Incommensurable paradigms, cognitive bias and the politics of marketing theory

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Incommensurable paradigms, cognitive bias and the politics of marketing theory

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Incommensurable paradigms, cognitive biasand the politics of marketing theory

Mark TadajewskiSchool of Management, University of Leicester, UK

Abstract. This paper examines the treatment of paradigm incommensurability inmarketing theory. It is not the first to tackle the issue, although I will argue that exist-ing attempts to negotiate the incommensurability thesis fail on their misunderstandingof Kuhn’s work. I then highlight Kuhn’s own shifting position regarding the incom-mensurability thesis. Despite Kuhn’s proposal that incommensurability can be over-come, such a strategy would be risky in an environment where cognitive bias indicatesa continued subscription to logical empiricism and behavioural scientific modes ofinquiry. Key Words • marketing theory • multiple paradigm research • paradigmincommensurability

Introduction

In the last 60 years, marketing theorists have on numerous occasions expressedconcern regarding the scientific status of marketing. Central to the efforts ofmarketing theorists in making the discipline more scientific have been attempts todevelop grand theories of marketing (e.g. Alderson, 1965), with theoretical contri-butions usually described in Alderson and Cox’s (1948) terms as the developmentof ‘general or abstract principles underlying the body of facts which comprise thefield’ (1948: 137). Again and again, similar echoes about the nature of marketingtheory can be found throughout the literature. MacInnis (2005) frames heraccount of the constitution of marketing theory in these terms: ‘There is generalagreement in the philosophy of science that data or ideas are used to advance atheory, which is tested by data, which in turn leads to theory revision and addi-tional testing through relevant methods and acquired data’ (MacInnis, 2005: 14;cf. Holbrook and O’Shaughnessy, 1988: 399).

Extending this further, Hunt (1971) depicts marketing theory, citing Rudner, interms of ‘systematically related sets of statements, including some law-like

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generalizations, that . . . [are] empirically testable’ (1971: 65). On this interpreta-tion, the successful end result of all scientific research should be the demonstrationof ‘underlying uniformities or regularities among the phenomena that comprise itssubject matter. The discovery of these underlying uniformities yields empirical regu-larities, law-like generalizations (propositions) and laws’ (Hunt, 1976: 26, emphasesin original). While this perspective is widely subscribed to among the marketingcommunity, marketing theory has not, Leone and Schultz (1980) lament, gen-erated the number or variety of empirical generalizations found in the naturalsciences.

What is interesting about this theory development perspective is its widespreadnature and the extent to which adherence to this logical empiricist approach isjustified on the basis of ‘social consensus’ (Thompson, 1991, 1993). This strategyraises all kinds of questions that are not often explored in the marketing literature,with Thompson (1993) describing this justification, following Wittgenstein, as atype of ‘conjuring trick’. That is, certain beliefs are appealed to on the basis of theirconventional sanction, with the result that ‘their socially contingent nature isobscured’ (Thompson, 1993: 330). ‘Marketing Theory’ does not have to refer tothe charting of underlying regularities and the development of law-like generaliza-tions (O’Shaughnessy, 1997; O’Shaughnessy and O’Shaughnessy, 2002). This is anapproach to theory building that is based on a very specific philosophy of know-ledge. It is, moreover, one that is rarely subject to critical scrutiny. As Whetten(1989) points out, this type of theorizing views the world as consisting of ‘objects’and ‘causal relations’ about which it is possible to derive testable propositions and,in turn, develop comprehensive, falsifiable theory.

Certainly, moves to falsify hypotheses or a given theory can, by and large, beapplauded. Whether this actually occurs or should happen in practice is more con-tentious (Feyerabend, 1975; Ravetz, 1990). Despite such an uncritical reception,this logical empiricist, fallibilistic view represents ‘normal science’ in marketingtheory (see Tadajewski, 2006a, 2006b). And lest there be any confusion, the type of‘arrows and box’ theorizing seen to date has been useful in certain domains but it is only one approach to theorizing, not THE approach (Whetten, 1989).Testament to the limitations of this type of theorizing and theory developmentprocess has been the importation of philosophical and methodological approach-es based on phenomenology, second and third wave feminism, hermeneutics,Critical Theory, post-structuralism and postmodernism.

More recently, we are witnessing a new shift in this epistemological turn withvarious calls demanding research that refuses the limitations of mono-paradigmresearch in favour of multiple paradigms in a single study (Davies and Fitchett,2001, 2005). The rationale behind the use of multiple rather than mono-paradigmanalysis in developing marketing theory is that it is believed to facilitate conversa-tions across research paradigms and in so doing provide a more comprehensiveview of the foci phenomena than would ordinarily be available. If we bracket forthe moment the incommensurability thesis (discussed below), multiple paradigmresearch, it is argued, can enable researchers to oscillate backwards and forwardsbetween paradigms, reflecting on the research object (e.g. green consumer behav-

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iour) through a diverse range of paradigmatic lens (Gioia and Pitre, 1990;Kelemen and Hassard, 2003; Lewis and Grimes, 1999; Lewis and Kelemen, 2002).

Despite the widely acknowledged support for multiple paradigm analysis amonga burgeoning cadre of organization theorists, marketing theorists have yet toacknowledge the politics that lay behind Burrell and Morgan’s (1992 [1979]]) pos-tulation of their version of the incommensurability thesis or the potential politicalissues that derive from negotiating incommensurability, in particular, Kuhn’ssemantic incommensurability. This paper aims to rectify this state of affairs.

I do so in the following way. I begin with a review of the available multipleparadigm research strategies. This review is necessary to provide the theoreticalcontext that should, if Marsden and Littler’s (1998) argument that marketing andconsumer research is less theoretically sophisticated than research in organizationstudies, is valid. Having outlined the way in which the incommensurability thesisand multiple paradigm analysis are currently being engaged with in organizationstudies, I turn to examine the treatment of incommensurability in marketingtheory by paying close attention to three recently published papers: Davies andFitchett (2005), Lowe et al. (2004) and Lowe et al. (2005). I outline the argumentsmade in these papers and return to the incommensurability thesis as it was pre-sented initially by Kuhn – the view often used as the touchstone for problematiz-ing incommensurability. I then chart the development of the incommensurabilitythesis in Kuhn’s middle and late period, showing how Kuhn gradually becameaware of the awkward nature of his incommensurability argument.

