Introduction

In Chapter 2 we saw that student field projects in business and managementcan be based either on the empirical cycle, aimed at developing descriptiveor explanatory knowledge, or on the problem solving cycle, aimed atdeveloping solutions for field problems. For the remainder of this handbookwe discuss the methodology for the second type of project: the problemsolving project. It is a design-oriented and theory-informed methodology.There are, of course, other problem solving strategies, and our methodologyis not necessarily the best one for each and every business ororganizational problem; it has a particular domain of application.

In this chapter we discuss first the foundations of this methodology and thetypes of field problems for which this methodology is appropriate. Then wediscuss the nature of the problem solving project and its basic set-up, andwe conclude by presenting the characteristics of professionally executedfield problem solving projects, which are quite different from projects thataim to produce descriptive and explanatory knowledge.

Rational problem solving

This design-oriented and theory-informed methodology for business andorganizational problem solving builds on the traditions of rational problemsolving (Visscher and Visscher-Voerman, 2010). Systematic enquiry intoproblem solving, aimed at uncovering general principles, started with thework of Herbert Simon, Allen Newell and colleagues in the 1950s (see, forexample, Newell and Simon, 1972). Their work strongly influenced research incognitive science, artificial intelligence, management science andeconomics. A related stream of research developed on organizationaldecision-making, which was, in its formative years of the 1960s and 1970s,predominantly rational in orientation (see, for example, Simon, 1960). Anespecially representative example of this approach is the book by Kepner andTregoe (1981). However, our design-oriented methodology differs from thisrational problem solving or decision-making approach in two significantaspects.