The production of practice theories

Abstract

This comparative case study explores the impact of four influential practitioner-generated theories from the 1970s to the present in the separate domains of finance, military strategy, nursing, and theology, and it discusses why bibliometric research tends to overlook such "invisible" theories from practice, despite their increasing importance in many areas.The concept of the "practice field" as a site for not only the reception of theories into practice but also the production of practice theories themselves may prove useful.

“Library users come to a library to find books”

“…A common denominator of the three main observations of the present study is that they highlight different systemic aspects of the information work of library and information professionals and the functioning of libraries as information institutions. Libraries have been discussed in systemic terms in the earlier literature (e.g., Hjørland, 2010;Van der Veer Martens, 2011). The soft systems approach has also been used in a handful of studies to develop library and information services, but somewhat surprisingly, it seems that the implications of a holistic and contextual (soft) systems theoretical point of view to the librarians' information work have not been considered to a significant extent in the earlier LIS literature (Delbridge & Fisher, 2007).…”

“…Libraries have been discussed in systemic terms in the earlier literature (e.g. Hjørland, 2010;Van der Veer Martens, 2011). The soft systems approach has also been used in a handful of studies to develop library and information services, but somewhat surprisingly, it seems that the implications of a holistic and contextual (soft) systems theoretical point-of-view to the librarians' information work have not been considered to a significant extent in the earlier LIS literature (Delbridge and Fisher, 2007).…”