Marketing Faculty & Ph.D. Supervision: A House Divided

Abstract

This article examines the issue of logical paradigms in Ph.D. supervision. It notes that Ph.D. supervision in Marketing is sharply divided into two main schools of thought as to how theory should be developed via the literature review within a Ph.D. thesis. This division is based around the use of the two leading paradigms of scientific discovery, Induction and Deduction. The article describes these two paradigms and then demonstrates how a supervisor who uses inductive logic will tend to allow the candidate to ‘discover’ their research hypothesis by examination of the literature. A supervisor who uses deductive logic will not allow a review to commence in earnest until a preliminary working proposition has been created. The practical mechanisms and significant implications of these two schools of Ph.D. supervision are fully explained and discussed.