The next step is to formulate prescriptions based on the descriptive studies. There are two ways to accomplish it. First, descriptive researchers can draw detailed prescriptive implications from their results. It should be noted that researchers and managers have different frames of reference (Shrivastava & Mitroff, 1984). For example, researchers prefer objective, measurable, and verifiable data whereas managers prefer subjective and experiential data. Unless the differences are taken note of by researchers in their research objectives and designs, they may later find it difficult to make their research results relevant to managers. It is also imperative that researchers are aware of the properties of a piece of relevant research as suggested by Thomas and Tymon (1982): descriptive relevance, goal relevance, operational validity, nonobviousness, and timeliness. Form of presentation is another issue that has to be carefully considered. When addressing managers, who are more interested in the findings of the research than the means by which they were obtained, issues relating to statistical tests, hypothesis formulation, levels of confidence, and so on should be kept to the minimum. An excellent example of drawing useful prescriptions from rigorous descriptive studies is demonstrated by the articles published in Prescriptive models of organizations (Nystrom & Starbuck, 1977). Most of the articles are empirical studies using research methodologies such as laboratory experiment, case study, simulation, and lexical analysis of documents. The second way of deriving prescriptions from descriptive studies is through prescriptive writers who pick up where empirical researchers leave off. At the moment, most prescriptive writers shy away from citing evidence from existing empirical studies to substantiate their arguments. It is important to recognize that having evidence derived from other people's work is better than having no evidence at all.
"(S)uccessful prescriptive scientists must convince other people that their theories are sufficiently complete and effective to predict rather accurately how their prescriptions will alter the trajectories of future events" (Nystrom & Starbuck, 1977, p. 3). So the third step is to study the outcome of implementing the prescriptions in an organization. That is, we need to investigate the problems associated with implementation and the critical factors that have been neglected when the prescriptions were made. Descriptive studies in the form of action research are required. The knowledge obtained is used to revise and refine on the prescriptions which will be implemented and the result investigated again. Hopefully, after a few such iterations, we are able to arrive at a good theory.