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Bent Flyvbjerg

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Bent Flyvbjerg is a Danish economic geographer. He is Professor of Major Programme Management at Oxford University's Saïd Business School and the founding Director of the University's BT Centre for Major Programme Management. He was previously Professor of Planning at Aalborg University, Denmark and Chair of Infrastructure Policy and Planning at Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands.[1][2] Flyvbjerg received his Ph.D. in urban geography and planning from Aarhus University, Denmark. He has written extensively about megaprojects, decision making, city management, and philosophy of social science. He has twice held the Fulbright Scholarship. Bent Flyvbjerg was knighted in the Order of the Dannebrog in 2002.[3]

Research

Flyvbjerg identified two main causes of misinformation in policy, planning, and management: strategic misrepresentation and optimism bias. Flyvbjerg and his associates have developed methods to curb misinformation and bias focused on improved accountability ("skin in the game"), reference class forecasting, due diligence, and black swan management.[4] [5] The methods are being widely used in practice in policy, planning, and management. Flyvbjerg has identified a number of misunderstandings about case study research and devised ways of correcting these misunderstandings.[6] Flyvbjerg's work has been critically assessed by other scholars, including by James Bohman, Stewart Clegg, Clifford Geertz, Davydd J. Greenwood, Martyn Hammersley, Mary Hawkesworth, Ron Johnston, David Laitin, Sanford Schram, Kenneth A. Strike, and Alan Wolfe.[7][8]

Phronetic social science

Bent Flyvbjerg developed the research methodology called phronetic social science and has employed the methodology in studies of megaprojects and of city planning and management. Phronetic social science is an approach to the study of social – including political and economic – phenomena, described by Flyvbjerg in his book Making Social Science Matter[9] published in 2001. It is based on a contemporary interpretation of the Aristotelian concept phronesis, variously translated as practical judgment, common sense, or prudence. Flyvbjerg presents phronetic social science as an alternative to epistemic social science, that is, social science modeled after the natural sciences. Flyvbjerg states that despite centuries of trying the natural science model still does not work in social science: No predictive social theories have been arrived at as yet, if prediction is understood in the natural science sense. Flyvbjerg held that as long as social science would try to emulate natural science, social science would stand as loser in the Science Wars. If, however, the social sciences modeled themselves after phronesis they would be strong where the natural sciences are weak, namely in the deliberation about values and power that is essential to social and economic development in modern society. Flyvbjerg's position was further developed in Making Political Science Matter, edited by Schram and Caterino, which contains the so-called "Flyvbjerg Debate," and in Real Social Science: Applied Phronesis, edited by Flyvbjerg, Landman, and Schram, which contains further theoretical elaborations and a set of exemplary case studies in phronetic social science.[10][11]

Bibliography

References

  1. ^ Krak's Who's Who, Copenhagen, 2008
  2. ^ Bent Flyvbjerg's homepage
  3. ^ "CV English".
  4. ^ Flyvbjerg, Bent, 2006, "From Nobel Prize to Project Management: Getting Risks Right," Project Management Journal, vol. 37, no. 3, August, pp. 5-15.
  5. ^ Flyvbjerg, Bent, 2012, "Quality Control and Due Diligence in Project Management: Getting Decisions Right by Taking the Outside View," International Journal of Project Management, published online November 2012, forthcoming in print 2013.
  6. ^ Bent Flyvbjerg, 2006, "Five Misunderstandings About Case Study Research." Qualitative Inquiry, vol. 12, no. 2, April, pp. 219-245.; Flyvbjerg, Bent, 2011, "Case Study," in Norman K. Denzin and Yvonna S. Lincoln, eds., The Sage Handbook of Qualitative Research, 4th Edition (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage), pp. 301-316.
  7. ^ Schram, Sanford F. and Brian Caterino, 2006 eds. Making Political Science Matter: Debating Knowledge, Research, and Method. New York: New York University Press.]
  8. ^ Clegg, Stewart, 2008, "Bent Flyvbjerg: Power and Project Management: An Appreciation" International Journal of Managing Projects in Business, vol. 1, no. 3, pp. 428-431.
  9. ^ Bent Flyvbjerg, Making Social Science Matter: Why Social Inquiry Fails and How It Can Succeed Again (Cambridge University Press, 2001) ISBN 0-521-77568-X
  10. ^ Schram, Sanford F. and Brian Caterino, 2006 eds. Making Political Science Matter: Debating Knowledge, Research, and Method. New York: New York University Press.]
  11. ^ Flyvbjerg, Bent, Todd Landman, and Sanford Schram, 2012, Real Social Science: Applied Phronesis (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press)

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