Management and Organisation Research Community Seminar – Professor Eero Vaara

Title: How to Make Sense of What Did Not Happen: Three Approaches to Counterfactual Analysis

Date: 21 March 2024

Time: 16:00-17:30

Location: NUBS.3.06

If you would like to attend, please register using the following link:

How to Make Sense of What Did Not Happen: Three Approaches to Counterfactual Analysis

Speaker: Professor Eero Vaara, University of Oxford

Abstract:

The purpose of this paper to offer insights into one particularly arduous methodological issue that is still inadequately understood in organization and management research: how to make sense of what did not but could have happened. Earlier strategy research has dealt this question with simulated counterfactuals or speculative thought experiments. However, there is a need to broaden our understanding of unrealized histories beyond the existing applications of counterfactual reasoning. By focusing on strategically significant historical turning points, we identify and elaborate on three distinctive counterfactual approaches that we label event-focused, context-focused, and ideology-focused. Although the first one is relatively well known, the two latter ones are not. The main contribution of this study is to improve our methodological understanding and practices by showing the role of alternative histories in the construction and evaluation of past events. We also demonstrate how specific forms of counterfactual analysis cohere with particular types of strategy research and illuminate crucial issues and key characteristics of these types.