国外营销论文06_Ferraro_Pfeffer_Sutton_2005_AMR.pdfVIP

Academy of Management Review 2005, Vol. 30, No. 1, 8–24. ECONOMICS LANGUAGE AND ASSUMPTIONS: HOW THEORIES CAN BECOME SELF-FULFILLING FABRIZIO FERRARO IESE Business School JEFFREY PFEFFER ROBERT I. SUTTON Stanford University Social science theories can become self-fulfilling by shaping institutional designs and management practices, as well as social norms and expectations about behavior, thereby creating the behavior they predict. They also perpetuate themselves by promulgating language and assumptions that become widely used and accepted. We illustrate these ideas by considering how the language and assumptions of econom- ics shape management practices: theories can “win” in the marketplace for ideas, independent of their empirical validity, to the extent their assumptions and language become taken for granted and normatively valued, therefore creating conditions that make them come “true.” The ideas of economists and political philoso- beginning, a false definition of a situation evok- phers, both when they are right and when they ing a behavior which makes the originally false are wrong, are more powerful than is commonly understood (Keynes, 1936: 383). conception come true” (Merton, 1948: 195). Build- ing on this concept, Anthony Giddens suggests Social scienc