examining "borrowed theory" in original vs. new disciplines via text mining

“Borrowed Theory” in Original vs. New DisciplinesStephen Downing 10 Jan. 2014

Content

Brief Literature Review

Research Questions

Data & Analysis

Results

Conclusions

2

Brief Literature Review

Borrowed Theory Examples

Borrowed Theory Application

Social Exchangeexplore motivational factors of knowledge sharing in

large, information-intensive organizationsHall, 2003

Evolutionaryinterpret how firms renew organizational

competencies Burgelman, 1991

Ecosystem

explain firm competition and cooperation with

internationally interconnected and interdependent

supply chains, customers, complementors, etc.

Moore, 1993

4

Classifications of Borrowed Theories

Paradigmatic

Theories

Propositional

Arguments

Broad theory used to

explain phenomena

One concept used to

explain another concept

Example: Example:

behavioral theory

(March and Simon,

1958) and equity theory

(Mowday, 1991) to

explain differences in

employee motivation

level of environmental

uncertainty (Lawrence and

Lorsch, 1967) to explain

the levels of integration

and differentiation among

organizational units

Cross-level

(vertical)

Cross-Context

(horizontal)

Borrowing theories

that were developed

at different levels of

analysis

Borrowing theories

developed for study

of phenomena in

other social contexts

Example: Example:

social involvement

literature from

sociology (Davis et al,

2004) used for

organizational research

Keystone effect from

ecology to management

science (to be addressed

later)

Source: Whetten, Felin, & King,

2009

Source: Prabhakar, 2010

5

Limitation of Theory Borrowing:

Within Discipline: Between Disciplines:

Orig

ina

tio

nA

pp

lica

tio

n

6

Example of Misused Borrowed Theory

• Freudian theories applied to motivational research for marketing purposes in 1940’s and 1950’s.

• Proved ineffective and inappropriate; eventually discontinued.

• Murray and Evers argue it’s due to three aspects of borrowed theory.

Freudian TheoriesMotivation

Research

Helping Disturbed

PatientsSuperstructure

Explaining Typical

Behavior

Interpretive Type of Science Logical Empirical

Psychoanalysis:

19th Century ViennaSocial Context

Consumer Behavior:

1950’s America

Source: Murray & Evers, 1989

7

Trade-offs of Theory Borrowing

Usefulness Debate

Benefits Costs

Essential for

interdisciplinary fields

(e.g., marketing)

Has led to dead-ends

Has led to creative and

illuminating issues of

theory

Wasted time of

researchers

Efficient to use available

resources for research

Wasted resources of

academic institutions

Appropriateness Debate

Source: Murray & Evers, 1989;

Murray, Evers, & Janda, 1995

Source: Floyd, 2009; Zahra & Newey,

2009; Markoczy & Deeds, 2009

Pro Con

Borrowing Theories has

helped organizational studies

develop credibility and

legitimacy (Agarwal and

Hetker, 2007)

Sacrifice goal of developing

management science as

legitimate academic field

Opportunities in three types:

1. Application/replication

2. Extension (focal domain)

3. Transformation (parent

domain)

Theories should be built

within focal domain

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Research Questions

Methodological Implications

Time from Awareness of ProblemL

evel

of

Un

cert

ain

ty

Exploratory

Descriptive

Causal

Suitable Research Type for Context

QualitativeQuantitative

• How does the application of borrowed theory compare in the original and new disciplines?

• The type of research usually depends on the level of uncertainty and the timeframe.

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Research Questions

• 1. Does application of the borrowed theory differ from original to new discipline? How?

• Qualitative vs. quantitative

• Exploratory (or descriptive) vs causal

• 2. Does the research methodology of applying the borrowed theory change over time? How?

• Early, middle, vs. late periods after theory introduced (borrowed)

• 3. Does that change over time differ between the original and new disciplines? How?

11

Focal Study:

“Keystone Species” Concept

Borrowed from Ecology

for Mgmt. Science

keystone

speciesParent Discipline New Focal Discipline

Context Ecological ecosystem Business ecosystem

General Actor Organism Firm

Health

Evaluation

Metrics

1.Productivity,

2.Robustness,

3.Niche Creation

1.Firm ROI,

2.Surviving Firms

3.New firms/tech

Specific RolesFood web hierarchical

roles (predator, prey, etc.)

