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The Conundrum Of Theory

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“He who loves practice without theory is like the sailor who boards ship without a rudder and compass and never knows where he may cast.” -Leonardo da Vinci A theory is a description of relationships between concepts bounded by assumptions and limits. It is used as a tool to organize the perplex ideas of the empirical world (Bacharach, 1989). What is important to highlight is, while the narrative descriptions of a theory may serve as a foundation to theories, they cannot be served as theories themselves. According to Dubin (1978) a comprehensive theory must contain four essential elements which are elaborated by Whetten (1989). First of them is what, what are the aspects or factors of a theory i.e. variables, constructs and concepts which …show more content…

While there is little agreement over what theory is, there is however larger consensus on what theory is not. According to Bacharach (1989) there are three types of descriptions which must be differentiated from theory: Categories of raw data, typologies and metaphors. These sources do answer the ‘What’ of a theory whereas an all encompassing theory should in effect answer ‘How’ ‘When’ and ‘Why’ of a theory as well. The author elaborates on his idea stating that a theory contains constructs related to each other through propositions and variables related to each other by hypothesis. These hypothesis and propositions exist in a system restricted by theorists assumptions i.e. values, time and space. Well constructed hypothesis is essential to link data with theory, making logical representation of ideas and concepts, however still they do not constitute a theory. As (Dubin 1976) noted, "A theoretical model is not simply a statement of hypothesis." One must be very careful when constructing a hypothesis; it should clearly state what is likely to happen instead of logical assertions on why something happens. Moreover references, data, variables, diagrams, and hypotheses are not theory (Sutton & Staw,

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