Methodology Foundation For Scientification Of Management Theory

This dissertation puts forward some views of the methodology foundation for scientification of management theory, some of which attack several well-known ideas. Although there is nothing particularly innovative, this dissertation places and integrates the research outcomes of many disciplines-such as philosophy, economics, sociology, psychology, biology, and MS of course-under one framework from a new perspective and with a new version. This dissertation is divided into six chapters, the main idea of each of which is as follows.Chapter One:Comments on scientificity of management theory. After briefly sorting the development of arguments from the philosophical circle against the essence of science, this dissertation argues that the essence of science is the socially accepted agreement which is characterized with flasifiablity, with flasfiability and intersubjectivity as two major differences from other perceptions. Judging from this, the two manifestations of MS as prescience are "nonflasifiablity" and "nonflasfiability". This dissertation claims the reasons for the prescience of MS can be explained from the perspectives of scientific community and methodology. From the perspective of scientific community, the theoretical agreement is dramatically achieved due to the variety of MS researchers (including professional researchers, entrepreneurs, consulting agencies and staff), research motivations and methodology, and the under developed academic platforms (for instance, the development of academic journals) and standards. From the perspective of methodology, the inadequacy and disagreements of basic research work among such things as the definition of study objects, assumptions and methodology explain the nonflasifiablity of MS. With an analysis on the reasons underlying the pessimistic attitude prevailing in the foreign academic field towards scientification of management theory, this dissertation analyses the problems in current existing research work, and argues that scientification of management theory can depend on two paths-the path of scientific community perspective and the path of methodology perspective-which are also the theory foundation of this dissertation. Chapter Two:the scope of management research. Clarifying the research scope of MS is the prerequisite for defining the basic subjects and their relationships for MS. Borrowing from modern science which studies from the perspectives the human, the objects and the minds, this dissertation divides MS in its broader sense into the management of human, the management of objects and the management of mind, and then refers to MS directed to the management of human as "Narrowed MS", MS directed to the management of objects as "Management Science", and MS directed to the management of mind as "Ethical MS". With this classification foundation in order, this dissertation then divides business MS into marketing management, strategic management, public management and financial management and other sub-disciplines according to stakeholders theory, and notes that the management studied in this dissertation is confined to "business rank and file management". Meanwhile, this dissertation argues that although they together are the basic subjects of MS, economics, psychology, physiology, socialology and biology play very different roles in the development of their respective fields and dominate among subjects-basic relationships. Finanally, in order to realize scientification, management theory should become "streamlined", that is, from the perspective of theory scientification and defined research scope, current research on part of some management schools does not belong to the range of management; or research objects of some other schools do not come within those of management; or some schools do not get to the heart of the matter and their theories still need improvements, although they studies the "management of human". Therefore, research on management must do something more import by leaving the others undone.Chapter Three:disputes and integration of the humanity hypothesis. The continuous dispute of humanity hypodissertation is one of the root causes of the disputes among schools of management theories. This dissertation mainly deals with "self-interestedness and altruism" and "sense and sensibility" of human natures. Altruism can be further divided into affinity altruism, mutual benefits altruism and pure altruism. The first two forms are essentially self-interest despite their seemingly pretense. Therefore, the disputes arising from the academic circle center round "the origin of pure altruism". This dissertation sorts the existing explanation for pure altruism, for example, collective choice theory, individual choice theory, strong reciprocity, residual interest theory, and argues that "genes-cultural evolutionary algorithms "of human behaviors is especially worth of reference, and "self-interestedness" and "convertibility" can therefore be extended.The dispute on sense and sensibility revolves round the two meanings of "rationality", that is, do human behaves according to optimality? This dissertation introduces bounded rationality by Herbent Simon, rationality in behavioral economics, "seemingly" rationality by Milton Friedman who defended rationality, irrelevance of rationality by Alchian, and situational rationality which is strongly advocated by Wang Dingding in recent years. Then, "limited rationality" and "prosociality" evolve from the sorting and comments on existing documented literature.Chapter Four:the nature and institutional structure of management. The obvious feature of enterprises is "authority". The arguments for the reason why authority exists in enterprises constitute the main line of the enterprise theory. Through analyzing the drawbacks of contract theory by Coase and others and interpreting enterprise theory by frank Hyneman Knight, this dissertation sorts the theories put forward by Alchian, Zhang Wuchang, and Zhou Qiren, etc., points out the research perspective of "returning to Knight", and argues that the primary reason for the existence of authority is that enterprises are "the enterprises of entrepreneurs", based on which the concept of "customized assessment" is elicited and the necessity of management is articulated.The institutional structure of management is the outcome of incomplete contracting. This dissertation approves the definition for institution by Andrew Schotter, and divides it into "internal institutions" and "external institutions". The "formal institutions" in management is used to restrict behaviors expressly stipulated in contracts whereas "corporate culture" is used to bind behaviors with imcomplete contracting. The fact the management depends on different institutions is manifested in the different management modes. Management presents authority management when mainly depending on formal institutions, or democratic management largely depends on corporate. This dissertation argues that the choice between different institutions depends on the size of transaction costs, which is closely related to human resources categories. Finally, this dissertation illustrates that the evolvement of management institutions must allow for the features and complementarity of both formal and informal institutions by taking as an example "enterprise reconstructuring"-a tragedy which could have been avoided.Chapter Five:the choice of management modes. This chapter puts forward a general reasoning for the choice of management institutions on the basis of an analysis of a well-known management phenomenon-the difference in management modes between American and Japanese enterprises, and then makes comments on several surges of influential management thoughts. American and Japanese modes of management are the respectively dominating modes in the two countries rather than the stereotypes of enterprises features. The obvious differences between them are not decided by "cultural traditions" too. The misunderstanding of them also reflects the logic absence of Chandler's structure follows strategy-strategy decides on structure. This dissertation argues that the logic for choosing management modes should be as follows:different market situations lead to different competition strategies, which make enterprises adopt different modes of production. This in turn causes enterprises to require different types of human resources, which results in different modes of management. The historical examination on the management modes between American and Japanese enterprises and the statistics borrowed from other sources confirms the choice theory of management modes put forward by this dissertation. Based on this, this dissertation advances ideas on "management variety" and "scientificness of management principles", comments on contingency theory of management, situation dependence theory, and emphasizes that the distinction between facts and values is the basic step of scientification of management theory.Chapter Six:Conclusion. Based on a summary of the whole dissertation, this chapter briefly reviews the application of economics methodology in management research and discusses several related issues with a purpose of explaining the realistic implication of economics methodology for management research.As far as the importance and the difficulty of the topic are concerned, this dissertation is clearly beyond the ability of a PhD student and a doctoral dissertation. But I stubbornly persist on it. I never hope it could become a school of thought, but expect that many others could devote themselves in it.