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Eriksson Qualitative Methods
Eriksson Qualitative Methods
Anne Kovalainen
Q UA L I TA T I V E
M E T H O D S in
BU S I N E S S
2nd
E A R C H
EDITION
RE S
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familiar with the basic philosophical concepts, positions and traditions. All research
methods are closely connected to research philosophy and to the ways it is possible
to bring forward new knowledge through research.
Many practically-oriented business researchers do not explicitly state the philo-
sophical viewpoints of their research. These are not always necessary to explicate.
However, this often implies that they either find philosophical questions as
non-relevant in their research settings, or take their own philosophical position
as self-evident and known. The latter case is particularly prevalent in mainstream
quantitative research.
In fact, it often happens during business research seminars, wherein philosophical
discussions arise, especially in relation to qualitative business research settings. There
can be several reasons for this. Qualitative research offers an alternative to the main-
stream quantitative research approach, and it also often allows for the discussion of
the taken-for-granted philosophical assumptions of quantitative research.
It is possible to do qualitative business research without much knowledge of the
basic concepts in the philosophy of social sciences that concern various ways of
doing research. We think that it is helpful for you to have knowledge of the basic
philosophical concepts and ideas for research in order to be able to design a solid
piece of study that delivers what it promises (Box 2.1). Statements – and clarity in
thinking – about what constitutes your research phenomenon have implications
for the ways in which it is possible to gain knowledge of it.
The exploration of philosophical concepts assists you in specifying your overall
research design and strategy. These will in turn set the directions for your research,
how to proceed from your research questions to the conclusions. You will need to
make decisions about the type of empirical data you will collect, how you will ana-
lyze them, rules about how to interpret the analyses, and ideas about how to present
your conclusions. The exploration of the basic philosophical concepts will also help
you in making decisions about the issues that all have effect on your research design:
what kinds of questions do you ask in your research, and in what ways can you
answer those questions with your research?
BOX 2.1
researchers have called a paradigm (Burrell and Morgan, 1979; Guba and Lincoln, 1994).
‘Paradigm’ as a term has been diluted and come to signify different things in business
studies, ranging from meta-theoretical aspects in research to different types of classifica-
tions made on the basis of theories, methods used, even empirical research topics.
All these concepts – ontology, epistemology, methodology and methods – relate
to each other, but in various ways, depending on the more general philosophical
position of your research. In this chapter we will introduce some key philosophical
concepts and positions, and discuss their relation to the qualitative research
approaches that we illustrate in this book (Box 2.2).
BOX 2.2
Epistemology What is knowledge and what are the sources and limits of knowledge?
Methods What are the specific ways of data collection and analysis that
can be used?
Ontology
Ontology concerns the ideas about the existence of and relationship between people,
society and the world in general. Ontological assumptions embrace all theories and
methodological positions. Several of the qualitative approaches that we will introduce
in this book are based on the ontological assumption in which reality is understood as
being some form of subjectivism. This means that reality is understood to be based upon
perceptions, and experiences that may be different for each person, and may change
over time and context. However, the conceptual understandings of reality can be shared.
In comparison, in most quantitative research it is usual to assume that the social
world exists for everyone as a distinctive and separate, that is, objective, reality. The
division between objectivism and subjectivism is one aspect of ontology in philosophy,
which refers to the study of conceptions of reality. Instead of subjectivism, the term
constructionism is often used to describe the social nature of reality.
Objectivism as an ontological starting point assumes that the social world exists
independently of people and their actions and activities. The objectivist view on
ontology assumes that social reality has an independent existence outside the knower,
that is, you as a researcher. Constructionism, on the other hand, assumes that social
actors produce social reality through social interaction. This means that they also can
change their views and understandings of social reality through interaction.
In other words, the subjectivist view on ontology (i.e. constructionism) assumes
that the reality for a knower, such as you, is the outputting of social and cognitive
processes. Therefore, two realities alike cannot exist. A focal point in the social con-
structionist view is that reality does not exist outside individuals; ‘reality’ is always
about individuals’ and groups’ interpretations (Blaikie, 1993: 94).
