Chapter 4

Question 1

Research onion

Answer 1

Depicts the aspects underlying the choice of data collection techniques

Question 2

First two layers of the onion

Answer 2

Research philosophy

Research approach

Question 3

Research philosophy

Answer 3

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

Question 4

Two major ways of thinking in philosophy are

Answer 4

• ontology

- epistemology

Question 5

Ontology

Answer 5

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

Question 6

Social constructionism

Answer 6

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

Question 7

Epistemology

Answer 7

Regards what constitutes acceptable knowledge in an area of study. It addresses questions ‘what is knowledge’ ‘how is knowledge acquired?’ ‘What do people know?’

Question 8

Positivism

Answer 8

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

Question 9

Realism

Answer 9

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.

Question 10

2 kinds of realism

Answer 10

-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

Question 11

Difference between the two realism regarding the capacity of research to change the world

Answer 11

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.

Question 12

Centre of the onion

Answer 12

The way one chooses to collect data

Question 13

Interpretivism

Answer 13

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.

Question 14

Interpretivism stems from two intellectual heritages

Answer 14

-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.

Question 15

Axiology

Answer 15

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)

Question 16

Research paradigms

Answer 16

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.

Question 17

Four paradigms can be arranged

Answer 17

• functionalist paradigm
• radical structuralist paradigm
• interpretive paradigm
• radical humanist paradigm

Question 18

Functional paradism

Answer 18

Frequently used in business management

Functionalist assume that an organization are rational entities, in which rational explanations will provide solutions to rational problems.

Question 19

Radical structuralist paradigm

Answer 19

Concerned with understanding structural patterns within organisations (hierachies eg) and reporting relationships and the extent to which these relationships may produce dysfunctionalities

Question 20

Interpretive paradigm

Answer 20

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

Question 21

Radical humanist paradigm

Answer 21

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

Question 22

Two main research approach when conducting research

Answer 22

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.

Question 23

5 stages of deductive researcher

Answer 23

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

Question 24

Four general characterizations for deduction

Answer 24

• 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

Question 25

Abduction

Answer 25

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