A New Method to Analyse Types and Patterns in Management Research (CANCELLED)

(This seminar was unfortunately cancelled.) 

The management literature draws on three dominant modes of theorising. First, a universalistic perspective that comprises direct effects between independent and dependent variables. Second, a contingency perspective, which extends universalistic relationships and suggests interactions between independent variables. Third, a configurationally perspective, which aims at identifying unique patterns of factors. For example, a specific pattern of various HR practices or an organisation’s strategic type might increase performance beyond what could be explained by direct or interaction effects. However, empirical management research has mostly been confined to the first two modes, arguably due to the lack of suitable methods to test configurationally assumptions. In this article, I present a new approach to test configurations (e.g., types or patterns of factors). I develop a two-step statistical approach that first tests for the existence of types or patterns in the data and then allows the identification of pre-defined types or patterns. The usefulness of this approach is shown in Monte Carlo simulations and with real data.