Theoretical foundations of organizational problem solving methodologies in Operational Research

Article history: Received January 12, 2013 Received in revised format 15 April 2013 Accepted 26 April 2013 Available online April 28 2013 Paradigms are some principles and assumptions, which define frameworks and research priorities in each discipline. Many believe that operational research (OR) is not a science and like many other sciences does not have any paradigm. However, since OR is committed to scientific methods, therefore it contains a methodological paradigm. The purpose of this paper is to consider theoretical methodologies in the field of OR. This paper performs a review on the existing literature based on interpretive hermeneutic approach. Based on literature review, the study determines four principles and assumptions for each OR paradigms and a classification of the methods are presented. The results show that OR has four main paradigms and there are many methods in OR fields to tackle a particular problem where each problem belongs to a particular paradigm. In addition, instead of using a particular method in problem situations, we can implement a combination of methodologies. © 2013 Growing Science Ltd. All rights reserved.


Introduction
Paradigms are considered as a pattern or model for investigating a particular problem, they can be specified as exemplar and they are universally recognized as scientific achievements that, for a time, give model problems and solutions for a community of researchers (Van Manen, 1990;Kuhn, 1996;Taket & White, 2000).Many people use a term of geology in paradigms for developing systems and they believe there are continues changing paradigms in developing different systems.In other words, the continuous change in paradigms, in turn, creates new ideas in science.In fact, geological aspects occur in development of most management systems and for some times, a paradigm influences a system and steadily, the effects disappear, at the same time, other paradigms start influencing the system, and their impacts increase, steadily.Jackson (2003) discussed four paradigms influencing OR problems including functionalist, interpretive paradigm and critical paradigm and post-modern paradigm.A few years later, these paradigms were integrated with other soft systems (Raitt, 1979;Eden, 1983;Checkland, 1985;Pinkard, 2002).Shortly after, a new way of thinking called "critical systems thinking" emerged in United Kingdom and total systems intervention was introduced by Flood and Jackson (1991).There are also other areas of works including Pluralistic and Multiparadigmatic (Mingers & Brocklesby, 1997).According to Ulrich (1987), city and regional planning, health care planning, energy and transportation planning, environmental design and other areas of social systems design are some of the most important issues for increasing concern to policy makers.These issues are normally encountered with complex steering problems, which may have far-reaching societal implications, they except assist from applied disciplines such as OR, systems science, technology assessment, program evaluation, etc.However, these techniques offer little help in critically representing on the normative implications of the problem definitions and solution proposals they inspire.
According to Dando and Bennett (1981) many of the features of debates outlined by Kuhn, seem to be present in the current controversy within OR.More specifically, it appears possible in OR and associated fields to detect three rival sets of proposals, which may be labeled official, reformist (e.g.Ackoffian) and revolutionary.
There are literally vast range of techniques and methodologies, both hard and soft, which are available to the OR/MS practitioner.According to Munro and Mingers (2002), there is a trend towards a pluralistic approach of combining, various methods within an intervention-multimethodology.Munro and Mingers (2002) presented a survey of OR/MS practitioners to find the extent of multi-methodology usage and which particular combinations were most commonly utilized.Mingers (2003) presented a classification of the philosophical assumptions of management science methods.The study presented a framework within which to investigate and evaluated the main philosophical assumptions underpinning management science methods.The purpose of the framework was to help in the process of multi-methodology, which is, combining different techniques in an intervention.In particular, it will also help users in understanding both the implicit or explicit assumptions underlying techniques.Mingers and Rosenhead (2004) provided a comprehensive review and evaluation of the implementation of problem structuring methods (PSMs).The review started by explaining the origins of PSMs, the kind of problem situation for which they are applicable, and the characteristics of some leading techniques.They also provided some practical overview from a number of angles, including case studies and surveys of applications and discussed a number of issues in the application of PSMs.More specifically, they discussed on the success of PSMs, the selection of an appropriate method; multi-methodology; and characteristics of the maintenance of relationships with the client organization(s).
Mingers and White (2010) performed a review on various contribution that systems' thinking were making, more especially to OR applications.They explained that systematic thinking is a discipline in its own right, with various theoretical and methodological developments and it can be used to almost any problem area because of its generality.They looked at the literature in terms of both theoretical and applications figures.They concluded that while systems could not be well established, institutionally, in terms of academic departments, it is incredibly healthy in terms of the quantity and applications.

