SUMMARY ON INDUCTION IN THIS STUDY

Induction is more focused on pattern matching and meaning and its outcomes contain knowledge claims which are more than a restatement of the premises especially when this researcher can associate the outcomes with his experiences at TPS.

The inductive approach has not a defined framework to account for what happens in the process of constructing theoretical explanations from data. Unlike deduction, there are many variants of inductive reasoning. As it lacks the normative foundation, it is methodologically incomplete (Ketokivi and Mantere, 2110:316). This leads to what has often been referred to as Hume’s problem of induction (Truch, 2001:86).

8.3.1 Humean problem of induction

This problem arises because the testing of a theory involves observations; and even if all observations made support the theory, there is still uncertainty if future observations will support it. “There is nothing in any object, consider’d in itself, which can afford us a reason for drawing a conclusion beyond it; and that even after the observation of the frequent or constant conjunction of objects, we have no reason to draw any inference concerning any object beyond those of which we have had experience” (Hume,1969:189).

Deduction is context invariant and induction is context variant, and both have delimiting appeal in a social science study.

8.3.2 Contextual variance of induction

In a management study it is essential to understand the context within which the research is being conducted by taking into account organisational, social, political and cultural factors that impinge on the research problem (Remenyi et al, 2000:96).

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In reality, these factors vary infinitely and inductive studies have contexts that vary from one to the other. As such the convergence of these studies towards generalisation may not be easy.

Towards the end of Chapter 6, it is indicated that the discussions on autonomy and trust are not that difficult for this researcher as he can associate them with TPS during his tenure there. But he may find it difficult to do so now as he has not been working there for more than ten years. Also other researchers may discuss autonomy and trust differently from Chapter 6 in relation to contextualisation based on their different backgrounds, interests and experiences.

Ketokivi and Mantere (2010:323-5) have identified three forms of contextualisation and they are: -

• Subjective contextualisation - it is based on the premise that researchers have idiosyncratic backgrounds and knowledge bases that are reflected in their reasoning styles.

• Empirical contextualisation - by discussing telling examples and contextual details, a researcher attempts to establish a sense of authenticity.

• Theoretical contextualisation – it seeks explanations through establishing the relevance of claims with respect to a particular theory.

This study is more into empirical contextualisation when TPS is behind this researcher’s mind per the discussions in Chapter 6. But theoretical contextualisation is also of relevance when this study’s findings, that autonomy and trust underlie innovation, are considered for other contexts besides that of TPS. It is proposed in this study that more contextual discussions will be better in enriching the association of autonomy and trust with innovation in the social world. This enrichment is more so than more studies of having the social world based on the natural sciences to confirm these two factors or the generation of other linked factors.

8.3.3 Upping the narratives of social sciences modelled on natural sciences Organisations need better stories than better constructs. Better stories would allow a more comprehensive exploration of both the empirical context studied and the subjective context of a researcher’s reasoning process (Ketokivi and Mantere, 2010:322). “Authentic subjectivity consists, not in overcoming the particularities of one’s subjective viewpoint but in getting more deeply in touch with the unique particularities of one’s own perspectives in order to better appreciate both the

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similarities with and differences from the standpoints of other individuals” (Coghlan, 2007:338).

Stories, important from the community of practice perspective, are “predicated on the ‘situated cognition’ psychological view that learning arises by a process of enculturation in which neophyte members to a community acquire that particular community’s subjective world view or collective memory” (DeFillippi and Ornstein, 2003:27). Enculturation includes learning the narratives that constitute the collective memory of the community and learning to recognise those events where a specific story represents community knowledge applicable to the situation (such as this researcher’s recollection of TPS).

This study is into advocating the narratives since the relationship between narrative thinking and paradigmatic thinking lies at the heart of modern research into business and management and social science in general (Remenyi et al, 2000:127). To bring the narratives to the fore, relevant research methods must be sought and reviewed for adoption. This attention to methods is needed when more sophisticated practices which go beyond traditional approaches are being employed by business and management researchers (Remenyi et al, 2000:30).

The question is how a researcher moves on to more sophisticated practices. This researcher’s original intention was to do just the deductive phase of his study to confirm that knowledge underlies innovation. But the dearth of explanation from the deductive confirmatory phase prods him on to add the inductive phase. It is so because both the need for more information and the inductive approach taken make sense in adding more value to this study.

8.3.4 Sophisticated research practices and sense-making

If a research lacks explanations on its findings, it may be looked upon as less useful than one that is more explanatory. Generally a researcher who is more into explanations can be assumed to be motivated to want his or her work to be more engaging with its worth and application. Such motivation is a first step towards his or her search for more sophisticated research practices. The second step for the researcher is to reflect on sense-making which only he or she is assumed to know best per his or her study e.g. this researcher’s sense-making reflection with respect to TPS.