When considering the ontological perspective of your research, you should think
about what you see as the fundamental properties in the social world that are worth
studying. This may sound rather difficult, because ontological assumptions are usu-
ally more or less taken for granted. Let us look at an example. If you are interested
in studying what managers do and why, you must first decide whether you believe
that they act, for instance, on the basis of biologically determined personalities, cog-
nitively adopted attitudes, or socially constructed identities. All three interest fields
can indicate very different world views in terms of what is considered as essential in
existence and being, what should be studied, and how it can be studied.
Epistemology
In addition to ontology, which focuses on the question ‘What is there in the world?’,
it is helpful to understand what epistemology in research means. Ontological claims
in research are closely related to epistemological claims, and they usually are dis-
cussed together. Epistemology is concerned with the questions ‘What is knowledge?’
and ‘What are the sources and limits of knowledge?’
As well, in epistemology there is an objectivist and a subjectivist view. According
to the objective view in epistemology, it is possible that there exists a world that
is external and theory neutral. According to the subjective epistemological view,
no access to the external world beyond our own observations and interpretations
is possible.
In addition, there are several avenues from which epistemology can be discussed
(Box 2.3). These directions do not conflate to the qualitative–quantitative divide,
but are based on the ways through which knowledge claims are made. We will take
these up as an initial orientation to epistemic questions of research, and to show
you the complexity that lies behind each method. In case you are interested in
finding out more about the differences between epistemological directions, you
can read specific literature or attend a course in the philosophy of sciences and
social sciences.
Understanding the above-mentioned aspects, of what can be known that exists,
makes it easier for any researcher to realize that whatever knowledge we produce in
research, that knowledge is seldom based on one unified idea of science and research.
BOX 2.3
Paradigm
Very often in research methods books, and even in textbooks, you will find the
term ‘paradigm’. The historian of science Thomas Kuhn gave the term paradigm the
meaning that has become common and much used sometimes even misused within
the research context. Kuhn referred to the set of practices that define a scientific
discipline during a particular period of time. As a natural scientist, Kuhn did not
consider the concept of paradigm to be appropriate for describing development in
the social sciences.
Kuhn (1970), in his book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, writes that he
developed the concept of ‘paradigm’ so as to be able to distinguish the develop-
ment of social sciences from the development within the natural sciences. He had
observed that the researchers in social science were never in agreement on theories,
concepts or methodologies. Therefore, he concluded that although there cannot
be any paradigms in the social sciences, social sciences are in a pre-paradigmatic
phase in the development of scientific knowledge. For a paradigm, researchers
need to share not only theories, but also a shared basis for theory choice (Kuhn,
1977: 322).
Despite this, the concept of paradigm is widely used in social sciences and in
business research. In this discussion, paradigm as a term has shifted away from the
original remarks made by Kuhn, and can be defined as a world view or a belief system
that guides a researcher in their work (Guba and Lincoln, 1994). Burrell and Morgan’s
(1979) model of ‘four sociological paradigms for organizational analysis’ gained wide
popularity among business researchers in the 1980s and 1990s.
Even if Kuhn did not argue that paradigms would be invariable, they sometimes
were mistakenly taken as such in the discussions. Also, the description of competing
paradigms of inquiry that was introduced in 1994 by Guba and Lincoln is often
referred to. They identify positivism, postpositivism, critical theory, and construc-
tivism as the major paradigms that frame social science research. They also claim
that these paradigms compete for acceptance as the paradigm of choice in qualita-
tive research. More recently, management and business researchers have been more
concerned about epistemological discussions than debating on paradigms (Willmott,
1997; Johnson and Duberley, 2000; Seirafi, 2013).
BOX 2.4
Critical realism: combines some of the ideas in positivist and constructionist thinking;
concerned with the identification of the structures of the world.
forefront in research. Further, older versions of the grounded theory approach accept
some ideas of positivism in research (for more, see Chapter 15). Other philosophical
approaches have more relevance for qualitative research than positivism.
