Ontology in business research deals with the nature of reality. One of the longest standing ontological questions in philosophy concerns the existence, or otherwise, of God or at least some sense of a higher being. Ontology is a system of belief that reflects an interpretation of an individual about what constitutes a fact. In simple terms, ontology is associated with what we consider as reality.
It is the study of being fundamentally what exists and what the meaning of existence is. Ontology is also the branch of philosophy that studies existence and the nature of human beings and our existence. They ask questions like:
– What is the nature of existence and our existence as individuals in society, in the universe?
– Who are we, what are we here for?
These are ontological questions. For example, do we make real free will choices? Do we make choices that influence the outcomes? Or, are there forces that are determining. our outcomes, that are beyond our control?
Another ontological question would be this:
– Are we best understood as individuals? Or, is our nature best viewed as being part of a group, part of a social system?
There’s a movie called I, Robot for example,
An old movie with Will Smith, and in this story, There’s a robot named Sonny, and he’s very sophisticated, and he’s trying to figure out why the guy who made him made him, what is his purpose? And that’s an ontological question. There’s a bit of dialogue where somebody asks him: Sonny, do you know why Dr. Lanning built you? And he answers: no, but I believe my father made me for a purpose. This is an ontological discussion.
What is our nature, what are we here for? For me, the ontological assumptions beneath research and theory are pretty easy to spot. So for example, if they’re studying individuals, like through personality tests, or trying to figure out people’s traits, then they likely are approaching us as individuals in society. If they are studying groups, and relationships, then they are likely assuming that people are best understood in groups and relationships, like through the communication field or sociology. Another look at this is how we are situated in society in terms of the larger forces that we face.
For example, does a theorist treat people as if they are at the mercy of a system that is out of their control, out of their hands? Or, do they focus on the agency that people have to influence change? Depending upon their position, they are taking different ontological positions, or assumptions, about their research. And you can usually see that in the way they write it up.
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