Choosing the Appropriate Level of Abstraction 383 CHOOSING THE APPROPRIATE LEVEL OF ABSTRACTION Even if we already agree with Merton that as social scientists we should be mainly constructing theories of the middle range,in every piece of research it is still necessary to make a decision about the precise level of generality at which we want to construct an explanation.The middle range between the nomothetic and the idiothetic end of the spectrum is wide.Let me offer an illustration of this point.Let's say we want to develop a theory of firm behaviour.Let us assume in this thought experiment that our universe is made up of 100 firms (FI to F100)and five countries(CI to C5).Each country has the same number of firms,which means that each country has 20 firms.If our theory is formulated at the most general level of abstraction,it will apply to all 100 firms.At the other extreme,if the behaviour of each firm is completely distinct from the behaviour of any other firm,that is, each firm is entirely idiosyncratic,we would need 100 distinct explanations for the behaviour of our 100 firms.A widely shared definition of science sees it as an enterprise trying to abstract from the particular and generalize.A completely general statement would apply to 100 firms,a completely idiothetic statement would apply to only one firm and thus not amount to 'science'on the aforemen- tioned definition.But notice that even if we could only find commonality among two of the 100 firms,we would have still engaged in abstraction and generalization. Developing a generalization across two out of 100 firms is to engage in a scientific process.The key point I want to make here is that scientific statements(or theories if you will)in this particular thought experiment could apply to as few as two firms and as many as 100 firms. Scholars comparing two or more countries have repeatedly discovered that national differences in economic development,institutions,and culture have a strong influence on firm behaviour (Hall Soskice,2001).This means a powerful theory explaining the behaviour of 20 firms in one country may not apply well to the other 80 firms in the other four countries.As mentioned before,science does not require one to construct theories that apply to all 100 firms.Too often scholars fall into the trap of thinking that one has to formulate a general theory at the outset, which often requires one to ignore the most interesting causal factors that drive the behaviour of firms in a particular country.The result is that little understanding is gained.If one realizes,however,that science even resides in developing generali- zations for a subset of firms,one will see clearly the fruitfulness of first developing generalizations that apply to a smaller set of firms (e.g.,to 20 firms from one country)before examining whether the generalization holds for a larger set of firms or even the entire universe of firms. To summarize,any researcher in this thought experiment is forced to decide whether the theoretical statement will apply to two or three or 100 firms.Because of the universalist ideal in much of macro management research,scholars are typically inclined to formulate their theoretical statements in the most general way, 2014 The International Association for Chinese Management ResearchCHOOSING THE APPROPRIATE LEVEL OF ABSTRACTION Even if we already agree with Merton that as social scientists we should be mainly constructing theories of the middle range, in every piece of research it is still necessary to make a decision about the precise level of generality at which we want to construct an explanation. The middle range between the nomothetic and the idiothetic end of the spectrum is wide. Let me offer an illustration of this point. Let’s say we want to develop a theory of firm behaviour. Let us assume in this thought experiment that our universe is made up of 100 firms (F1 to F100) and five countries (C1 to C5). Each country has the same number of firms, which means that each country has 20 firms. If our theory is formulated at the most general level of abstraction, it will apply to all 100 firms. At the other extreme, if the behaviour of each firm is completely distinct from the behaviour of any other firm, that is, each firm is entirely idiosyncratic, we would need 100 distinct explanations for the behaviour of our 100 firms. A widely shared definition of science sees it as an enterprise trying to abstract from the particular and generalize. A completely general statement would apply to 100 firms, a completely idiothetic statement would apply to only one firm and thus not amount to ‘science’ on the aforemen￾tioned definition. But notice that even if we could only find commonality among two of the 100 firms, we would have still engaged in abstraction and generalization. Developing a generalization across two out of 100 firms is to engage in a scientific process. The key point I want to make here is that scientific statements (or theories if you will) in this particular thought experiment could apply to as few as two firms and as many as 100 firms. Scholars comparing two or more countries have repeatedly discovered that national differences in economic development, institutions, and culture have a strong influence on firm behaviour (Hall & Soskice, 2001). This means a powerful theory explaining the behaviour of 20 firms in one country may not apply well to the other 80 firms in the other four countries. As mentioned before, science does not require one to construct theories that apply to all 100 firms. Too often scholars fall into the trap of thinking that one has to formulate a general theory at the outset, which often requires one to ignore the most interesting causal factors that drive the behaviour of firms in a particular country. The result is that little understanding is gained. If one realizes, however, that science even resides in developing generali￾zations for a subset of firms, one will see clearly the fruitfulness of first developing generalizations that apply to a smaller set of firms (e.g., to 20 firms from one country) before examining whether the generalization holds for a larger set of firms or even the entire universe of firms. To summarize, any researcher in this thought experiment is forced to decide whether the theoretical statement will apply to two or three or 100 firms. Because of the universalist ideal in much of macro management research, scholars are typically inclined to formulate their theoretical statements in the most general way, Choosing the Appropriate Level of Abstraction 383 © 2014 The International Association for Chinese Management Research