The Place of Statistical Modelling in Management Science: Critical Realism and Multimethodology

Traditional “hard” OR has been based on quantitative modelling and embodies, usually implicitly, a positivist or empiricist philosophy. “Soft OR”, for instance problem structuring methods such as SSM, developed as an antithesis and embodied an interpretivist or constructivist philosophy. This has generated somewhat of a schism between the two sides. Previous papers have advocated critical realism as a philosophy of science that can potentially provide a dialectical synthesis in recognising both the value and limitations of these approaches. This paper explores the critical realist critique of quantitative modelling, as exemplified by multivariate statistics, and argues that its grounds must be reconceptualised within a multimethodological framework.