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Statistics and Probability Have Always Been Value-Laden: An Historical Ontology of Quantitative Research Methods

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Abstract

Quantitative researchers often discuss research ethics as if specific ethical problems can be reduced to abstract normative logics (e.g., virtue ethics, utilitarianism, deontology). Such approaches overlook how values are embedded in every aspect of quantitative methods, including ‘observations,’ ‘facts,’ and notions of ‘objectivity.’ We describe how quantitative research practices, concepts, discourses, and their objects/subjects of study have always been value-laden, from the invention of statistics and probability in the 1600s to their subsequent adoption as a logic made to appear as if it exists prior to, and separate from, ethics and values. This logic, which was embraced in the Academy of Management from the 1960s, casts management researchers as ethical agents who ought to know about a reality conceptualized as naturally existing in the image of statistics and probability (replete with ‘constructs’), while overlooking that S&P logic and practices, which researchers made for themselves, have an appreciable role in making the world appear this way. We introduce a different way to conceptualize reality and ethics, wherein the process of scientific inquiry itself requires an examination of its own practices and commitments. Instead of resorting to decontextualized notions of ‘rigor’ and its ‘best practices,’ quantitative researchers can adopt more purposeful ways to reason about the ethics and relevance of their methods and their science. We end by considering implications for addressing ‘post truth’ and ‘alternative facts’ problems as collective concerns, wherein it is actually the pluralistic nature of description that makes defending a collectively valuable version of reality so important and urgent.

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Acknowledgements

For reviewing previous versions of this manuscript the authors thank Adam Barsky, Andrew Gelman, Andrew Van de Ven, Barbara Lawrence, Fred Oswald, Graham Sewell, Karen Jehn, Kristopher Preacher, Maria Carla Galavotti, Ray Zammuto, Tom Lee, Zhen Zhang, and Dan Woodman. For help with historical insights, the authors thank James March, Steven Schlossman, William Starbuck, and the many independent presses that have made it possible to investigate the roots of our quantitative practices. We would also like to thank the anonymous reviewers who have read and responded to previous versions of this manuscript.

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This research was supported by Australian Research Council’s Future Fellowship scheme (project FT140100629).

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Zyphur, M.J., Pierides, D.C. Statistics and Probability Have Always Been Value-Laden: An Historical Ontology of Quantitative Research Methods. J Bus Ethics 167, 1–18 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-019-04187-8

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