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Sense-making [from K. Weick’s book (1995) – Sense-making in Organisations] is defined as “the cyclical process of taking action, extracting information from stimuli resulting from that action, and incorporating information and stimuli from that action into mental frameworks that guide further action” (Seligman, 2006:109).

The process of sense-making in this study is not simple or linear. Together with evaluation, as indicated earlier, the process is highly iterative. The stimuli of wanting to know the factors underlying innovation effectiveness is anchored inside this researcher’s mental framework, together with assumptions and anticipations. The interpretations of the evaluation outcomes have been mentioned as “the reciprocal interactions of information seeking, meaning ascription, and actions” (ibid.).

Waterman, R., in his book (1990) - Adhocracy: the power to change - has referred to sense-making as the structuring of the unknown. By knowing that (a) KM is the antecedent of innovation effectiveness to (b) autonomy and trust as the factors underlying this effectiveness, this researcher has moved from the deductively less known to the inductively more known. But the research journey does not stop here in this study because what remain largely unexplored are the processes by which autonomy and trust, and other factors, work together to make innovation more effective.

Such a process-focused viewpoint gives rise to new questions such as these amongst others – (a) How can autonomy and trust be related to each other? (b) If so, how and why is autonomy related to trust in terms of innovation effectiveness? (c) What other important factors, besides autonomy and trust, underlie innovation effectiveness? (d) How do these others factors, autonomy and trust work together or against each other?

Answers to the above questions can be explored in future research and this will be touched upon in a later section (Section 8.6 – Recommendations for future research) after the contributions from this study and its limitations are addressed.

178 8.4 MAIN CONTRIBUTIONS FROM THIS STUDY

The contributions from this study are focused in relation to some of the gaps on innovation studies reviewed in the literature. The contributions are broadly summarised as theoretical and methodological

Theoretical contributions

(a) In some of the literature there are gaps between innovation theory and practice. A researcher may study innovation without the practical involvement with it but not this researcher. The initial theory for this study is based on his experience during his twenty years at TPS and the literature review associated with this experience.

(b) From the literature, diverse aspects of innovation are studied leading to a fragmented corpus. Errors, learning and knowledge are inherent to innovation and this researcher closely reviewed literature relevant to them. Three studies are relevant and, as an accumulation to the body of knowledge, they are replicated for research in this study.

(c) In the literature, sometimes there is little clarity on the measurement metrics used, whether they are devised or recommended. The measurement metrics used in this study are drawn from the above three studies. One consideration on their adoption is that they reflect fairly closely the day-to-day context of working life at TPS.

(d) The reliability of the adopted metrics is quite well demonstrated in this study. From the deductive analysis knowledge management is antecedent to innovation effectiveness; and from the inductive exploration, knowledge and learning factors underlie innovation traits and innovation competitive advantage.

(e) Although EMC is not teased out as an antecedent to innovation effectiveness, its absence is not to be construed simply that errors are irrelevant to such effectiveness; this is covered in Section 6.4. Rather errors catalyse the learning and knowing essential for innovations conceived in organisations with strong EMC’s. For organisations with weak EMC’s, the possibility for EMC to provide organisations with competitive edges may not be realistic and realisable as discussed in Section 6.4.1. Respondents to this study’s questionnaire survey may encounter difficulties if they are from organisations with weak EMC’s. Such difficulties may be in the moulds of those expressed in Section 6.4.2.

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(f) The initial model proposed for this study is depicted in Figure 4.3 to answer its research question - Are error management culture, organisational learning and knowledge management, the antecedents of innovation effectiveness? This model is referred to as an ordering framework in this study and the deductive outcome does not answer the question fully. Only KM turns out to be the antecedent of innovation effectiveness as supported in the literature. However, autonomy and trust of knowledge workers are inductively determined to underlie innovation effectiveness. Thus the explanation conceptualised from this study reads - The autonomy and trust of knowledge workers underlie innovation effectiveness.

Methodological contributions

(a) This social science study is posited as a positivist research and traditionally most of such studies are quantitative. This study is deductively quantitative but it has an inductive qualitative dimension to it.

(b) Besides adding a quantitative approach with another that is qualitative, this study has combined deduction with induction. The result is retroduction which may help to establish the close and dynamic links between empirical and theoretical investigations such as those captured in this study.

(c) With a retroductive approach in research, quantitative co-relational data can be combined with the qualitative processual accounts for the unlocking of innovation as a black box. This will be further deliberated in Section 8.6 (Recommendations for future research).

(d) The embrace of replication in this study is intended to lessen fragmentation in social science studies linked to its research topic; when this intention is realised, the accompanying goal of knowledge accumulation is likely to be realised more objectively.