The importance of theory

Front row, third from left: Dr Mohammad Falahat and Dr Francis Chuah (middle) with participants

The Centre for Sustainable Development and Corporate Social Responsibility in Business (CSDCSR) organised a research talk at Sungai Long Campus on 16 November 2018. The talk was presented by Universiti Utara Malaysia (UUM) Othman Yeop Graduate School of Business Dr Francis Chuah Chin Wei. Present at the talk were CSDCSR Chairperson Dr Mohammad Falahat Nejadmahani, lecturers and students.

Dr Francis Chuah delivered his talk titled, “Theory, Theoretical Framework, and its relations to Research Model” with the aim to address the importance and rationale of forming a theoretical framework that served as the structure to hold or support a theory of a research study and to highlight on how to widen a theoretical framework within a broader context of related frameworks, concepts, models, or theories.

In his talk, he mentioned about what is theory and what theory is not, theory testing and theory refinement, theory application and theory generation, theoretical framework, how theory dictates path relationship, moderation and mediation as well as the practical guide for making a theoretical contribution.

“Theory is a coherent set of general propositions used as principles of explanation of the apparent relationship of certain observed phenomena. Theories are constructed in order to explain, predict and master phenomena such as relationships, events or behaviour. In many instances, we are constructing models of reality. A theory makes generalisations about observations and consists of an interrelated coherent set of ideas and models,” said Dr Francis.

Dr Francis Chuah explaining the importance of forming a theoretical framework

He explained the building blocks of theory development and said, “The four essential elements of a theory answer the ‘What’, ‘How’, ‘Why’, and ‘Who’. Combining ‘How’ and ‘What’ allows a model to be produced and tested. ‘How’ and ‘What’ tends to lead to empirically dominated discussions and not theoretical discussion. In sum, ‘What’ and ‘How’ describe while ‘Why’ explains and most of the time ‘Why’ is missing.”

Dr Francis is a senior lecturer, specialising in micro/behavioural strategy and management. He holds a PhD in Management from Putra Business School, Universiti Putra Malaysia and is currently co-managing editor of the Journal of Applied Structural Equation Modelling (JASEM). He serves on an expert panel for Sarawak Research Society (SRS), a non-profit making and scholarly body in Sarawak and professional facilitator for Tunku Abdul Rahman University College. He is a research fellow for the Institute for Leadership, Innovation and Change (iLead4Change). He serves as a reviewer for several high impact journals indexed by Scopus and Web of Science in the field of business and management. His research interest is in strategy and management, specialising in micro-foundation of strategy. He teaches strategic management, research methodology and quantitative data analysis at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels. He is well-versed in the application of partial least squares structural equation modelling technique and has conducted workshops at both basic and advanced levels.

Participants listening attentively

Dr Mohammad Falahat (right) presenting a souvenir to Dr Francis Chuah