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Building theory can be thought of as a never-ending journey. Theory building is particularly important to disciplines that are emerging and growing. Compared to older and more established academic disciplines, logistics does not have a rich heritage of theory development. This paper aims to construct a framework that combines different research paradigms with research approaches for logistics theory building. This framework can be used for positioning studies that aim at building and articulating core logistics theories. The framework is illustrated by providing examples from logistics research adhering to different research paradigms (positivism, scientific realism and interpretivism) and using different research approaches (deduction, induction, and abduction). The paper discusses how these different research paradigms and research approaches contribute to theory building in their own way.
Logistics has neither a unified theory (Mentzer et al., 2004) nor a rich heritage of theory development (Stock, 1997). Theory building, however, is argued to advance a discipline and profession, and is thus relatively more important to an emerging and growing discipline (Swanson, 2000). Logistics just like any other scientific discipline aims to create new, or modify existing theories (Arlbjørn and Halldórsson, 2002). Theory building can take different forms and follow different paths (Sebeok, 1983; and Nesher, 1999). As for logistics, borrowing theories from other disciplines has been advocated as a viable option for advancing the discipline (Stock, 1997; and Arlbjørn and Halldórsson, 2002). Borrowing has the advantage of learning from others and avoiding the pitfall of reinventing the wheel of building a theory.
At the same time, logistics research has often been discussed to be heavily footed in positivism and predominantly employs a deductive research approach (Mentzer and Kahn, 1995; Garver and Mentzer, 1999; Arlbjørn and Halldórsson, 2002; and Näslund, 2002). This has, however, its limitations for theory building, as the deductive derivation of hypotheses can only modify existing theories (Gioia and Pitre, 1990; and Bjereld et al., 2002). Yet, other research approaches also find their way to logistics research. The use of the inductive research approach in logistics is gaining momentum (Kovács and Spens, 2005). However, even this approach has been criticized by many, for instance Peirce (1934) stated that "[it] never can originate any idea whatever. No more can deduction". Despite this criticism, we argue that the deductive and the inductive research approaches are both relevant paths for advancing logistics knowledge. Kovács and Spens (2005) also discuss the use of a third, the abductive, research approach in logistics research. |
