International Journal of Humanities and Social Science

ISSN 2220-8488 (Print), 2221-0989 (Online) 10.30845/ijhss

Methodological Dominance in Academic Finance: The Case of Behavioural Finance
Kenneth Weir

Abstract
Academic finance is claimed to be a discipline dominated by positivist research approaches. This is maligned by some researchers owing to the preservation of a rather narrow research agenda, which limits the possible development of finance as a discipline. By drawing upon the development of behavioural finance as an illustration, the article outlines how particular research areas and topics can be captured through positivist approaches, and speculates on methodological, and epistemological, implications of such capture. The article concludes with a call for methodological pluralism in finance.

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