Keystone, dominator,

landlord, niche

Identification

Metrics

Biomass density/diversity,

trophic position,

Food web links

Firm size & growth,

Contracts and supply chain

links

Analysis

Methodology

Experimental removal,

Network visualization

Network visualization,

(though mostly qualitative)

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Focal Study: “Keystone Species”

Graph Source: Google Ngrams Viewer, smoothing factor = 3, case insensitive

“ecosystem”

borrowed for

business context

(Moore, 1993)

“keystone species”

originated in ecology

(Paine, 1966)

“keystone

species”

borrowed for

business

ecosystem

strategy

(Iansiti &

Levien, 2004)

?

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“Keystone Species”:Summary of Prevalence in the literature

keystone species

keystone strategy

keystone effect

Search Citations

“keystone species” 21,600

“keystone effect” 983

“keystone strategy” 197

“keystone species” and “keystone

effect”65

“keystone species and keystone

effect”17

21,600

197

983

65

17

Sources: Google Scholar and 國立交通大學(NCTU)

Library e-database peer-reviewed citations14

Data and Analysis

Text Analysis Corpus

• 163 total journal articles involving “keystone species”

• New Discipline: Mgmt. Science

• Context: business ecosystem

• 2004 – 2013 timeframe (n = 103)

• Original Field: Ecology

• Context: ecological ecosystem

• 1965 – 2013 timeframe (n = 59)

All analyses performed using RapidMiner 5.

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Text Corpus Divisions by Time Periods

0

5

10

15

20

25

Early: 1966 -

1993

Middle: 1994 -

2001

Late: 2002 -

2013

Sample Citations per

Period in Ecology

0

10

20

30

40

50

Early: 2004 -

2007

Middle: 2008 -

2010

Late: 2011 -

2013

Sample Citations per

Period in Mgmt. Science

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Text Analysis: Group and Period Simulated Probabilities via Naïve Bayes Classifier

• Application of Bayes’ theorem

• 𝑝 𝐺𝑖 𝐹1…𝐹𝑛 =𝑝 𝐺𝑖 ∙𝑝(𝐹1…𝐹𝑛|𝐺𝑖)

𝑝(𝐹1…𝐹𝑛)

• Produces posterior probability (p) of group classification (𝐺𝑖), given certain evidence (F1…Fn)

• Strong independence assumptions

• Articles analyzed for probability of indicator tokens by term frequency-inverse document frequency (TF-IDF) in sample corpus by

• academic field

• time period

• Tokens := n-grams (words) of n=1,2,3

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Results

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Q1: Does application of the borrowed theory differ from original to new discipline?

Mgmt. Science: More Qualitative Ecology: More Quantitative

20

Mgmt. Science vs. Ecology Mgmt. Science vs. Ecology

“qualitative research” “quantify”

Q1: Does application of the borrowed theory differ from original to new discipline?

Mgmt. Science: More Exploratory Ecology: More Causal

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Mgmt. Science vs. Ecology Mgmt. Science vs. Ecology

“exploratory” “experiment”

A1: Yes, application of the borrowed theory differs from original to new discipline.

Most Frequent

Word stems: Ecology Business

Exploratory √

Causal √

Qualitative √

Quantitative √

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Q2: Does the research methodology of applying the borrowed theory change over time?

Early Period: Exploratory Middle Period: Exploratory

23

Management Science Management Science

“business ecosystem concept” “business ecosystem development”


Middle Period: Qualitative Late Period: Quantitative

24


“qualitative analysis” “quantitative analysis”


Late Period: Exploratory Late Period: Exploratory & Causal

25


“exploratory research” “exploratory analysis”

A2: Yes, the research methodology of applying the borrowed theory changes over time.

Mgmt. Science Early Middle Late

Exploratory √ √ √

Causal √

Qualitative √ √

Quantitative √ √

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Q3: Does that change over time differ between the original and new disciplines?

Early: Early:

27

Management Science Ecology

“business ecosystem concept” “data collection”


Middle: Middle:

28


“qualitative analysis” “experiment”


Late: Late:

29


“data collection analysis” “quantify”

A3: Yes, that change over time differs between the original and new disciplines.

