QUESTIONS FOR REVIEW AND CRITICAL THINKING/ANSWERS
1. What are some theories offered to explain aspects of your field of business?
Students’ responses will vary depending on their major. Some management theories include
2. Reflect on your own social network. How are the nodes in your social network linked? What
social capital do you gain from your social network?
Students’ responses will vary, but they will likely discuss their family, friends, religious, and
3. How do propositions and hypotheses differ?
Propositions are statements concerned with the relationships among concepts. They explain the
4. How do concepts differ from variables?
A concept (or construct) is a generalized idea about a class of objects, attributes, occurrences, or
5. What does the statement “There is nothing so practical as a good theory” mean? Do you
agree with this statement?
Theories allow us to generalize beyond individual facts or isolated situations and provide a
6. The seventeenth-century Dutch philosopher Benedict Spinoza said, “If the facts conflict with
a theory, either the theory must be changed or the facts.” What is the practical meaning of
this statement?
The two purposes of theory are understanding and predicting. Thus a theory enables us to predict
24
© 2013 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or
posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
Chapter Three: Theory Building 25
Theories provide these explanations. In most scientific situations there are alternative theories to
explain certain phenomena. To determine which is the better theory, researchers make
7. Compare and contrast deductive logic with inductive logic. Give an example of both.
Deductive reasoning is the logical process of deriving a conclusion about a specific instance
based on a known general premise or something known to be true. For example, we know that if
8. Find another definition of theory. How is the definition you found similar to this book’s
definition? How is it different?
Students’ responses will vary, but most likely, they will use the one provided by Wikipedia
RESEARCH ACTIVITIES
1. [Internet Question] The Chapter Vignette briefly introduced Attribution Theory. Do a Web
search regarding Attribution Theory and identify the key characteristics of this theory.
Attribution Theory is used to explain reasons for observed phenomena by attributing it to internal
2. [Internet Question] The Meriam-Webster dictionary definition of theory can be found at
http://www.meriam-webster.com/dictionary/theory. What is the definition of theory given at
this site? How does it compare to the definition given in this chapter?
3. [Internet Question] The Logic of Scientific Discovery is an important theoretical work. Visit
The Karl Popper Web site at http://elm.eeng.dcu.ie/~tkpw/ to learn about its author and his
work.
© 2013 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or
posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
Chapter Three: Theory Building 26
Popper’s work developed one of the main theories of the origin of life. His theory, called
© 2013 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or
posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.