Abstract
Critical realism is a philosophy of science, which claims that the social world exists independently of researchers and their investigations of it. Realism is distinct from both positivism and postmodernism. It rejects positivist beliefs that knowledge about the social world must be objectively identified and postmodernist beliefs that the world is entirely socially constructed. Realism recognizes that some causal mechanisms are unobservable and that causal relationships are affected by the openness of social systems and the role of human actors in the reproduction of social phenomena.
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Joseph, J. (2016). Realism. In: Augier, M., Teece, D. (eds) The Palgrave Encyclopedia of Strategic Management. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-349-94848-2_592-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-349-94848-2_592-1
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