Tourism Management Modelling: What It Does and Does Not

Abstract

The article presents a critical review of my past attempts in social phenomenon modelling. The review brings up issues embedded in positivist paradigm that are concerned with the cause-effect covering law based on purely events regularities, ontological conflation, and the symmetry principle of positivism i.e., explanation = prediction. Incorporating new realist thinking in contemporary philosophy of critical realism, practical solutions are suggested to overcome the issues, which encourage the use of mixed methods, analytical dualism, application of realist notion of causal laws, and that of not lawlike predictions.