This excursion into the later Kuhn’s work is extremely timely given the lack ofengagement with Kuhn’s more recent work across the management disciplines. AsWeaver and Gioia (1994) argue, this ignorance of Kuhn’s later work is particularlyembarrassing, given the extent to which Kuhn is invoked in the organizationstudies literature and, I would add, the marketing literature. In working throughKuhn’s later work, I critique the assumption made by Lowe et al. that argumentsto ‘transcend incommensurability’ have not yet been put forward by showing howKuhn increasingly graduated towards a position that espouses support for super-empirical values that he suggests can be used to evaluate and compare theories.

More specifically, I take issue with their representation of the incommensur-ability thesis, as well as their interpretation of Kuhn’s, and Burrell and Morgan’swork. I suggest that their interpretation of Kuhn, in particular, makes a number ofclaims that are problematic. Having examined the attempts to negotiate theincommensurability thesis put forward so far and found them wanting, I refrainfrom following Kuhn’s view that incommensurability can be negotiated andsuggest that his attempt to bring super-empirical values into theory adjudicationtakes theory adjudication into the realm of underdetermination and politics. This,I conclude, makes theory adjudication an inherently questionable strategy, if wevalue pluralism, in a discipline wedded to logical empiricism.

Incommensurable paradigms, cognitive bias and the politics of marketing theoryMark Tadajewski

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Multiple paradigm analysis

Because Davies and Fitchett (2005) have attempted to engage in a version ofmultiple paradigm analysis and that this is a new direction for marketing theory, itis perhaps best that I devote some time to review a representative sample of themore important studies and direct the reader to appropriate criticism. In general,the organization studies literature parses the available multiple paradigm researchstrategies in three distinct ways. First, the empirical research is undertaken in parallel or sequential fashion. Parallel multiple paradigm research applies eachparadigm concurrently ensuring that each paradigm remains, due to the incom-mensurability thesis postulated by Burrell and Morgan (1992 [1979]), ‘mutuallyexclusive’. Each paradigm is used to contribute its own brand of insight and theresearcher refuses to privilege one view as the correct perspective, thereby preserv-ing the conflicts highlighted by each paradigm (Lewis and Grimes, 1999).Sequential studies, on the other hand, assume that paradigms are mutually com-plementary and that the representations developed from one paradigm can beused to inform the research undertaken from an alternative paradigmatic stance.This process is said to provide sequential levels of understanding that either buildup on each other or otherwise cast a critical perspective on the previous analyses(Lewis and Grimes, 1999; Lewis and Kelemen, 2002; Schultz and Hatch, 1996).The exemplar study here is provided by Gioia et al. (1989) who used a functional-ist, positivist framework to analyse communication and cognition in performanceappraisal interviews. Having registered the limitations of this type of approach,Gioia et al. (1989) supplemented their initial functionalist research using an inter-pretive stance as a means of triangulating their original findings and thereby pro-vide a ‘more complete’ view of the discursive and non-discursive mechanismsinvolved in performance appraisal (Gioia et al., 1989: 509).

The problem with the above strategies that Lewis and Grimes diagnose is thatexisting empirical ‘studies often give limited methodological detail and seldombuild theory from their efforts’ (Lewis and Grimes, 1999: 673). As a counter-weight, Lewis and Grimes present a theory-building strategy that draws insightfrom multiple paradigms by exploring ‘divergent theoretical views, challengingtaken-for-granted assumptions, and portraying organizations in new light’ (Lewisand Grimes, 1999: 673). In methodological terms, this theory-building processrequires researchers to work their way through the various paradigmatic perspec-tives while trying to entertain the ‘conflicting’ and often ‘paradoxical’ views thateach presents. This is done in order to explore the divergent themes that emergefrom the literature and empirical data and in so doing, to stimulate a certaindegree of ‘internal dialogue’ (within the researcher or among the research team)between paradigms (Schultz and Hatch, 1996).

Lewis and Grimes (1999) provide us with an example of this approach in a casestudy of a ‘complex and multifaceted’ phenomenon, namely, Advanced Manufac-turing Technology1 (AMT). This topic is used by Lewis and Grimes as their focusbecause they argue that it is suited to multiple paradigm research, since AMT hasbeen examined across the range of paradigm literature (functionalist, interpretive,


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radical humanist, radical structuralist) and there had yet to be any ‘agreed consen-sus’ across this intellectual terrain as to the central features of the AMT process.Adopting a ‘metaparadigm’ perspective, they first examined the available litera-ture using the Burrell and Morgan (1992 [1979]) typology as a framing mecha-nism. Following this, they turned to existing case studies, applying each paradigmlens in turn, reporting each case study according to ‘paradigmatic convention’.This process, they posited, enabled them to produce ‘multidimensional theory’(for a full description of the actual ‘metaparadigm’ theory-building approach seeLewis and Grimes, 1999).

Such a radical approach to theory building was likely to attract its fair share ofcriticism (see Burrell, 1997; Deetz, 1996; Kelemen and Hassard, 2003; Lewis andGrimes, 1999; Lewis and Kelemen, 2002; Parker and McHugh, 1991; Scherer,1998). What is important to note at this time, however, is that multiple paradigmanalysis has not to date actually negotiated the incommensurability thesis in any‘serious philosophical fashion’ (Hunt, 2003); Hunt is quite correct, therefore,where he notes in reference to Ozanne and Hudson’s (1989) examination of theincommensurability thesis, that incommensurability only becomes problematicwhen a choice has to be made between the outputs of paradigmatic inquiry.

To take one example from the multiple paradigm approaches above: sequentialmultiple paradigm analysis does not raise any specific issues in relation to theincommensurability thesis discussed by the early Kuhn (1962), in that there is noattempt to translate the theory produced according to the dictates of each para-digm on a point-by-point basis and from this, adjudicate between knowledgeclaims. Nor would a sequential analyst engage in a radically different anthropo-logical movement through the various paradigms from Burrell and Morgan (1992[1979]), who themselves moved through each paradigm in turn, outlining thepossible contribution of each. Having indicated the rationale and variousapproaches utilized in relation to multiple paradigm analysis in organizationstudies, I will now focus attention on the most recent attempts to question theincommensurability thesis in marketing.

The treatment of incommensurability in marketing theory

In their recently published series of articles, Lowe et al. (2004, 2005) haveexamined the paradigm concept and the incommensurability thesis. In their first paper, they state the purpose of their work to be a review of ‘the notion ofparadigms within marketing . . . We review Kuhn’s (1962) original conception andcomment upon the seminal contributions of Arndt (1985)’ (Lowe et al., 2004:1057). Now, given the ambiguity of Kuhn’s paradigm concept we might expectLowe et al. to have some difficulty defining it; they do not, providing a definitionthat equates a paradigm with ‘one dominant theory’ (Lowe et al., 2004: 1057).Their interpretation does, we should note, differ somewhat from Kuhn’s. While Iwill discuss Kuhn’s paradigm concept in detail below, for now I want to point out that Kuhn defines a paradigm as a theoretical structure that is comprised of a


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network of conceptual, methodological and theoretical assumptions (Kuhn,1962).

