This study identifies the practical and philosophical difficulties associated with testing strategic management and organization theories. Working from a critical realist perspective, we affirm the importance of falsification and verification efforts for progress in theory development. We advocate a four-step approach for advancing theory testing that prioritizes identifying and testing for the presence and effects of hypothesized causal mechanisms, rather than solely focusing on correlational methods to jointly test the set of effects composing a theoretical system. Going beyond prior critical realist writings, we provide practical guidance for deploying established research methods to test management theories. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Testing management theories: critical realist philosophy and research methods

Today system design methods seem to presuppose the system design process as problem solving, i.e. as repair of a malfunctioning reality. Another assumption underlying these methods is the irrationality of system designers practice. This paper challenges this, often naive, view of rationality underlying system design methods by searching for the hidden rationality of practice. Twenty system designers were interviewed about their view on design skill, design methods, quality and the ‘nature’ of system design. The answers of the designers in many cases contradicts basic assumptions underlying many of today’s design methods, especially assumptions about the nature and rationality of the design process. One conclusion of the study is that a general understanding of the existing design practice is of crucial importance to all method development, at least if the purpose is to create methods that will be accepted and understood by practitioners.

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HOW SYSTEM DESIGNERS THINK ABOUT DESIGN AND METHODS: Some Reflections Based on an Interview Study

The process and structure of public utility privatization in Britain public utilities services and regulation objectives and outcomes of the privatization of public utilities prices and tariff structures the management of debt and disconnection consumer protection and representation public utility privatization in perspective - policy and paradigm change.

Whose Utility?: The Social Impact of Public Utility Privatization and Regulation in Britain

This article will examine how the notion of emotional authenticity is intertwined with the notions of naturalness and artificiality in the context of the recent debates about ‘neuro-enhancement’ and ‘neuro-psychopharmacology.’ In the philosophy of mind, the concept of authenticity plays a key role in the discussion of the emotions. There is a widely held intuition that an artificial means will always lead to an inauthentic result. This article, however, proposes that artificial substances do not necessarily result in inauthentic emotions. The literature provided by the philosophy of mind on this subject usually resorts to thought experiments. On the other hand, the recent literature in applied ethics on ‘enhancement’ provides good reasons to include real world examples. Such case studies reveal that some psychotropic drugs such as antidepressants actually cause people to undergo experiences of authenticity, making them feel ‘like themselves’ for the first time in their lives. Beginning with these accounts, this article suggests three non-naturalist standards for emotions: the authenticity standard, the rationality standard, and the coherence standard. It argues that the authenticity standard is not always the only valid one, but that the other two ways of assessing emotions are also valid, and that they can even have repercussions on the felt authenticity of emotions. In conclusion, it sketches some of the normative implications if not ethical intricacies that accompany the enhancement of emotions.

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Authenticity Anyone? The Enhancement of Emotions via Neuro-Psychopharmacology

With a practical approach to theory, Designing the City of Reason offers new perspectives on how differing belief systems and philosophical approaches impact on city design and development, exploring how this has changed before, during and after the impact of modernism in all its rationalism.
Looking at the connections between abstract ideas and material realities, this book provides a social and historical account of ideas which have emerged out of the particular concerns and cultural contexts and which inform the ways we live. By considering the changing foundations for belief and action, and their impact on urban form, it follows the history and development of city design in close conjunction with the growth of rationalist philosophy. Building on these foundations, it goes on to focus on the implications of this for urban development, exploring how public infrastructures of meaning are constructed and articulated through the dimensions of time, space, meaning, value and action.
With its wide-ranging subject matter and distinctive blend of theory and practice, this book furthers the scope and range of urban design by asking new questions about the cities we live in and the values and symbols which we assign to them.

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Robert D. Jewell

Papers

Rationality: A Philosophical Inquiry into the Nature and the Rationale of Reason