Mgmt. Science Early Middle Late Ecology Early Middle Late

Exploratory √ √ √ Exploratory √ √

Causal √ Causal √ √ √

Qualitative √ √ Qualitative √

Quantitative √ √ Quantitative √ √ √

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Conclusions

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Borrowed Theory in Parent vs. New Discipline

Majority Classification

by Discipline:

Original:

Ecology

New:

Mgmt. Science

Methodology Progression

over Time

Standard:

Exploratory Confirmatory

Stalled:

Exploratory Exploratory

Clarity of Phenomena Certainty Ambiguity

Research Purpose CausalExploratory

(Descriptive)

Approach Quantitative Qualitative

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Takeaways

• Authors using borrowed theory (“keystone species”) described their own work as

exploratory in relatively later periods and to greater extent than authors do in

the originating field

• Certainty and authoritativeness suffer from borrowed theory in later stages

• Borrowed theories are ready-made, provide timeliness, cost benefit in the short run, but the benefit decreases faster than theories originated in the discipline

• Except in the case of being the first one to borrow a theory with good cause, or applying a borrowed theory in a novel way, or when facing strict temporal/monetary constraints, then originating theory through research may allow more certainty and consistency applying the theory within original discipline.

Managerial Implications

Given substantial research costs in time and resources:

• large firms may benefit from propriety research originating theory (i.e., developing theories related to their specific business problem)

• Small firms may find it more cost effective to apply insight from borrowed theory to arrive at faster, cheaper conclusion (i.e., essentially buying a copy of a research report instead of investing in propriety research).

References• Burgelman, R. a. (1991). Intraorganizational Ecology of Strategy Making and

Organizational Adaptation: Theory and Field Research. Organization Science, 2(3), 239–262. doi:10.1287/orsc.2.3.239

• Floyd, S. W. (2009). “ Borrowing ” Theory : What Does This Mean and When Does It Make Sense in Management Scholarship? Journal of Management Studies, 46(6), 1057–1058. doi:0022-2380

• Hall, H. (2003). Borrowed theory. Library & Information Science Research, 25(3), 287–306. doi:10.1016/S0740-8188(03)00031-8

• Iansiti, M., & Levien, R. (2004). Strategy as Ecology. Harvard Business Review, 82(3), 68–78. Retrieved from http://ezproxy.lib.nctu.edu.tw:2088/ContentServer.asp?T=P&P=AN&K=12383702&S=R&D=bth&EbscoContent=dGJyMNHr7ESep7E4zOX0OLCmr0meprNSr6+4SreWxWXS&ContentCustomer=dGJyMPGstEqurrNOuePfgeyx44Dt6fJJ

• Markóczy, L., & Deeds, D. L. (2009). Theory Building at the Intersection : Recipe for Impact or Road to Nowhere ? Journal of Management Studies, 46(6), 1076–1088.

• Moore, J. (1993). Predators and Prey: A New Ecology of Competition. Harvard Business Review, 71(3), 75–86. Retrieved from http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/jim/files/2010/04/Predators-and-Prey.pdf

• Murray, J. B., & Evers, D. J. (1989). Theory Borrowing and Reflectivity in Interdisciplinary Fields. Advances in Consumer Research, 16, 647–652.

• Murray, J., Evers, D., & Janda, S. (1995). Marketing, theory borrowing, and critical reflection. Journal of Macromarketing, (Fall), 92–106. Retrieved from http://jmk.sagepub.com/content/15/2/92.short

• Paine, R. T. (1966). Food web complexity and species diversity. The American Naturalist, 100(910), 65–75. doi:10.1086/282400

• Paine, R. T. (1969). The Pisaster-Tegula interaction: prey patches, predator food preference, and intertidal community structure. Ecology, 50(6), 950–961. doi:10.2307/1936888

• Prabhakar, K. (2010). Borrowing Theory from other disciplines to Management. methodspace.com. Retrieved November 12, 2013, from http://www.methodspace.com/group/crossingboundaries/forum/topics/borrowing-theory-from-other

• Whetten, D. a., Felin, T., & King, B. G. (2009). The Practice of Theory Borrowing in Organizational Studies: Current Issues and Future Directions. Journal of Management, 35(3), 537–563. doi:10.1177/0149206308330556

• Zahra, S. A., & Newey, L. R. (2009). Maximizing the Impact of Organization Science : Theory-Building at the Intersection of Disciplines and / or Fields. Journal of Management Studies, 46(6), 1059–1075.

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List of articles in text analysis sample corpus omitted for brevity; available upon request.