Postpositivism (also known as postempiricism) has developed through the main
criticism of positivism. It argues that the knower and the known cannot be separated
(as positivism claims). It also questions the idea of a shared, single reality. It sug-
gests that, although human beings cannot perfectly understand reality, researchers
can approach it with rigorous data collection and analysis. Postpositivist thinking
is influential within qualitative research, as it covers philosophical positions and
methodologies as different as scientific and critical realism, grounded theory (Glaser
and Strauss, 1967), and symbolic interactionism (Blumer, 1969). Furthermore, the
detailed ways of analyzing qualitative data devised by Miles and Huberman (1994),
for example, are often called postpositivist.
Critical realism
Critical realism agrees with positivists that there is an observable world, independ-
ent of human consciousness. At the same time, it suggests that knowledge about the
world is socially constructed. Critical realism is closely related to the works of Roy
Bhaskar and Rom Harré (Danermark et al., 2002). Critical realists use the word ‘critical’
in a particular way. This will be discussed in detail in Chapter 18.
In business research, Johnson and Duberley (2000), Reed (2005), Contu and
Willmott (2005) and Delbridge (2014) suggest that critical realism provides one alter-
native for those studying management and organization. Johnson and Duberley
(2000) have suggested that critical realism allows you to use multi-methodological
approaches, which, in turn, enhance more detailed and accurate analyses when
looking for causalities in companies’ development, for example. Adoption of crit-
ical realism in business research is not, however, an easy or uncontested approach.
Labeling research as ‘critical research’ does not yet cover the basic features of critical
studies needed in critical research (Poutanen, 2016), as discussed in Chapter 18.
Interpretative and constructionist researchers start out with the assumption that
access to shared dynamic, and changing and individually constructed reality, is only
through social constructions such as language and shared meanings. This is why
interpretative and constructionist research does not only focus on the content of
empirical data, but also on how the content is produced through language practices.
Furthermore, research done from these philosophical positions does not predefine
dependent and independent variables, but focuses on the full complexity of human
sense making as the situations emerge. It is also assumed that there are many possible
interpretations of the same data, all of which are potentially meaningful.
Perhaps the dominant form of current interpretative research is social construc-
tionism, which was introduced by Berger and Luckmann in their book published in
1967. Social constructionism seeks to understand how the seemingly ‘objective’ fea-
tures, such as industries, organizations and technologies, are constituted by subjective
meanings of individuals and intersubjective processes such as discourses. Since Berger
and Luckmann, several versions of the social constructionism have been presented.
Vivien Burr (1995) identifies four basic assumptions of the social construction-
ist philosophical position. First, it takes a critical stance towards taken-for-granted
knowledge, trying to open it up for discussion. It is assumed that the world does not
present itself objectively to the observer, but is known through human experience,
which is mediated by language. Second, the categories in language that are used to
classify things around us are produced through social interaction within a group of
individuals at a particular time and in a particular place. Third, knowledge is sus-
tained by social processes and conventions of communication. Fourth, knowledge
and social action go together.
In this view, reality is socially constructed by interconnected patterns of commu-
nication. Therefore, reality is not defined by individual acts, but by complex and
organized patterns of ongoing actions. Schwandt (2001: 32) remarks that there are
both weak and strong versions of social constructionism that differ in their views
regarding the social construction of everything. For qualitative research, construc-
tionist views on knowledge production are useful, as they emphasize the close
relationship between researcher and researched field, interaction and understanding,
as basic tenets of research. Reflexivity is one key part of constructionism.
Hermeneutics
Hermeneutics is a term that originates from Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768–1834).
Also, the term ‘interpretivism’ is often used for hermeneutics. Hermeneutics refers
to the necessary condition of interpretation and understanding as part of the
research process: the inescapable action of interpretation (verstehen) taking place
in all research. It is ontological by nature, but still, hermeneutics and interpretivism
have given resonance to later epistemological developments in asserting that there
following the abduction logic. Inductive reasoning draws from observed cases more
general statements or general claims about most cases of the same kind. Deductive
reasoning is concerned with the formulation of hypotheses and theories from which
particular phenomena can then be explained.
Even though a particular study may look like it is purely deductive (e.g. an
experiment designed to test the hypothesized effects of some treatment on some
outcome), most social research involves both inductive and deductive reasoning
processes at some point in the same project. Therefore, it is good to keep in mind
that labelling your research as deductive, inductive, or abductive does not, by itself,
tell the reader exactly how your research process proceeded. Nor does it alone justify
your methodological choices.
