摘要：Administration has been characterized as a deeply empirical science. This is not a problem in itself. However, this points to the risk of producing an ephemeral or insignificant knowledge, which does not survive in the long term and to broader issues than problems within certain organizations. In this sense, we ask about the place of theory in the method adopted for researches in Administration, what involves an epistemological problem. With this in mind, this article discusses the hypothetical-deductive and inductive approaches, considering their differences, as well as advantages and disadvantages. We also discuss critical issues regarding the adoption of any of these approaches, and then we face them by the so-called “war of paradigms”. Behind the dilemma, we present the possibility of joint approaches. Finally, we point out that the Administration researcher is almost always somewhere in this process, which we realize as a continuum, and that the most important is that we have a clear vision of the place of theory in our research as a means of qualify the knowledge that generate.
