理组 Management and 研威 究管 Organization Review Management and Organization Review 10:3,November 2014,381-389 doi10.1111/more.12068 理組 研織 究管 Reflections on Choosing the Appropriate Level of Abstraction in Social Science Research Johann Peter Murmann UNSW Australia Business School,Australia ABSTRAcT Although researchers often do it subconsciously,every explanation involves choosing a level of abstraction at which the argument proceeds.The dominant North American style of research in Organization Theory,Strategy,and International Business encourages researchers to frame their explanations at the highest level of abstraction where country-level contextual factors are suppressed or ignored.Yet to provide powerful explanations for recent developments in China,researchers are drawn to a greater level of context specificity.This tension is evident in the Child and Marinova (2014)paper.One way to reduce the tension is to identify general causal mechanisms that combine in different ways to produce different results depending on context.This research strategy is more effective than seeking invariant,general patterns of development across all times and places. KEYwoRDs choosing level of abstraction,philosophy of social science,research design, research on industries,research on firms 关于在社会科学研究中选择适当的抽象水平的反思 摘要 尽管研究者都是潜意识而为之，他们在论述解释问题时都进行了不同程度的抽象。 组织理论、战略和国际贸易中主流的北美研究范式，都鼓励研究者最大程度地抽象 他们的论述，与此同时却压制或忽略了国家层面的情境因素的影响。但是为了充分 地解释中国近期的发展，研究者都执着于高水平的情境特性。这种矛盾体现在Cil d和Marinova(2014)的文章中。减少这种矛盾的一种方法是发现一些普遍的因果 机制，采用不同的方式结合这些机制，从而根据情境产生不同的结果。这种研究策 略比寻求不随时间和地点变化的、普遍的发展模式更为有效。 关键词：选择抽象的水平，社会科学的哲学，研究设计，行业研究，企业研究 INTRODUCTION The beauty of science is that it takes what are seemingly different objects,phe- nomena,or events and reduces them to something similar.The more general 2014 The International Association for Chinese Management ResearchReflections on Choosing the Appropriate Level of Abstraction in Social Science Research Johann Peter Murmann UNSW Australia Business School, Australia ABSTRACT Although researchers often do it subconsciously, every explanation involves choosing a level of abstraction at which the argument proceeds. The dominant North American style of research in Organization Theory, Strategy, and International Business encourages researchers to frame their explanations at the highest level of abstraction where country-level contextual factors are suppressed or ignored. Yet to provide powerful explanations for recent developments in China, researchers are drawn to a greater level of context specificity. This tension is evident in the Child and Marinova (2014) paper. One way to reduce the tension is to identify general causal mechanisms that combine in different ways to produce different results depending on context. This research strategy is more effective than seeking invariant, general patterns of development across all times and places. KEYWORDS choosing level of abstraction, philosophy of social science, research design, research on industries, research on firms 关于在社会科学研究中选择适当的抽象水平的反思 摘要 尽管研究者都是潜意识而为之，他们在论述解释问题时都进行了不同程度的抽象。 组织理论、战略和国际贸易中主流的北美研究范式，都鼓励研究者最大程度地抽象 他们的论述，与此同时却压制或忽略了国家层面的情境因素的影响。但是为了充分 地解释中国近期的发展，研究者都执着于高水平的情境特性。这种矛盾体现在Chil d和Marinova（2014）的文章中。减少这种矛盾的一种方法是发现一些普遍的因果 机制，采用不同的方式结合这些机制，从而根据情境产生不同的结果。这种研究策 略比寻求不随时间和地点变化的、普遍的发展模式更为有效。 关键词：选择抽象的水平，社会科学的哲学，研究设计，行业研究，企业研究 INTRODUCTION The beauty of science is that it takes what are seemingly different objects, phe￾nomena, or events and reduces them to something similar. The more general bs_bs_banner Management and Organization Review 10:3, November 2014, 381–389 doi: 10.1111/more.12068 © 2014 The International Association for Chinese Management Research