. In my
fields of concern  - market orientation, knowledge management and
innovation we don't even have canons (feel free to chose the number of n's
in the word). The above are therefore termed "fields of investigation" due
to the lack of grounded theory. Most investigations are case studies and
collections of anectotes where we look hard for patterns of thoughts,
feelings and behavior in order to generalize from our collections of
apples, bananas trying to describe fruit baskets or whatever useful to give
order to all the incredible and uninmagined things people invent without
formal theory.

Just out of curiosity, David: Did your team have a lawyer on board?
Regulators are experts at looking at other nation's solutions and the
anectotal and political support giving rationale for whatever the
interested parties want as a solution. Strangely, occationally some
governments even make some efforts of evaluating their laws and regulations
afterwards, but most often the losing parties at the time of law-making
make rather goal-oriented investigations to reverse earlier decisions. Not
much objectivity I am afraid, but you surely get the contrasting views and
arguments! That's one of the reasons I prefer to look for spread and
contrasts rather than canons - it's more fun and you learn more - but you
don't endear yourself to the establishment......

Still, there is a need to identify and teach undergraduate students the
major thoughtS and experiences within a field - not THE cannon, but the
battery of cannons.

I once had a thesis chairman who wrote a book called THE theory of buyer
behavior. In a congressional hearing he said: "We are at the verge of being
able to map the minds of buyers to the extent that we can predict with high
certainty what they will do given certain stimuli." I asked him on return
from Washington whether he really believed that, and that he had discovered
THE ever-lasting answer to understanding materialistic behavior in markets.
"No", he said, "but I did get the federal research grant I was looking
for." Your dissertation is funded. He was a great dissertation chairman!

I guess the need to have canons to believe in to simplify the world and
reduce felt uncertainty is a common human trait. A must, I believe, for
politicians and business leaders who have to make authoritative and
confident decisions about things they do not understand or master to make
the majority accept the decision (called "steel foot selling"), but not
very conducive to research discovery and imaginative investigation.

I therefore believe that the minimum reqirement for a decent doctorate is
that you teach the students that the war of knowledge has many kinds of
strategies and weapons, and that the winner often comes up with the
unexpected, not the cannons of yesterday.

Good hunting for the objective truth. If you convince others you are on the
brink of establishing it, you may get loads of research grants and a nice
pay-rise.

Brynjulf

Brynjulf Tellefsen
Associate Professor
Department of Knowledge Management
Norwegian School of Management
P. O. Box 4676 Sofienberg
N-0506 Oslo, NORWAY

Phone direct:  +47-22985142
Via exchange:  +47-22985000
Faximile: +47-22985111
Private phone/fax: +47-22149697
e-mail: [log in to unmask]



%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%