Informality in organization and research: a review and a proposal <s> The conventional typology of research approaches <s> A device for locking two concentrically positioned and axially displaceable members against displacement in one direction, characterized by a recess formed in one of said members and opening in the direction of the second member, and by locking elements located in said recess, said recess having a first part with a bottom portion positioned at a greater distance from said second member than the distance corresponding to the size of the locking elements in a direction transversally to the axial direction of said members, and a second part of said recess having a bottom portion decreasing its distance to said second member in the axial direction of said members and from the first mentioned bottom portion to a distance less than the distance corresponding to the size of the locking elements in said direction transversally to the axial direction of the members, whereby the locking elements are free from locking engagement between said elements, when located in said first part of recess and engaging said members for locking the members against displacement in at least one direction, when located in said second part of recess, and by an actuating element for displacing the locking elements between said parts of recess. <s> BIB001 </s> Informality in organization and research: a review and a proposal <s> The conventional typology of research approaches <s> Research in IT must address the design tasks faced by practitioners. Real problems must be properly conceptualized and represented, appropriate techniques for their solution must be constructed, and solutions must be implemented and evaluated using appropriate criteria. If significant progress is to be made, IT research must also develop an understanding of how and why IT systems work or do not work. Such an understanding must tie together natural laws governing IT systems with natural laws governing the environments in which they operate. This paper presents a two dimensional framework for research in information technology. The first dimension is based on broad types of design and natural science research activities: build, evaluate, theorize, and justify. The second dimension is based on broad types of outputs produced by design research: representational constructs, models, methods, and instantiations. We argue that both design science and natural science activities are needed to insure that IT research is both relevant and effective. <s> BIB002
Construction management research tends to borrow from disciplines such as sociology, in order to characterize research approaches as either qualitative or quantitative. The former are seen to be reliant on interpretative procedures, while the latter are held to have an objective status. However, this distinction is illusory, as is shown below, where a quantitative study is examined to reveal the interpretative procedures upon which it fundamentally depends. It should be apparent that this dependence is not a peculiarity of the study in question, but that similar observations could be made of any such quantitative studies of real world phenomena.  set out to measure and improve site safety on six construction sites using the following method: develop measures of safety performance; introduce techniques to change behaviour; use the measure to test the effectiveness of the behavioural technique; and develop from the results, general guidelines for managing such behavioural change. Thus, the study seeks to establish causal relationships between two methods of goal setting, feedback and training, on the one hand, and outcomes in terms of safety indicators on the other. The indicators are designed to be quantifiable, in order to facilitate objective comparison between the different types of intervention. The method is actually a variation of the experimental method associated with scientific laboratory research. In the context of a laboratory, a controlled environment is established, within which carefully defined variables can be manipulated and the effects recorded. Two kinds of difficulties arise in transferring this approach to a construction site: how stable definitions of variables will be established; and how the process will be controlled in order to isolate the variable of interest and keep all others constant. Two kinds of consideration are operative in the definition of variables. The phenomena on which the research focuses must be relevant to the problem at hand, in this case the problem of safety; but, equally important, is to make the relevant phenomena findable. That is to say, they must be available to the researcher as observable phenomena. In the case of a quantitative study this means that the phenomena must be countable. The countability of phenomena is partly dependent on the existence of a good operational definition, of the phenomenon to be counted. Such definitions must be rigorously maintained, if any meaningful counting of cases is to take place. Several measures designed to control for unwanted variables are introduced. A long lead time is employed, during which data is collected but not used, in order to eliminate any Hawthorne effect  . In addition to the three categories of safety behaviour monitored for the experiment, a fourth was monitored as a control: changes in data from this category, which did not arise from the researchers manipulation of independent variables, could be attributed to external factors causing a general change in safety performance. The commencement of research on the six sites was staggered at four week intervals, as a further control against undefined external interference. Additional control sites were monitored. Additional information was collected during site visits, which "permitted some tentative explanations to be given about variation in performance within and between sites which did not appear to be a direct result of the experiment." (p. 15) The careful and detailed elaboration of the experimental controls used in this study make it an exemplar of its kind. However, the nature of these controls illustrate the difficulty of maintaining 'laboratory conditions' in the real world. They constitute a series of measures designed to guard against unforeseen variations in conditions. Apart from the Hawthorne Effect, no attempt is made to specify what the nature of these variations might be. Thus, it is difficult to assess their effectiveness. This difficulty is reflected in the multiplicity of controls which are used. The final control consists in additional data collected during site visits. In other words, upon the alertness and common sense of the observers, in spotting variations in conditions which were likely to affect the results, demonstrating the dependence of such formal experimental studies on the same kind of informal methods used in ethnographic research. The independent variables in this study were the interventions described above. These are the easiest part of the process to define and control, since they consist in the actions of the research team. However, even here, a degree of uncertainty must arise and the inevitable question is: what degree of control should be considered adequate? For example, it was felt necessary to control the method of introducing goals to operatives, so that one set of operatives would not be more encouraged to aspire to the goals than another set. This was done by writing a script, ensuring that each set of operatives was told exactly the same thing about the goals. However, other possible variables were not controlled. There was no attempt to make sure that the script was always delivered by the same person, for example. Thus, there was no control over personality differences among researchers which might have influenced style of delivery and thus operative commitment to the goals. Despite the rigorous implementation of this study, it seems that there is no possibility of final closure in the logic of the methodology. However many controls are put in place, there will always be further questions which could be asked. Thus, if the experimental design had stipulated that the goal introduction script was to be delivered each time by the same person, or an attempt had been made to define the tone, style of delivery and level of enthusiasm with which the script was delivered, then further questions would immediately arise. Thus, for instance, questions could be asked about the location of the delivery, the size of the meeting at which the delivery was performed, the evident level of endorsement of site and senior management, etc.3. An alternative typology  suggests five types of research, categorized according to the role of theory in their methodology: 1. uniquely adequate (meeting the strong requirement); 2. grounded theorizing; 3. theoretically informed; 4. formal; 5. action/construction. These are further classified according to two distinctions: whether or not they meet the strong requirement of unique adequacy; and whether they are empirically, or theoretically driven (see Table 1 ). They are briefly reviewed below, As should be apparent, they do not represent tightly exclusive categories. There are practices that reside on the borderlines of each type. The first four types are described here as descriptive in nature, to distinguish them from the fifth, which consists of what has been variously termed action research (Argyris, Putnam & Smith 1985 ; or constructive research BIB001 or design science research BIB002 . Clearly, this distinction is not the only one that can be drawn, in particular, our category 'descriptive' includes research of an explanatory or predictive nature, in addition to other forms of description.