Reading Module 1 - “Qualitative Research And The Academy Of Manageement Journal”

Question 1

Difference in qualitative and quantitative research

Answer 1

Qualitative research:

• literary and humanistic focus
• description and understanding of the actual human interactions, meanings, and processes
• data collection and data analysis

Quantitative research:

• mathematical and statistical knowledge
• hypotheses and variables

Question 2

Positivism and post-positivism

Answer 2

• efforts to uncover truth or true reality
• post-positivism: more recent view -> differs from positivism in holding that reality can be known only probabilistically and hence verification is not possible making falsification the basic task of research

Question 3

Grounded Theory

Answer 3

• process of iteratively and inductively constructing theory from observations using a process of theoretical sampling in which emergent insights direct selection and inclusion of the “next” informant or slice of data
• involves constant comparative analysis whereby groups are compared on the basis of theoretical similarities and differences
• does not fit well with positivist view
• interpretative research tradition of social research and was designed to achieve interpretative research goals and insights concerning meanings

Question 4

Two options to enhance consistency in theories and methodologies

Answer 4

• adopt positivist methodological techniques from social science to enhance consistency between postpositivist theory and methods-in-use management
• use interpretive and critical postmodern perspectives more often and adopt social science methods originally developed for interpretative and critical research

Question 5

Qualitative research requires qualitative methods

Answer 5

• show what was done in research process
• articulate how research practices transformed observations into data, results, findings and insights
• use explicit analytical methods
• systematically, comprehensively or exhaustively review data
• report sources and types of data as well as data analytics practices
• collect qualitative data using one or more research approaches, including case studies, interviews, observations, grounded theory, and textual analysis
• interviews:
  
  • ethnographic interviews are used to understand informants perception of culture
  • long interviews link analytical categories and literature with respondents’ cultural categories and meanings

Question 6

Observational methods

Answer 6

• participant observation: social interaction in the field with subjects, direct observation of relevant events, formal and informal interviewing, counting, collecting documents -> common for researcher to play role of participant
• ethnography: involves the production of descriptions of culture obtained by immersion in the culture studied
• ethnomethodology: study of practical methods to construct and maintain a sensible understanding of the social world
• conversational analysis: the study of sequential, utterance-by-utterance, talk and conversation
• systematic self-observation: involves training informants to observe and record a selected feature of their own everyday experience