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In the illustration the horizontal axis presents how the degree of abstraction increases.
It seems that in near future there will be a convergence between these
two different views.
Analytical Matters in INV
During the last decade, two mainstreams for research have dominated the
analysis in Finnish business studies: the nomothetic or positivistic (or as Easton
1998 defines it: the nomothetic/hypothetico deductive) approach and the actionoriented
/subjectivist approach (Tikkanen 1997, 113). It seems that the qualitative
methods generally associated with case studies have gained more success.
However, qualitative methods and the use of case methodology - single or multiple
- has gained more popularity among researchers, though some criticism
has been presented regarding the relevance of this method. In logistics, however,
the modern positivist paradigm based upon testing the theoretical frameworks
created a priori, seem to be more common (Garver and Mentzer 1999).
There is a need to enhance the traditional, more analytical, and technologybased
analysis with more holistic and integrative, socially-oriented methods in
logistics science; action-oriented approach as an option, though resembling the
traditional case studies, differs slightly from them: more attention is paid to real
human action on different managerial levels with strong emphasis on every person’s
involvement and their interpretations of the reality. It is essential to analyse
the activities and even the single acts, episodes or critical events by splitting the
phenomenon to its core categories. Furthermore, there is often no pre-defined
theoretical framework including hypothetical suggestions. Some recognisable
features include also pragmatism, non-standard procedures, experience based
data, and even intuition, which all are highly addressed (Tikkanen 1997). The
researcher is in continuous interaction, and even debate with the actors to be
analysed. Besides, it is not possible to analyse action and context separately.
However, it can be difficult to draw a line between ordinary case studies and the
action-oriented approach.
Practically, under an interaction-oriented approach the working process should
be based on the idea of iteration having distinctive stages to go through. The
practice, thus, approaches the subjectivist view in which the dialogue between
theory and practice is highly emphasised. The idea of iteration means a recurrent
and continuous dialogue between the theoretical foundations and the empirical
examination. Therefore conventional modelling with hypothesis to be
tested under a robust framework created a priori, is not always valid. The follow-
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