Returning to Lowe et al.’s work, the central argument in their 2004 and 2005papers is that they believe it is possible to ‘map’ the epistemic organization of mar-keting theory as a form of ‘living system’ whose essential characteristics requireclarification, so that greater conversation between incommensurable paradigmscan take place. Using Capra’s ‘triad of process, pattern and structure’, they arguethat mapping existing contributions to marketing theory onto Capra’s triad‘enables us to readily see how contributions to various topics in marketing havebeen paradigmatically informed and we can readily see the “spaces” that areuntouched and unvisited by previous contributors to the field’ (Lowe et al., 2004:1059).

Lowe et al.’s most important statement for our purposes is that ‘paradigmappingenables the researcher to implement research strategies that can transcend damag-ing “incommensurability” arguments and include strategic options that can becharacterized as “paradigm parochialism”, “paradigm planting”, “paradigm slid-ing”, “paradigm crossing” or “paradigm transcendence”’ (Lowe et al., 2004: 1062).Parochialism, of course, refers to the idea that each paradigm community willsupport their own paradigm in the face of opposing paradigms. Planting is Lowe etal.’s label for noting further avenues for research (i.e. where new ‘paradigms’ can beintroduced to marketing). Paradigm sliding ‘involves [the] attempted integrationof contributions . . . to create new knowledge’ (Lowe et al., 2004: 1062).

Drawing from Schultz and Hatch (1996) and Lewis and Grimes (1999), Lowe etal. then outline ‘paradigm crossing’. What this entails is that researchers registerthat, contra Kuhn (1962), oscillation between multiple paradigms is possible(Lowe et al., 2004: 1062). Their final strategy is ‘paradigm transcendence’. Thisapproach marks a ‘conscious attempt to transcend the “incommensurability”debate in management subjects’ (Lowe et al., 2004: 1062). Capra’s approach, theysuggest, ‘draws our attention to the fact epistemes are themselves culture bound’(Lowe et al., 2004: 1062), that is, paradigmatic beliefs are characteristically sharedand systematic. Having drawn out the main points of the 2004 paper, let us turn totheir more recent publication and see how they further extend their initial ideas.

In contrast to their first paper, Lowe et al. (2005) shift their focus away from thework of Thomas Kuhn and pay much greater attention to that of Burrell andMorgan. This is perhaps not surprising given the importance of Burrell andMorgan’s (1992 [1979]) work. Contrary to their earlier analysis, which ignoredBurrell and Morgan entirely, Lowe et al. now make the case that ‘[t]he debate inthe discourse over paradigms and their incommensurability owes much of itsframing and origin to a work by Gibson Burrell and Gareth Morgan’ (Lowe et al.,2005: 186). They continue, ‘It was this work that stimulated a discourse in organ-ization studies . . . that appropriated Kuhnian terms (Kuhn, 1962) “paradigm” and“incommensurability’’’ (Lowe et al., 2005: 186).

Now, this raises the issue of heritage. Who is appropriating what in thisinstance? Are Burrell and Morgan appropriating Kuhn’s terms and their content?Or simply the terms? Or are other people misreading Burrell and Morgan as


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appropriating ‘paradigm’ and ‘incommensurability’ in this way? Burrell is quick torespond to any assertion that he and Morgan appropriated the content of Kuhn’sconcepts. As he has repeatedly argued, his and Morgan’s interest in Kuhn’s writ-ings stemmed from his providing a politicized vocabulary at whose centre was theidea that a once dominant and seemingly insurmountable paradigmatic groupcould be overthrown (Burrell, 1997).

In adopting Kuhn’s concept of paradigm, but ‘not using Kuhnianism in anyfaithful way’ (Burrell, 1997: 33), Burrell and Morgan asserted that they broadenedKuhn’s definition to ‘emphasise the commonality of perspective which binds thework of a group of theorists together in such a way that they can be usefullyregarded as approaching social theory within the bounds of the same problematic’(Burrell and Morgan, 1992 [1979]: 23). In a further movement away from Kuhn,Burrell and Morgan do not see the paradigm concept as referring to opposing sub-stantive explanations, but instead to ideal types of opposing meta-theoreticalassumptions. Nor do they envisage their version of the incommensurability thesisas a problem in itself. Rather, Burrell and Morgan made the case for the mutualexclusivity of their four paradigms in order to protect the less theoretically andpolitically developed paradigms from the imperialistic tendencies that they associ-ated with functionalism.

Despite such ambiguity in their attempt to theoretically situate the paradigmconcept and incommensurability (which therefore operate on an entirely differentregister from their first paper), Lowe et al. (2005) continue by calling into questionthe incommensurability thesis as it is represented by Burrell and Morgan (1992[1979]), arguing that Burrell and Morgan’s parsing of social theory into fourdistinct and mutually exclusive paradigms produces a ‘condition of incommensu-rability’ (Lowe et al., 2005: 187). Here, then, Lowe et al. (2005) are discussingincommensurability as it was presented by Burrell and Morgan (1992 [1979]) andnot, as Lowe et al. (2004) attempted to discuss it, against Kuhn’s work (1962).Putting this nuance aside, Lowe et al. (2005) then draw upon an argument pres-ented in Hassard (1990) and Phillips (1977) when they suggest that Wittgenstein’sdiscussion of language games provides a further basis for a critique of incommen-surability. Their point is simple, but apparently decisive, in that they suggestWittgenstein

argues that we engage in language games where language is a product of human activity and,simultaneously, is a producer of meaning. Such thinking might suggest that paradigms repre-sent a particular language game, but they are capable of being straddled because they are derivedfrom the more generic and primitive everyday language games [i.e. everyday language]. (Loweet al., 2005: 187)

The linkage of Wittgenstein and Kuhn here is interesting. It is interestingbecause it replicates a similar movement made in the organization studies litera-ture and in equal measure conflates Kuhn’s conception of paradigm with that ofWittgenstein’s language games. Kuhn’s paradigm concept was meant to indicatethat paradigm communities are separated by, among other issues, the view of theworld subscribed to by paradigm adherents – hence Kuhn’s repeated ontologicalgestures (i.e. the world changes thesis). Wittgenstein’s concept of language games,


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on the other hand, is used to sensitize his reader to the use of language. So, in thisconflation, Lowe et al. neglect to register that although ‘there are similarities to befound between Kuhn’s (1970a) notion of “paradigm” and Wittgenstein’s (1958)notion of “language games” there is as much separating them as uniting them’(Mauws and Phillips, 1995: 328). In this move from paradigm to language games,Lowe et al. reduce issues of ontology to the use of language.

