The Methodology of Q‐Analysis: How to Study Corporations by Using Concepts of Connectivity

Abstract

The method I propose to discuss in this paper is one based on ideas of structure (essentially a geometrical notion): How we are to define it (make it precise) and how we are to discern and use it in any study of organisations or institutions (such as the modern industrial/commercial corporations). These ideas will lead us away from simple linear or stochastic modelling — although the latter ideas can be viewed as special cases of this more general approach — and will provide us with an analytical tool (computer based) which amounts to a new scientific methodology. This methodology is particularly relevant to those fields of study often referred to as the “soft sciences”: for example, such areas as social science, politics, industrial relations, community studies, planning, organisational analysis, and so on. By comparison, the “hard” sciences (such as the varied branches of physics and chemistry, their spin‐offs into engineering, astronomy, and some aspects of biology etc.) appear at first sight to be described by a mathematical language which gives them an exactness and predictability which is now beyond dispute; and when the precision sometimes seems to get lost then the mathematicians have provided us with a theory of probability which we use to generate a statistical approach to the subject. This “precision” is actually based on the “measurement” of phenomena in terms of the real number system — a technique which was summarised by an oft quoted remark of Kelvin's, to the effect that data are what can be measured (represented by a real number).

Citation

Atkin, R.H. (1980), "The Methodology of Q‐Analysis: How to Study Corporations by Using Concepts of Connectivity", Management Decision, Vol. 18 No. 7, pp. 380-390. https://doi.org/10.1108/eb001259