1. Briefly explain to a first year university student what theory is, and what theory is not.
It is hard to give an exact definition of what theory is because of different views of the concept. Gregor argues that the core of a theory is the “abstraction and generalization about phenomenon, interactions, and causation”. In other words, theory is the answer to why phenomenon happen. According to Sutton and Staw data are not theory since data answers the question of which empirical patterns were observed, while theory need to answer the question of why these empirical patterns were observed. Other concepts that does not qualifies within the definition of theory are references, diagrams, list of variables and hypothesis. Even though these concepts can not constitute theory themselves, they can certainly provide useful support for a theory. By using these concepts as tools, theory is formed by the explanation of why the data emerged as well as the underlying processes of it.
To sum up, theory need to be able to answer questions of why.
2. Describe the major theory or theories that are used in your selected paper. Which theory type (see Table 2 in Gregor) can the theory or theories be characterized as?
The article I have chosen is “Social media? Get serious! Understanding the functional building blocks of social media” by Jan H. Kietzmann, Kristopher Hermkens, Ian P. McCarthy and Bruno S. Silvestre. The article was published 2011 in the journal “Business Horizons” with an impact factor of 1.008. The article is about the new communication landscape, that of social media, and addresses businesses and firms. Consumers today are increasingly utilising social platforms such as blogs, content sharing sites and social networking to share, create and discuss different content. The purpose of this article is to introduce firms and businesses to the phenomenon of social media and how they can, and should, develop strategies for understanding and taking advantage of social media activities. The authors present a framework that defines social media in terms of identity, conversations, sharing, presence, relationships, reputation and groups.
According to the table presented in Gregor’s article I would argue that the theories in this article are characterized as explanation and design and action. The reason why I think it includes theories of explanation is because the authors start the article by describing what social media is, how as well as when and where it is used and why it is important to know about today. In their framework, the authors explain where the opportunities and challenges lies within social media for firms and businesses. This theory is characterized as design and action since the authors describes how to do something.
3. Which are the benefits and limitations of using the selected theory or theories?
According to Gregor, explanation is related to human understanding which could be mentioned as a benefit of this theory. The aim of explanation is to create a subjective state of understanding in an individual. One limitation that could be mentioned is that an explanatory theory risks presenting and relying on too much data which, according to Sutton and Staw, disqualifies as a theory.
Kietzmann, J., Hermkens, K., McCarthy, I., Silvestre, B. (2011). Social media? Get serious! Understanding the functional building blocks of social media. Business Horizons. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0007681311000061
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