But they do not stop there. Taking this point further, Lowe et al. emphasize thatsince we have an everyday language which forms the bedrock for any other activi-ties, including the learning of scientific ‘language games’, then ‘incommensurabil-ity can be seen to be both epistemologically and ontologically unsustainable’. Thiswill, of course, depend upon whose interpretation of incommensurability wedecide to focus upon (i.e. Kuhn’s or Burrell and Morgan’s). What is fundament-ally questionable in Lowe et al.’s (2005) argument, if we take their invocation ofWittgenstein as serious, is their move to overcome incommensurability at anempirical, language-learning level, so that the original Kuhnian interpretation ofincommensurability as involving issues of meaning attribution is reduced to aproblem of two individuals hailing from different paradigms understanding eachother. They neglect to note that Kuhn (1970a) proposed that an individual cancomprehend an account of scientific practice provided by someone who hadadopted a different paradigmatic perspective. What is at issue, therefore, in rela-tion to incommensurability is the extent to which people with very different beliefsystems can possibly reconcile their differences and whether or not – presumablynot, given the social constructionist orientation seen to underpin the use of the language games concept in organization studies (Böhm, 2006; Mauws andPhillips, 1995) – the politically powerful have greater opportunities to define thenature of intellectual discourse. This is an issue that Davies and Fitchett (2005)also neglect to consider in detail in their methodological comparison of ‘positivist’and interpretive studies.

Methodological comparison = negotiation of incommensurability?

Davies and Fitchett’s (2005) study is novel in that they attempt to examine theincommensurability thesis at the ‘work-bench’ level (Anderson, 1986). Theyacknowledge that the different research traditions can communicate and under-stand each other – Anderson’s (1986) ‘weak’ incommensurability – while register-ing that paradigm disagreements are often as strong inside research communities‘as they are between them’ (Davies and Fitchett, 2005: 276). While they and othermarketing scholars support the possibility and potential benefits that accrue frommultiple paradigm analysis, Davies and Fitchett are aware of the difficulties asso-ciated with the use of multiple paradigms. Perhaps the most important of theserelates to the task of ‘assigning equal value and weight to different traditions andmethods [which] is often considered problematic due to arguments regarding theapparent lack of common criteria to judge their quality’ (Davies and Fitchett,2005: 275).


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This issue is made more complicated by the fact that within marketing there isan ‘absence of a unified or authoritative paradigmatic position and subsequentlack of a commonly agreed consensus to define mechanisms of evaluation’ (Daviesand Fitchett, 2005: 278). This absence means that difference of opinion has esca-lated into conflict and paradigm ‘war’. This conflict would appear, Davies andFitchett opine, to be consistent with what the history and philosophy of sciencewould lead us to expect. They assert that ‘current debates in the philosophy ofscience would seem to imply that positivists and interpretivists should be at odds,in everyday practice this is not necessarily the case’ (Davies and Fitchett, 2005:276). An error of omission here is that historically these groups have indeed been‘at odds’ even on a practical level. We could point to Hirschman’s (1989) com-ments on the acrimoniousness of the paradigm debate, Hunt’s (1991) reference tothe ‘spirited nature’ of this debate or the problems interpretive researchers havefaced in actually getting their research published or ‘fairly’ evaluated (e.g. Belk,1995; Holbrook and Hirschman, 1993) and the strategies they adopted in the faceof such pressures (e.g. Shankar and Patterson, 2001).

There are indeed, as Anderson (1986) argued, intellectual disagreements thatcannot easily be resolved. As a means to ameliorate such fractious intellectualargumentation, Davies and Fitchett continue in their journey away from thehistory and philosophy of science towards a methodologically driven exerciseintended to overcome incommensurability. As they outline their project, ‘The pri-mary methodological motivation is to address the issue of incommensurability intwo research traditions by employing a data-driven agenda’ (Davies and Fitchett,2005: 278). By comparing and contrasting the research outputs of two differentparadigmatic ‘bases’, they emphasize their desire to ‘compare respective assump-tions and justifications, and to identify agreement and disagreement in the mainfindings’ (Davies and Fitchett, 2005: 278). The two approaches they use were con-sistent with the paradigmatic orientation frequently adopted in multiple paradigmresearch studies in that study A was positivist and study B was interpretive. Theirstrategy for determining whether the incommensurability thesis was valid or notwas to analyse the textual output of these two studies by way of a discourse analyticidentification of the ‘common “codes” or tropes’ in said material.

Now what could be problematic about the use of discourse analysis to examinethe incommensurability thesis? The major issue which flaws their attempt tocritique the incommensurability thesis is that they do not compare and contrastthe whole set of assumptions that underpin one paradigm against another at atheoretical level. They switch their attention to methodology, arguing that it is themethodologies that they adopt, i.e. a quantitative modelling approach and inter-pretive approach, which are incommensurable. Specific methodologies are notnecessarily connected with a particular paradigmatic perspective, but there will bephilosophical assumptions operating under any research project that will, as amatter of course, influence how compelling the theoretical and empirical argu-ments proffered will be to an intellectual gatekeeper. Certain methodologies will,for specific paradigmatic positions, not be compelling and thus will falter in theevaluation process.


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Moreover, the values that scholars will use to evaluate the empirical content willdiffer. In other words, Davies and Fitchett (2005) privilege discourse – the specificwords – without factoring in their earlier analysis of the structure of the academyto draw out the political nature of theory choice. They therefore elide the impor-tance of the values incommensurability operating under the evaluation of empiri-cal analysis, that is, how the value of a particular form of paradigmatic inquiry isdetermined, how a contribution to knowledge is established and how certainforms of inquiry are marginalized. When a situation of values incommensurabilityexists, the main issue

is not whether different value-codes are incommensurable, that is, whether the terms of onecode cannot be translated into other codes. The debate about the incommensurability of valuefocuses on whether it is, at least in principle, possible to measure and rank all options and itemswith regard to their value. And if not, how should we deal with incommensurable options? Doincommensurable options preclude rational choices? (Hoyningen-Huene and Schaber, 2003: 7)

These are some of the issues that I will begin to explore in this paper.The next section will examine Kuhn’s discussion of incommensurability in his

middle and late periods. I demonstrate how Kuhn argues that researchers canoscillate between paradigms and offers paradigm independent criteria for theoryadjudication between the outputs of two paradigms.

