Occam’s razor is an imperative principle of parsimony in choosing between competing
theories or hypotheses, which regards that the simplest theory or explanation of a
phenomenon is most likely to be the correct one and should be chosen (Walsh, 1979). The
principle of parsimony is widely recognized by natural scientists (Courtney and
Courtney, 2008), and social scientists also use it in their research (Walsh, 1979; Bettiset al., 2014b). Because of the complexity of social scientific theory, especially strategic management theory, it is difficult to compare different theories(Courtney and Courtney,2008). However, this is not to say that Occam’s razor is impractical in social science and
SMR, it is only to say that using Occam’s razor in this regard may require a great deal of
wisdom and effort.