Chapter 4 Flashcards
Research onion
Depicts the aspects underlying the choice of data collection techniques
First two layers of the onion
Research philosophy
Research approach
Research philosophy
Describes the development of knowledge and the nature of that knowledge
Understanding research philosophy is important, bc very purpose of research is also to develop new knowledge.
Bot true that one philosophy is better than another, but they might suited to achieve different things
Two major ways of thinking in philosophy are
- ontology
- epistemology
Ontology
Is a philosophical position that refers to the nature of reality.
One aspect if ontology is
-objectivism:
Means that things exist with a purpose independent of those social actors concerned with their existence
-subjectivism:
Hold that social occurrences are created through the perception and consequent actions of the involved social actors.
Objectivist think culture of an organization is something that it ‘has’ while subjectivist tend to view the culture as the organisation ‘is’
Management theory lean towards objectivist
Social constructionism
People who adopt a subjective way of thinking, find it is necessary to explore the details of a situation to be able to understand what is going on
Epistemology
Regards what constitutes acceptable knowledge in an area of study. It addresses questions ‘what is knowledge’ ‘how is knowledge acquired?’ ‘What do people know?’
Positivism
Philosophy of positivism refers to the philosophical stance of a natural science.
-collecting data about an observable reality and searching for regularities and causal relationship will lead to the creation of new theory of new generalisation
Other characters:
- researcher independent of the subject of the research, the value-neutral (feelings included)
- cyclical relationship between hypotheses testing and theoretical development
- quantifiable observation that lend themselves to statistic analyse
Realism
Claims that, whatever we sense is reality: object exist without concern of the human mind.
Therefor contradicts with idealism, which state that only mind and it contents exist
Just like positivism, realism also assumes a scientific approach to the development of knowledge.
2 kinds of realism
-direct realism
What you see is what you get, what we perceive and experience with our sense displays the world in an accurate way
-critical realism,
What we experience are sensations, images of existing things in the real world, not the existing things themselves. What we experience are mere illusions
Difference between the two realism regarding the capacity of research to change the world
Direct realist would state that the world is relatively unchangeable
Critical realist would claim that the research’s understanding to that is being studies could be changed
Many researched claim that what we explore is just a part of a bigger picture, so researches usually adopt critical realism point of view.
Centre of the onion
The way one chooses to collect data
Interpretivism
Claims it is necessary for researchers to understand between human in our role as social actors. We interpret our daily social roles in accordance with the meaning we give to these roles.
Interpretivism stems from two intellectual heritages
-phenomenology
Considers the way in which we as human make sense of the world around us
-symbolic interactionism
We are all in a continual process of interpreting the social world we live in and we interpret the actions of the people that interact with us. These interpretations lead to adjustments of our own meaning and actions.
Axiology
Stand of philosophy that studies judgements about value.
Includes:
-value in the fields of ethics
-aesthetics
One’s own value play a crucial role in all stages of the research process. Our value are the guiding line for all our actions (heron 1996)
Research paradigms
Term paradigm is frequently used in the social science, but often leads to confusion because of its many meanings.
Here we define paradigm as a way of examining social occurrences from which particular understandings of these phenomena can be gained and explanations attempted.
Four paradigms can be arranged
- functionalist paradigm
- radical structuralist paradigm
- interpretive paradigm
- radical humanist paradigm
Functional paradism
Frequently used in business management
Functionalist assume that an organization are rational entities, in which rational explanations will provide solutions to rational problems.
Radical structuralist paradigm
Concerned with understanding structural patterns within organisations (hierachies eg) and reporting relationships and the extent to which these relationships may produce dysfunctionalities
Interpretive paradigm
Concerned with the understanding the fundamental meanings attached to organizational life. Instead of rationalities, this one wishes to discover irrationalities.
In this paradigm being involved in the everyday activities of the organisation in order to understand and explain what is happening is more important than to try to change things
Radical humanist paradigm
This dimension adopts a critical perspective of the organisation life. It emphasizes the consequences of one’s words and deeds on others. Working with this one wishes to change things
Two main research approach when conducting research
Deductive approach
Development of theory and hypotheses which are tested by using a research strategy. Deduction is done when a conclusion is logically derived from a set of premises. The conclusion will be true wham all these premises are proven to be true.
Inductive approach
Building a theory, it is not true that when a set of premisses are true that a clear conclusion can be formed. Because conclusion is based on observations made by humans, and humans make mistakes. A conclusion is therefor never guaranteed.
5 stages of deductive researcher
1 forming a hypothesis to form a theory
2 deduce testable premises
3 examine these premises and the logic of the argument that produced them, relate it to existing theories
4 testing the premises bu collecting data to measure variables or concepts
5 analyze the result, if they are not consistent with the premises the theory is false and should be rejected, or modified. If results are consistent that a new theory is formed
Four general characterizations for deduction
- reliability Every researcher should use a highly structured methodology, so that it is easy to replicate. If this is the case the research is reliable.
- concepts need to be operationalized in such a way that enables facts to be measured
- generalisation
- reductionism, holds that problems as a whole are better understood if they are reduced to the simplest possible elements
Abduction
A third approach
Starts with a conclusion: a surprise fact.
With a set of premises one subsequently tries to proven the conclusion.
-does not move from theory to data (deduction) or from data to theory (induction), but rather moves back and forth between the two, combining deduction and induction