Incommensurability

In its original incarnation, Kuhn’s formulation of incommensurability was basedon the assumption that there was no ‘neutral algorithm of theory-choice’, that is,no ‘decision-making procedure which, when properly applied, must always leadeach individual in the paradigm community to the same decision’ (Kuhn, 1970a:200). It is this presupposition that there will be some conflict between paradigmsthat is of central importance for Kuhn. However, if paradigms are indeed rivals, asKuhn likes to assert, such rivalry would require a shared perspective that identifiesthem as rivals and this, Davidson (2001: 184) has argued, demands that there willbe some semantic and methodological continuity. Here, then, we would appear tobe at an important point in the argument for multiple paradigm analysis andtheory adjudication. It is Kuhn’s later work that will, as I shall show, shed light onthe issue of incommensurability; writings which have hitherto been largely ignoredin marketing and consumer research (although Holbrook [1997] is an exception).

In his later work, Kuhn registered the problems highlighted by Davidson(among others) and sought to negotiate them. For example, Kuhn (1990) under-mines the original version of his incommensurability thesis. He does this byexplicitly drawing the relationship between language learning and paradigm edu-cation even closer, stressing the similarities between the practice of science andlearning and using an everyday language (Von Dietze, 2001). However, we cannotsimply translate the language of one taxonomical lexicon into that of another à laDavies and Fitchett (2001, 2005). Instead what we need to do is learn a new


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language entirely, because even if the terms may appear the same, the meaningsystem in which they are embedded will differ (Sankey, 1997; Sankey andHoyningen-Huene, 2001). What Kuhn suggests here is not that incommensur-ability poses intractable problems (Kuhn, 1970b), but that scientists actually try tolearn languages that would otherwise appear foreclosed to them, assuming ofcourse, that paradigm subscription were really as ideologically binding as somebelieve (e.g. Hirschman, 1986). There is more pragmatism to knowledge produc-tion than Hirschman (1986) would like to acknowledge and on occasion we haveno choice but to shift paradigms. Thus Kuhn asserts that what we need here is a(marketing) theorist who is lexically bilingual and understands the historicaldevelopment of the debates they comment upon and can help others to compre-hend alternative modes of thought (Kuhn, 1970b).

Talking about the transmission of theoretical concepts from one generation toanother, Kuhn says we inherit our current theory and practices from our immedi-ate predecessors and these concepts are ‘a historical product, embedded in theculture to which current practitioners are initiated by training’ (Kuhn, 1991b:122). It should come as no surprise that these concepts are not wholly incommen-surable; they can be understood and there will be some degree of translation byvirtue of the lexicons that are learned via scientific training. This means that it ispossible for scientists to become adept at the hermeneutic decoding of a range oftaxonomical lexicons in much the same way as ‘anthropologists and historians’immerse themselves in ‘alien cultures’ (Kuhn, 1970b). Consequently, a scientistwill not move from one paradigm to another in one direction only, but will retainthe ability to shift forwards and backwards, from one lexicon to the other, andback again (Kuhn, 1987). Although, I should add that Kuhn (1970b) does say thatonly the ‘most able’ scientists will be able to do this.

The implication of Kuhn’s later work is that the incommensurability thesis isconsequently transformed from the way it is generally depicted in marketingtheory where a strict incommensurability is generally assumed (e.g. Lowe et al.,2004). In contrast, Kuhn supports a far more limited version of the incom-mensurability thesis namely, semantic incommensurability (Nola and Sankey,2007; Sankey, 1994, 1997; Von Dietz, 2001).

Semantic incommensurability

In diluting his methodological incommensurability thesis so that some compari-son of frameworks is possible, Kuhn moves us closer to comparing different para-digms. Rather than seeing incommensurable languages as untranslatable, Kuhnmaintains that this process is extremely complex, but is still possible in certainrespects (Kuhn, 1970b; Sharrock and Read, 2002). No longer does he place thestricture on theory comparison that this must take place through the use of a the-ory neutral algorithm or otherwise be reducible to a common language (Sankey,1994). Instead, Kuhn asserts a weak version of semantic incommensurability, sothat there may be some limited meaning variance between taxonomical lexicons,


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which means, in turn, that there might be certain terms that are untranslatable(Kuhn, 1970b, 1983).

Nonetheless, even if this is so, it still remains the case, Kuhn argues (1970b,1990, 1991a), that despite the untranslatability of certain terms on a one-to-onecorrespondence, it is still possible for the scientist to understand the general thrustof the statement made (Kuhn, 1991a). A failure to translate one language intoanother, in other words, does not necessarily mean that we fail to understand whathas been said (Kuhn, 1970b; MacIntyre, 1989; Sankey, 1994), but simply that thisprocess of translation and understanding is complicated, since logically, if anattempt is made to provide, as evidence of untranslatability, various examples ofexpressions of the untranslatable language, then such an attempt will underminethe claim of untranslatability (Davidson, 2001). In practice, what this suggests isthat scientists will have a substantial number of ways by which they can comparecompeting theories (Nola and Sankey, 2007; Toulmin, 1972). These will rangefrom the various values that Kuhn (1977) discusses (accuracy, consistency, scope,fruitfulness, etc.) to the use of old theory that can be used to assess the approxi-mate contribution of new perspectives (Nola and Sankey, 2007; Sankey, 1994).

As an example of the kinds of values he means, Kuhn proposes that those puzzlesolutions that are likely to be appealing across taxonomical lexicons are thosewhich demonstrate their simplicity and are ‘self consistent, . . . plausible, [and]compatible . . . with other theories being deployed’ (Kuhn, 1970a: 185; cf.Feyerabend, 1978). These kinds of criteria facilitate theory choice while still retain-ing a certain degree of interpretational flexibility. It is this interpretive flexibilitythat will make these judgments more complex, since judgments ‘of accuracy arerelatively, though not entirely stable from one group to another and from onemember to another in a particular group’ (Kuhn, 1970a: 185). More difficult are‘judgments of simplicity, consistency, plausibility, and so on [which] often varyfrom individual to individual’ (Kuhn, 1970a: 185). Here Kuhn cites the debatebetween Einstein and Bohr, which he appears to suggest highlights how funda-mental epistemological and ontological differences may stultify debate (see alsoToulmin, 1972: 103–4). His use of the paradigmatic transformation of classicalphysics to quantum physics is of interest here precisely because what it highlightsis contrary to what Kuhn suggests, in that it gives us an exemplar case of produc-tive dialogue. Indeed, Bohr and Einstein discussed every step in this debate(Feyerabend, 1999a; Hoyningen-Heune, 1995; Toulmin, 1972).

