Perspectiva normativista en la gestión de los recursos humanos

Design science is distinguishable from the formal sciences (e.g. philosophy and mathematics) and explanatory sciences (e.g. natural sciences and social sciences) in that it concerns itself with creating artefacts that serve human purpose (van Aken 2004, Järvinen 2005). The formal sciences, observes van Aken (2004: 224), are mostly interested in building ‘systems of proposition whose main test is their internal logical consistency’. Explanatory sciences, he further observes, differ from formal ones in that they are interested in describing, explaining and possibly predicting observable phenomena and research should lead to propositions accepted as scientifically true on the basis of evidence provided (for example the causal model). Subjects keen on theory building such as physics and sociology are firmly rooted in the explanatory paradigm. Scientists are preoccupied with finding out the nature of what exists and how things are (Cross 2001).

Unlike both the formal and explanatory sciences, the goal of design science is to develop valid general knowledge to support the design of solutions to field problems (March and Smith 1995, van Aken 2004, van Aken and Romme 2009, Wieringa 2009, Hevner and Chatterjee 2010). It is more concerned with how things ought to be and the pattern of behaviour employed in inventing things...which do not yet exist (Cross 2001). Rather than

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produce theoretical knowledge, design science produces and applies knowledge ‘tasks or situations in order to create effective artifacts’ (March and Smith 1995: 253). Venable (2006) describes design science research as an inventive or creative problem solving activity which focuses on how to develop and produce artefacts and artificial systems having desired properties. Its mission, notes va Aken (2004), ‘...is to develop knowledge for the design and realisation of artefacts, i.e. to solve construction problems, or to be used in the improvement of performance of existing entities, i.e. to solve improvement problems’. The fields of architecture and civil engineering are mostly concerned with construction problems whilst those of medicine and psychotherapy deal mainly with improvement problems.

According to van Aken and Romme (2009) the approach’s emphasis is on: research questions that are driven by field problems; solution-oriented knowledge linking interventions to outcomes and proving that the actions based on this knowledge indeed produce desired outcomes. Effective problem identification, construction/building of artefacts and evaluating their effectiveness in real life are its core activities (Venable 2006, Iivari and Venable 2009). Järvinen (2007) summarises the fundamental characteristics of design science as follows:

 Its products are assessed against criteria of value or utility;

 It produces design knowledge (concepts, constructs, models and methods);  Building and evaluation are the two main activities of design science;

 Design science research is initiated by the researcher(s) interested in developing technological rules for a certain type of issue. Each individual case is primarily oriented at solving the local problem in close collaboration with the local people;  It solves construction problems (producing new innovations) and improvement

problems (improving the performance of existing entities);

 Knowledge is generated, used and evaluated through the building/construction.

2.3.2.1 The Descriptive/Prescriptive distinction

van Aken (2004: 221) highlights that

‘Management theory is either scientifically proven, but then too reductionistic and hence too broad or too trivial to be of much practical relevance, or relevant to practice, but then lacking sufficient rigorous justification’

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dilemma (Argyris and Schon 1991) is widespread in academic management research. In order to mitigate the relevance problem of academic management research, van Aken (2004) argues that Organization Theory should be complemented with Management Theory. The former results ‘from description-driven research, having an explanatory nature and to be used largely in a conceptual way’ and the latter ‘from prescription-driven research, used largely in an instrumental way to design solutions for management problems’ (p: 221). The differences between the two types of research are summarised as follows

Characteristic Description-driven research

programmes

Prescription-driven research programmes

Dominant paradigm Explanatory sciences Design sciences

Focus Problem focused Solution focused

Perspective Observer Player

Logic Hindsight Intervention-outcome

Typical research question Explanation Alternative solutions for a

class of problems

Typical research product Causal model; quantitative law Tested and grounded technological rule

Nature of research product Algorithm Heuristic

Justification Proof Saturated evidence

Type of resulting theory Organization Theory Management Theory

Table 2 The main differences between description-driven and prescription-driven research programmes by van Aken (2004: 236)

van Aken (2004: 241) argues that space should be created so as to allow Management Theory and Organizational Theory to ‘operate in a profitable partnership’ where the latter

‘could provide understanding of the problem as a basis for developing technological rules and insight in causal mechanisms as a basis to uncover generative mechanisms, while Management Theory could provide further insight into the nature of managerial processes and generating new research questions’

In advocating this approach the author is fully aware of the tensions between descriptive and prescriptive research. Debates regarding what constitutes legitimate scientific research continue to rage in fields that encompass research activities that are both descriptive-driven

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and prescriptive driven like IT (March and Smith 1995) and in engineering and physical sciences (van Aken 2004). In the latter the pure sciences normally have the upper hand because they are seen as knowledge-producing (March and Smith 1995). An analysis of the nature of academic research products derived from both description-driven (knowledge producing) and prescription-driven (knowledge using) research leads van Aken (2004) to conclude that the later has diminished academic respectability.

March and Smith (1995: 226) observe, as van Aken does, that the diminished status is ‘fostered in part by the prestige attached to science in modern societies and the belief that the term science should be reserved for research that produces theoretical knowledge’. van Aken (2004: 225) highlights that the term ‘science’ in English is often taken to be synonymous with ‘natural science’ which leads to notion that the mission of all science ‘is to merely describe, explain and predict and that such descriptive knowledge is sufficient for practitioners to solve their problems.’ This thinking is also wide-spread in the field of construction management research, as noted in section 2.2.

What has been made apparent so far is that the strength of a design science approach is in its emphasis on designing products that can be assessed against criteria of value or utility. The next section presents what the design scientists say about what constitutes a design science product.