Methodology of Typology: An Approach to Theory Building in Management

As a method, “Typology” has been used by various researchers and scholars in theory building in various fields of social sciences. Along with other forms of methods of classification, it can be used as a method of explanation and creation of constructs in fundamental and even applied researches. The purpose of this paper is to assess the major questions of “what”, “why” and “how” in case of typology, and to review some renowned typologies of organizational theories. Along with exploring ontology, epistemology and axiology of typology for answering “what” question, different types of typologies, clustering, taxonomies and classification have been investigated.  Goals, benefits and deficiencies of typologies are considered as to answer “why” question, and “how” question is addressed by constructing some concepts such as representative type, ideal type, extreme type and introducing empirical (inductive), conceptual (deductive) and operational strategies. Finally, some typologies in management studies are introduced and analyzed. Findings show that typologies have become more prevailing since 1960s, and whereas they were primarily inductive in the beginning, yet in last decades deductive and operational strategies have become more prevailing.