Towards values incommensurability

Having now demonstrated how Kuhn moves away from his restrictive ‘method-ological incommensurability’ (Sankey, 1994) thesis towards a less restrictive argu-ment that leaves room for the learning of multiple languages, we are now in aposition to show how this inter-paradigm movement can be augmented with theability to adjudicate between theories. What I have argued so far is that Kuhnattempts to distance himself from his original incommensurability thesis in the


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direction of a far more diluted semantic form. This changing emphasis on incom-mensurability highlights the extent to which certain values may frame the entirediscipline rather than, as Kuhn (1962, 1970a) originally supposed, only within themutually exclusive bounds of the research specialty. Despite Kuhn’s postulation ofmore global intellectual ‘values’, we are still in the precarious position of havingtheory choice underdetermined by empirical evidence, that is, any number ofdifferent theories or interpretations may fit a finite data set. What we require inthis case is the ability to appeal to certain super-empirical values that can be usedto adjudicate where the empirical evidence can support multiple interpretations(see Kuhn, 1970a, 1977; Popper, 1976, 1979; Toulmin, 1972).

Kuhn asserts that these values can be ‘found’ by looking at those already incirculation in the intellectual community and he thereby brings us into thedomain of politics. As Hirschman (1993) pointed out, marketing and consumerresearch is generally positivistic in tenor, and logical empiricism represents thephilosophical assumption base of the largest group of scholars in the academy(Brown, 1998; Burton, 2001; McDonagh, 1995). In organization studies and, to acertain extent in consumer research (e.g. Calder and Tybout, 1987; cf. Holbrookand O’Shaughnessy, 1988), there have already been attempts to ‘manage’ plural-ism via proposals that empirical falsification could determine the ‘correct’ para-digmatic view (e.g. McKelvey, 1997, 1999, 2003a, 2003b; cf. Calder and Tybout,1987: 138).

The difficulty with evaluation attempts such as those launched by McKelvey isthat recent research in the psychology of science indicates that theory choice is notdetermined wholly on the basis of the ‘truth value’ of the findings; our own para-digmatic affiliations will be equally important in determining whether we acceptthe findings of a given argument or not, often in a very decisive way, and which isfurther compounded by one paradigm community possessing a dominant institu-tional position. Let us examine the evaluation of knowledge in marketing andtease out the consequences of the structure of the academy for theory choice.

The evaluation of knowledge

Stephen Brown has been one of the most prolific commentators on the state of thepeer review system and the politics that he sees operating in the academy. ‘Everypublished paper’ in the top tier of marketing journals, he writes, ‘is an outcome ofpolitical horse-trading’ (Brown, 2000: 365). The supposed objectivity of the peer review is no more than a chimera: higher ranking authors such as members ofthe professoriate have greater publishing success than post-doctoral students; menpublish more frequently than women; and Western scholars, especially US basedacademics, find access to publication outlets easier than ‘non-nationals’ – particu-larly ‘third-world’ academics (Brown, 1998). Publication opportunities are furtherenhanced by institutional affiliation, (i.e. when a journal is published at a specificuniversity, scholars at the institution garner more publications in that outlet) and the nature of the findings will also be important to subsequent acceptance or


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rejection (Brown, 1998; Mahoney, 1977), especially with regard to the extent thatthey support the paradigmatic presuppositions of the reviewers. Finally, wellknown academics are likely to be better received by editors than the unknowns ofthe academy (Brown, 1995b; 1998).

If this seems too harsh, Brown is quick to affirm that some editors do permit‘radical experimentation’ (Brown, 1995b; Staelin, 2005; cf. Holbrook and Hirsch-man, 1993: 43–59). ‘Social influence’ is not, as Easton (1995: 441) registers, ‘amonolithic force’. There will be people whose philosophical and methodologicalapproaches diverge from those viewed as acceptable or appropriate by mainstreammarketing scholars, but who still get their papers published (see Svensson, 2006).Nonetheless, this is a philosophical, conceptual and methodological pluralism thatextends only so far, as we shall see. As Easton quite rightly acknowledges, there ‘areclearly forces for uniformity and forces for the diversity of opinion in any humanpopulation’ (Easton, 1995: 441).

Despite Brown’s and Easton’s slight optimism about the state of intellectual‘conversation’ in marketing, the peer review process, which will, of course, be thecentral mechanism in the evaluation of a particular paradigmatic perspectiveand/or any attempt at adjudication between ‘incommensurable’ paradigms, willbe less helpful in determining what will count as a contribution to knowledgewhen scholars are competing for scarce resources (i.e. space in prestigious jour-nals, see McAlister, 2005; Thompson, 2002). Beyond the illusion of objectivity inthe peer review system, what we need to recognize in addition is that the attributesassociated with a ‘marketing scientist’ (and I am not restricting this criticism tosubscribers to logical empiricism) are also likely to be equally ephemeral as objec-tivity in peer review. What, then, are the attributes that many scientists and scienceteachers associate with the ideal scientist? Mahoney lists a number of characteris-tics that will cohere with most people’s mental image of a truth seeking scientist:

1. Objectivity and emotional neutrality;2. Rationality as evidenced by superior reasoning skills;3. Open-mindedness (suspension of judgement and willingness to change one’s opinion);4. Superior Intelligence;5. Integrity in data collection and reporting; and6. Communality (open and cooperative sharing of knowledge).

(Mahoney, 1977: 350, emphases in original)

These are characteristics debunked by Mahoney (1977) as well as Feyerabend(1975, 1999a, 1999b) and Kuhn (1970a). We could point to the treatment ofscholars such as Galileo, Velikovsky, Semmelweis and Kammerer to call into ques-tion the objectivity, emotional neutrality and open-mindedness of scientists ofmany persuasions (see, De Grazia, 1978; Fuller, 2005a, 2005b; Mahoney, 1977;Tadajewski, 2005). Certainly, it is hard not to feel at least some sympathy, particu-larly when we are on the receiving end of a bad review, for Horrobin’s (1982) viewthat the peer review system is the perfect opportunity for the ‘crooked’ to shootdown material competing for journal space without affording it the opportunityfor wider circulation.


