Literature Research

Bob Ryan 2004

Getting Started Next

The B

asic Issu

es

• What are the different assumptions about the nature of financial reality that inform research?

• What is the role of theory in acquiring knowledge about financial and accounting reality?

• How does research progress?

Types o

f Litera

ture

R

ese

arch

• underpinning further empirical or theoretical research

• historical reconstruction of the development of ideas

• bibliometric analytical

Tw

o w

ays o

f creatin

g

know

ledg

e (ju

stified tru

e b

elie

f (P

lato

) )

Externalobject

Externalobject

Individualsubject

Individualsubject

beliefsbeliefs

perceptionsperceptions

appearanceappearance

knowledgeknowledge

reasonreason

The kn

ow

ledge d

ivid

e

• Plato• Ideal forms • The supremacy of

reason• Foundations of

western rationalism (Descartes, Rousseau, Marx and others)

• tenacious in Western culture — especially for those who have spent considerable time throughout their education improving their powers of reason

• Influence on social and political thought

• Aristotle• Observation, enumeration and

categorisation• The supremacy of evidence• Foundations of western

empiricism (Locke, Mill and Berkeley)

• dominant in Britain were the trade guilds and the professions in the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The entrants to these trades were not generally the product of a classical education system and their expertise relied on the transfer of skills by word of mouth — master to apprentice.

• Influence on science and technology

– Darwin– Newton

Em

piricism

an

d th

e

develo

pm

ent o

f scien

ce

• Naïve induction (Bacon, Darwin, Newton)– Knowledge is created by repeated observation

and the inference of general conclusions.

• Logical positivism (the Vienna Circle, Sir Alfred Ayer)

• Methodological Falsificationism• The neo-empiricists (Fayerabend, Lakatos,

Kuhn, Hansen)

The n

eo-e

mpiricists

• Facts are not neutral but are laden with our theories

• We can conceive of two ways of understanding the world: conceptual (theoretical) and empirical (factual)

• Science (knowledge) progresses and is focused not of the creation of theories but on paradigms (Kuhn), Research Programmes (Lakatos) or networks of models (Hesse)

The tw

o w

orld

model

The hidden objects of experience

The observed objects of experience

Our expectations of experience

Our construction of experience

Our concepts of experience

The unobservable objects of experience

Concept

Theory/Model

Hypothesis

Observation

Experimentation

Triangulation

Theory (understanding)

Conservation (primary literature)

Observation (discovery)

ResearchDissemination Application(secondary literature) (tertiary literature)

AcademicJournals / books Refereed / PhDs

BooksNon –refereed sources

ProfessionalMagazinesetc

The lite

ratu

re

Modes o

f litera

ture

rese

arch

• Induction

• Research programmes

• Network models

• The classical literature search (data base retrieval)

• The creation of the disciplinary ‘tree’

• The creation of the disciplinary network

Papin

eau’s T

ree

discipline school group individual

Papin

eau’s T

ree Primary

Core Terms(shared by allresearchers)

Specialist Core Terms(shared by a group of collaboratingresearchers)

TertiaryCore Terms(shared by majorSchools within a subject area)

SecondaryCore Terms(shared by majorsubdivisions in thediscipline)

Axioms of Rationality

Individualrationality(unbounded)

Systematicmarketrationality

Unconditionalhomogenous beliefs

Conditionalhomogenous beliefs

fully revealing prices. . . . .etc

Hesse

’s netw

ork th

eory

*********

*********

The sta

r burst

time

spread

1-1.5 years

Revie

w a

lgorith

m

• Search for key citations (one per relevant reading) over last year

• repeat back (say) five years• look for three or four common

citations• back chain looking for nova, stars

and satellites• when the ‘net’ is in place then look

for underlying connection of ideas

Evaluating the primary citation

citation

advancing

degenerating

Homage

Privilege

Academicchallenge

Integritychallenge

FraudOverstatement

TheoreticalrefutationEmpiricalcontradiction

An e

xam

ple

of a

litera

ture

net

De Angelo andMasulis (1980)

Bernea, Haugen and Senbet (1981)

Modigliani (1982)Kim (1982)

John and Kalay (1982)

Schall (1982)

Bradley et al (1984)

Myers (1984)

Kane et al (1984)

Ross (1985)Green and

Talman(1985)

Coase, R., (1937)Theory of the Firm4 Economica, n.s. 386-405

Knight, F H., (1921)Risk, Uncertainty and Profit reprinted1965, Harper and Row (1965, New York)

Robinson, E.A.G (1932)The Problem of Management and the Size of the Firm 44 The Economic Journal, 242-257

Marshall,A.,The Principles of Economics 8Ed.Macmillan, (1930) London

Robinson, J., (1933)Economics of Imperfect Competition 25

Plant,A.,(1932)Trends in Business Administration12 Economics, 387

Kaldor, N., (1934)The Equilibrium of the Firm44 Economic Journal, 70-91)

Disse

rtatio

n stru

cture