System dynamics explanations as mechanisms and someimplications for theory building

摘要

This paper introduces a framework to characterize system dynamicsexplanations. In order to accomplish this task it shows different ways to explainphenomena and underlines the tendency in management research to use mainlysimple causality as the way to do it, illustrating this point with mainstreamstudies. Presenting the problems linked with causality the article looks foralternatives connecting ideas of Hayek and Russell regarding explanations andstructures. Likewise, the paper presents some implications for theory buildingtaking mechanism as a suitable characterization for system dynamicsexplanations.