Paradigm
There are different reasons for using paradigm to solve scientific problems, for instance, Kuhn (1970) and Kuhn (1996) stated that paradigm were the basis of solving any issues arising in various sciences.Paradigms help scientists find some agreements on their activities while they solve their issues.
Paradigm is a set of theoretical assumptions and rules that guide the members of a scientific community.All activities associated with a paradigm setup a specific knowledge, scientists may face various problems, which threaten the existing paradigm, and whenever scientists are unable to find solution against existing threats, a revolution may happen.Kuhn (1996) explained there are different categories on knowledge including pre-knowledge, common knowledge, revolution, new knowledge and new crises.Neuman (2006) used paradigm in social sciences in terms of four categories including Worldview, Epistemological Stance, Examplar Model and common believes and this paper focuses more on Epistemological Stance.Burrell and Morgan (1979) defined paradigm as a combination of different characteristics including Ontological, Epistemological Stance and Methodological.Table 1 demonstrates details of various characteristics on paradigm (Newman, 2006).

Paradigm assumptions
Epistemological paradigms are fundamental philosophical views.Paradigms are classified based on the positions of the ontology, epistemology and methodology.In fact, each major philosophical approach can be regarded as a research paradigm and it is based on ontology, epistemology and methodology of the analysis.Ontological questions are about the nature of reality while epistemological questions deal with the nature of the discussion.Finally, the research methodology is faced with the question of how to gain knowledge or wisdom.
In a very broad classification, realist ontology and ontological idealist ontology are classified into two categories.Idealist ontology assumes that the external world is not dependent of our mind and it relies more on the researcher's subjective opinion.People see realities as what they are interested and not as what they actually are (Pinkard, 2002).Nevertheless, realist ontology, which is the foundation of positive paradigms, post-positive and critical rationalism constitutes is based on the fact that they are observable from any one and acts independently.Epistemology is a theory on the nature of knowledge.Many people categorize social science methodologies into three groups of quantitative, qualitative and a combination of both.
In terms of discoveries, no assumption depends on researcher and people must find everything by performing a research.In this paradigm, the nature of objective knowledge and values of the investigator, would not affect recognition of external reality.In this kind of paradigm, researchers sort all items in their questionnaires and try to measure them based on predefined specifications.In fact, researcher can find the answer for unknown questions thorough an investigation on different subjects.

Research Paradigms in operations research
This paradigm includes three subdivision including formal, reform and fundamental paradigms and these paradigms are associated with three paradigms including positivist, interpretive and critical social science.According to Fay (1975), we understand the concept of things based on the knowledge we have about it.Paucar-Caceres (2010) performed a review process and, using Jackson's idea, he categorized paradigms into four categories: optimization/Normative and solution procedures , interpretation and learning paradigms , criticizing paradigm, which is based on emancipatory, and finally, post modernism paradigms, which is based on systematic thinking.OR paradigms started in early 50 th and the efforts were coordinated with systematic thinking methodologies.Systematic thinking can also be classified into hard and soft ones with different characteristics and Table 2 summarizes the results of our comparison.According to Ulrich (2003), professional competence in applied disciplines such as OR/MS needs both technical expertise and critically reflective skills.According to Mingers (2001), research results could be richer and more reliable if various research methods, preferably from various (existing) paradigms, were routinely combined together.

Different categories of operations research
In this section, we present different paradigms into four categories of hard, interpretation, controversial and post-modern.We have considered different OR techniques and based on the characteristics we grouped them into four paradigms summarized in Table 3 as follows,

Conclusion
In this paper, we have discussed different perspectives of paradigms and we have categorized them into four various categories.We have explained that Kuhn's definition on paradigm is more associated with natural incidents and have nothing to do with operations research.Kuhn stated that paradigm were the basis of solving any issues arising in various sciences.Paradigms help scientists find some agreements on their activities while they solve their issues.Paradigm is a set of theoretical assumptions and rules that guide the members of a scientific community.All activities associated with a paradigm setup a specific knowledge, scientists may face various problems, which threaten the existing paradigm, and whenever scientists are unable to find solution against existing threats, a revolution may happen.
This paper performed a review on the existing literature based on interpretive hermeneutic approach.Based on literature review, the study determined four principles and assumptions for each OR paradigms and a classification of the methods were presented.The results showed that OR had four main paradigms and there were many methods in OR fields to tackle a particular problem where each problem belongs to a particular paradigm.In addition, instead of using a particular method in problem situations, we can implement a combination of methodologies.

Table 1
Different impressions of paradigm

Table 3
The summary of OR categorization