IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/h/spr/sprchp/978-981-99-7039-1_6.html
   My bibliography  Save this book chapter

Research Method

In: Chester I. Barnard: Innovator of Organization Theory

Author

Listed:
  • Kazuhito Isomura

    (Chuo University)

Abstract

This chapter aims to clarify Barnard’s research methods. Barnard was a practitioner, not a professional researcher; Barnard repeatedly stated that he created his theory of organization and management from his experience and observation. However, he was able to publish The Functions of the Executive, which is sufficiently logical, systematic, and scientific. This is because Barnard constructed his theory on the basis of his own research methods. First, Barnard adopted participant observation as his research method; he played the dual role of an actor and an observer. It is essential to observe the reality as a participant because the reality is always changing through an actor’s action and reaction from the situation. Second, Barnard accumulated his experience and observation; he then classified them into three different types of knowledge: behavioral, personal, and formal. Third, Barnard shared the Hippocrates method with Henderson, composed of intuitive familiarity, knowledge, and theory. Barnard created and combined concepts from accumulated knowledge; he called a set of concepts a “conceptual scheme,” which is regarded as being equivalent to a theory.

Suggested Citation

  • Kazuhito Isomura, 2023. "Research Method," Springer Books, in: Chester I. Barnard: Innovator of Organization Theory, chapter 0, pages 79-92, Springer.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:sprchp:978-981-99-7039-1_6
    DOI: 10.1007/978-981-99-7039-1_6
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    To our knowledge, this item is not available for download. To find whether it is available, there are three options:
    1. Check below whether another version of this item is available online.
    2. Check on the provider's web page whether it is in fact available.
    3. Perform a search for a similarly titled item that would be available.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:sprchp:978-981-99-7039-1_6. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.