Over the last two decades, much of management research has converged on the belief that one of its major aims is to identify the causal mechanisms that produce the phenomena that researchers seek to explain. In this paper, we review and synthesize the literature that has amassed around causal mechanisms. We do so by detailing the different methodological perspectives that are featured in management research, which we label as the contextual, constitutive, and interventionist perspectives. For each of these perspectives, we examine what it theoretically presupposes a mechanism to be, how this connects to methodological choices, and how this shapes the kind of mechanism-based explanations that each perspective offers. We also explore the main inferential challenges for each of these perspectives and offer specific methodological guidance in response. In this way, we aim to offer a common plank for theorizing and research on causal mechanisms in ways that recognize and harness the productive differences across different epistemologies and methodological traditions.

中文翻译：

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什么是机制？概念化和研究因果机制的方法


在过去的二十年里，许多管理研究都集中在这样一个信念上，即其主要目标之一是确定产生研究人员试图解释的现象的因果机制。在本文中，我们回顾并综合了围绕因果机制积累的文献。我们通过详细说明管理研究中采用的不同方法论观点来做到这一点，我们将其标记为情境、构成和干预主义观点。对于这些观点中的每一个，我们研究了它在理论上预设的机制是什么，它如何与方法论的选择联系起来，以及这如何塑造每个观点提供的基于机制的解释类型。我们还探讨了这些观点中的每一个的主要推理挑战，并为此提供了具体的方法指导。通过这种方式，我们的目标是为因果机制的理论化和研究提供一个共同的平台，以识别和利用不同认识论和方法论传统之间的生产性差异。