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Most authors are aware that the chances that publication opportunities will bedenied increase as they deviate from the rules of discursive formation that areadopted as common sense, received wisdom, ‘appropriately scientific’ and so on.By violating these rules of formation (i.e. epistemologically, methodologically, sty-listically and so forth), an author does not move intellectual discourse onto a newplateau, more likely they will ostracize themselves (Feyerabend, 1999a; Shapin,1995). Or to paraphrase Kuhn (1962, 1970a), their work will no longer be read orviewed as credible. While unusual, cases of intellectual closure and occasional mis-treatment can be found in the marketing literature. The exemplar case is that ofGould (1991) and his subsequent treatment in the pages of the Journal ofConsumer Research. As Brown (1998) saw the development of this case,

the more I think about it, the more I am convinced that Steve Gould’s (1991) paper on self-manipulation is the only authentic work of genius in the entire marketing canon. An introspec-tive account of his sexual proclivities and their perceived relationship to product use, Gould’spaper has been condemned, derided, dismissed, belittled, mocked and held up as an exemplarof how not to write up a research project . . . Steve Gould, however, paid a very heavy price forthis breakthrough (I understand his paper all but cost him tenure). What’s more he didn’t havethe opportunity to defend his work against a critique that was . . . hostile and ill-informed.(Brown, 1998: 212, emphasis in original)

What this case should signal is that intellectual debate is governed by certain rulesof discursive formation which ‘discipline the research process and condition whatis to count as so-called scientific knowledge’ (De Cock and Jeanes, 2006: 22). Thatmarketing theory should be mediated by politics is hardly surprising. All datarequire some form of interpretation and ‘whether scientific or not, [interpreta-tion] is value-laden and hence political’ (Deetz, 2000: 735). All research will bepolitical, Deetz posits, because it is value-laden, and if it was not invested with ourpersonal, scientific, ethical and other values, it would not be a product of humanendeavour. We each invest emotional energy in our research projects and as aresult it would be distinctly naïve to believe that non-epistemic goals such as fame,academic prestige and career enhancement did not influence our decision makingwhen evaluating other researchers’ papers.

Perhaps we, as marketing scholars, have been less willing to accept suchpower/knowledge relations because of the traditionally scientistic nature ofmarketing theory (Willmott, 1999). Certainly, it appears that the disconnection ofscientific activity and politics is a theme which runs deep in marketing. It wouldapparently be the case that apart from Davies and Fitchett (2005), who gesture tothe politics of intellectual debate, the politics that underpin theory developmentand adjudication in marketing and guide paradigm affiliation are ignored, espe-cially by Lowe et al. (2004, 2005). Given that marketing theory is predominantlylogical empiricist in orientation inasmuch as representations of marketingthought have become more ‘scientific’ by adopting ‘the symbolism of advancedmathematics’ and the careful justification of research objectives (Kernan, 1995),there is concomitantly far less enthusiasm to attend to the processes of discoveryor the power relations that mediate the acceptance or rejection of divergent para-digmatic thought (Murray and Ozanne, 1991, 1997). In this movement, the antag-


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onistic dimension of marketing theory, the competition and the rivalry, is subjectto elision. Failure to acknowledge the antagonism that can be found in manyforms of scientific endeavour is, MacIntyre (1989: 184) indicates, an ‘impover-ished view of the types of social and institutional circumstances’ that will, in thiscontext, affect theory adjudication and the negotiation of the incommensurabilitythesis. Continuing in this vein, MacIntyre gestures towards the political nature oftheory adjudication where he notes that

The multiplicity of mutually irreconcilable standpoints concerning justification is one that eachof us tends to recognize easily and even scornfully in other academic professions. But fromwithin our own profession each of us characteristically views and describes the situation onlyfrom the specific point of view of his or her own commitments, judging the success and failureof other points of view from the standpoint afforded by standards of justification internal to ourown. (MacIntyre, 1989: 197)

Nor is this a particularly radical view outside of the marketing academy (see alsoSvensson, 2005, 2006; Svensson and Wood, 2006). As MacIntyre sees it, one con-sequence of the multiplication of positions in relation to a wide variety of stand-points (i.e. paradigmatic positions in relation to their object/subject of interest)has been that none have been able to convincingly ‘provide the resources for theirown final vindication and the overthrow of their own competitors’ (MacIntyre,1989: 196). This is not to say that such attempts are not periodically undertaken.As Brown points out,

It’s a well known fact of academic life that the rules apply to everyone but ourselves. Wedemand objectivity, neutrality and disinterestedness from our peers – and express outragewhen these norms of academic etiquette are broken – yet as individuals we are willing to tram-ple others underfoot in our ceaseless pursuit of publications and self-advancement, we takeevery available opportunity to settle old scores, invariably under cover of the so-called doubleblind review process, and shamelessly seek and expect personal favours in return for the mostminor acts of collegial courtesy. (Brown, 1995a: 157)

Likewise, Churchill notes,

Reviewers, along with editors, tend to serve as gatekeepers for the discipline. They judge what isworthy to be published and consequently what is worth being consumed by the marketingacademy at large. Though some reviewers are very eclectic and tolerant of divergent viewpoints,others maintain a particular philosophical posture. The posture may involve firm notions aboutthe most appropriate conceptual foundation for the ideas in a paper, the appropriate analyticaltools for investigating the problem and so on. (Churchill, 1988: 28)

This issue becomes more troubling when we acknowledge that ‘star’ researchersand reviewers often serve on multiple editorial boards and when this is the case,‘we may be restricting the range of perspectives, issues and approaches we allow inour journals’ (Churchill, 1988: 28; see also Bagozzi, 1976, 1992; Lynch, 1998).

Such sentiment has not ebbed. In a recent Journal of Marketing themed section,we find a number of scholars making similar comments. MacInnis (2003, 2005)sums up the present state of intellectual certification well where she maintainsthat:


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Depth training in a certain methodological perspective can lead to beliefs about the “right” wayto do research and to disrespect and disregard research that is limited on the very characteris-tics we regard as critical to our own methodological paradigm (e.g. internal versus externalvalidity). This attitude may perpetuate some of the “meanness” in our field that Wilkiedescribes (see also, Holbrook, 1995). It may lead us to adopt rigid rules about what constitutes“valid” research (e.g. homogenous versus heterogenous samples, single versus multiple inform-ants), “important” research (e.g. those that demonstrate interactions versus those that advancegeneralizations; see Leone and Schultz, 1980) and research that advances theory versus practiceand to use our expertise as reviewers to evaluate research more on the fit with our own method-ological approach than on its capacity to yield intellectual insights that help us to understand asubstantive domain. Another potential source of the current status is fear of accepting some-thing unknown or unfamiliar. The problem is magnified when that unfamiliar thing is studiedby people with whom we are not familiar. (MacInnis, 2005: 15; see also Deighton, 2005;Holbrook and Hirschman, 1993; MacInnis, 2003; McAlister, 2005; Shah et al., 1998; Singh,2003; Woodruff, 2003; Wilkie, 2005)

MacInnis’s comments are not atypical. All of this – reviewer ‘meanness’ (Wilkie,2005) and bias (Easley et al., 2000; MacInnis, 2005; Singh, 2003; Svensson, 2006) –indicates that subscription to ‘naïve realism’ is widespread in marketing. What Imean by this is that there appears to be an ‘asymmetry in perceptions of bias’among marketing scholars, in that we ‘assume’ that ‘our own take on the worldenjoys particular authority and will be shared by other open-minded seekers of thetruth’ (Pronin et al., 2002: 369). Those who do not agree with us are evidentlyincorrect and should be dealt with accordingly (as the comments in Scott (2007)occasionally intimate). Of course, simply because reviewers share a similar para-digmatic perspective does not necessarily mean that they will all come to a con-sensus position with regard to the contribution that a given paper will make to theliterature. There is, after all, no algorithm that determines theory choice, or intel-lectual contribution. There will be some shared values across a paradigmatic com-munity and this can result in a similar interpretation of a given text. As Nola andSankey put it, ‘Shared values (with the same interpretation) and shared weightingsof these values will be sufficient for sameness of judgement within a community ofscientists’ (Nola and Sankey, 2001: 28).

