Authors: Ian Wilkinson; Louise Young
The debate concerning the scientific method and the nature of theory in marketing raged in the 1980s and 1990s. It was in part a battle between the realists versus the relativists in terms of how we do and should develop marketing theory. This paper is not about advocating a particular vision of scientific method but about developing a framework for understanding and analysing alternative philosophies of scientific method. Our contention is that there is no one scientific method or even one best method (although there are bad methods) but a plurality of approaches with different underlying assumptions about some of the fundamental issues confronting scientific endeavour in any arena. This paper identifies some of the main issues underlying the debate concerning the nature of scientific method and develops them in terms of a general model of knowledge development and its basic elements. Using this framework we are able to identify different approaches to scientific method in terms of the stance taken on various issues.
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