While notions of acceptable research have shifted to permit a degree of paradigmatic variegation, critical perspectives are still marginalized in the market-ing literature (Burton, 2001; McDonagh, 1995; Morgan, 2003). One reason forthis, as Stern and Barley (1996) have argued in relation to organization studies, isthat young scholars face tenure and Research Assessment Exercise pressures that generally demand publication in high ranking journals (see Schroeder, 2007). Getting material published in such outlets necessitates that the researchsubmitted is perceived to be acceptable by the journal reviewers and editors(Summers, 2001). Wittnick (2004: 5) is under no illusions in this regard: ‘Journaleditors face the problem that most reviewers have adopted a specific research paradigm that makes it difficult for them to accept papers that challenge conven-tional research approaches or empirical evidence’. What, then, is it reasonable for doctoral students and other less powerful researchers to do in the face of such pressures, especially if they are risk averse? Adherence to the established


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boundaries of an acceptable contribution would probably be the best course ofaction.

However, just because researchers have adopted a particular paradigmaticposition as neophytes does not necessarily mean that they will be forever weddedto that research style. There are numerous cases of very prolific researchers inmarketing and consumer research who have shifted paradigmatic perspective overthe course of their careers. Holbrook and Belk (among others) would be the exem-plars here. They are, even so, unusual cases. After getting tenure it may indeed beplausible that researchers will find themselves in the enviable position of beingable to dictate their research direction. As Stern and Barley (1996) are quick topoint out, tenure does provide some researchers with a degree of intellectual free-dom. Institutional pressures and career progression (i.e. to full professor) stillrequire, in the interests of productivity, that researchers stay close philosophicallyand methodologically to their area of specialty. They argue, ‘it may be unrealisticto believe that pressures for quantity decline with tenure. Not only do tenuredassociate professors face a similar review on promotion to full professor, but by thetime scholars achieve tenure, their identity is often tied to their publication record’(Stern and Barley, 1996: 156). This is no less true in marketing (Sheth, 1992).

What this means in the long term for critical perspectives only time will tell. Atthis point, the opinions voiced by O’Guinn and Phillips (in Scott, 2007) leave meless than secure that an extensive critical turn in marketing will be wholeheartedlywelcomed. Based on an analysis of the demographic characteristics of editors andeditorial boards at top-tier marketing journals and on a close reading of the con-tent in these outlets, this point has very recently been empirically demonstrated(Svensson, 2005, 2006; Svensson and Wood, 2006). As Goran Svensson hasindicated in much stronger terms across a series of publications, within the verytop-tier of publication outlets there is an overwhelming bias towards behaviouralscientific, quantitative approaches (Svensson, 2005, 2006; Svensson and Wood,2006). On this point Svensson is clear. Generally these journals publish researchbased on ‘mainstream topics’ and there ‘has been little space for counter-intuitive,broadminded and/or challenging approaches, however there are a few articles thatare truly innovative and ground breaking’ (Svensson, 2006: 1161). ‘This’, hewrites, ‘has caused frustration among researchers in the marketing discipline intheir quest for innovativeness, challenging topics, openness and broadminded-ness. The ambitions of unusual, rare and counterintuitive research efforts mayhave been suffocated’ (Svensson, 2006: 1163). Despite such ‘academic xeno-phobia’ (Svensson and Wood, 2006), ‘reviewer meanness’ (Wilkie, 2005) and‘paradigmatic inertia and research myopia’ (Svensson, 2005), let us hope thatjournals such as Marketing Theory will increase the institutional stature of criticalperspectives in marketing, however we define critical. Hopefully, then, marketingscholarship will get the respect that it deserves.


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Conclusion

In this paper I have explored the recent discussions regarding incommensurabilityin the marketing literature. Via a close reading of three papers, I questioned theinterpretation and conflation of Kuhn’s and Burrell and Morgan’s work in Lowe et al.’s (2004, 2005) recent publications. Following this, I suggested that Daviesand Fitchett’s (2005) attempt to overcome incommensurability at the method-ological level was problematic inasmuch as specific methodologies are not neces-sarily tied to any single paradigmatic perspective. By turning to Kuhn’s laterwritings I made the case, contra Lowe et al., that Kuhn did suggest various ways ofovercoming incommensurability. However, when we factor in the political struc-ture of the academy it remains the case that any attempt to overcome incommen-surability using Kuhn’s criteria will necessarily run into the realm of politics due tounderdetermination.

Given that a preponderance of academics in the academy subscribe to logicalempiricism, that reviewer ‘meanness’ and bias are well documented aspects of thepeer review process, it seems likely that these will operate to skew the certificationof knowledge along lines consistent with the dominant paradigm in marketing,namely logical empiricism. As Feyerabend and many others have registered, byradically questioning the assumption base of a discipline we may move the bound-aries of what constitutes an appropriate contribution. However, they add, it ismore likely that our work will be ignored or remain unpublished.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the three reviewers for their comments on a previous draft of thisarticle. I would also like to thank Craig Thompson for his comments on this paper.

Notes

1. The study of the interaction between operator tasks and computerized machinery ina production process.

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Mark Tadajewski is Lecturer in Critical Marketing in the School of Management at theUniversity of Leicester. His research interests are wide-ranging and include the historyof marketing theory and thought, and the philosophy of science as it relates to market-ing, along with the possible interaction of critical theory and consumer research. Hiswork has been published or is forthcoming in Organization, Marketing Theory, Journalof Macromarketing, and the Journal of Marketing Management, among others. Address:School of Management, University of Leicester, University Road, Leicester, LE1 7RH.[email: [email protected]]


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Incommensurable paradigms, cognitive bias and the politics of marketing theory

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