If you want to use these terms in explaining the logic of your research, you should
be careful to describe in more detail how you have applied inductive or deductive
reasoning in the course of your research.
Deduction
Despite divergent business disciplines, the idea of deduction in research has been
by far the strongest way to build up the theoretical knowledge base. Deduction
rests on the idea that theory is the first source of knowledge. On the basis of what
is known about a phenomenon theoretically, the researcher is able to deduce
one or more hypotheses. The hypotheses are then subjected to empirical study.
The process of deduction is linear, following the logic of proceeding from theory
to empirical research. The certainty in theory development is gained through
hypothesis testing in empirical scrutiny. As multi-discipline approaches and dif-
fering ideas of the role and nature of theories in research have emerged, the
strict deductive model of research is not considered suitable for most qualitative
business research.
Induction
Much of the (quantitative) business research follows the logic of theory testing through
hypothesis scrutiny in the empirical world. However, many business study researchers
find this model lacking because they see theories as outcomes of empirical research,
not prior to it. Theories can also be seen as corrective modes concerning findings
or even publications that come forward during the research process (Johnson and
Duberley, 2000; Alvesson, Hardy and Harley, 2008). Therefore, induction in research
has gained a firm foothold. When you take the relationship between theory and
empirical research as inductive, you follow the logic of proceeding from empirical
research to theoretical results.
In other words, the research process develops, starting from empirical materials,
not from theoretical propositions.
Abduction
These two ‘ideal types’ of research logic or traditions, deduction and induction, seldom
exist as clear-cut alternatives. Many researchers use both induction and deduction in
different phases of their study, which means that you move iteratively between these
two during a research process. Some research methods books offer abduction as a way
to combine deduction and induction in one research project. Abduction refers to the
process of moving from the everyday descriptions and meanings given by people, to
categories and concepts that create the basis of an understanding or an explanation
of the phenomenon described.
Abduction, as defined by philosopher Charles Sanders Peirce, can be considered as
the logic of exploratory data analysis. For Peirce, abduction referred to the process of
generating new ideas or hypotheses. According to his idea, deduction can be used to
evaluate the hypotheses and the induction for justifying them with empirical data
(Staat, 1993; Schwandt, 2001). In practice, abduction is difficult to dissect from the
iterative work taking place in all empirical research. Some researchers also talk about
the hermeneutic circle in much the same meaning and relate abduction closer to
interpretivism. In general, no single model of scientific research is used, as the whole
research process most often consists of various forms of reasoning.
This chapter has briefly illustrated the complexity of the conceptual grid of phi-
losophy that embraces the knowledge of and about the different research methods.
You do not always need to explicate your philosophical position and commitments
in great detail, nor do you need to know the most advanced philosophical con-
ceptual discussions when you write a thesis on business-related issues. However,
it is most often useful to be knowledgeable of the key concepts and background
assumptions of each method.
Finally, research methods and their use change and develop over time. It is important
to keep in mind that, if the qualitative research approach that you choose is based
on, and shows an interest in philosophical questions, there is no excuse for you to
be ignorant about them.
The main philosophical traditions and positions that are relevant for qualitative
business research are positivism and its different forms, critical realism, interpre-
tivism and constructionism, hermeneutics, postmodernism and post-structuralism.
The concepts of deduction, induction and abduction clarify the way and direction
for arguments and knowledge claims. However, although they can seldom be found
purely presented, almost all qualitative research uses all three logics.
FURTHER READING
The articles ‘Reflecting on Reflexivity: Reflexive Textual Practices in Organization
and Management Theory’, by Alvesson, Hardy and Harley (2008), and ‘Multiplicity
and Reflexivity in Organizational Research’, by Davison, Steyaert, Marti and Michels
(2012) both discuss the ways in which researchers think about and discuss their
understanding of their own research field.
EXERCISE 2.1
1. What is the philosophical background of this research? How clearly does the researcher
explicate their position?
2. What is the logic of the research? How clearly does the researcher explicate the
logic of the research? Does it follow inductive, deductive or abductive reasoning?
In what ways?
3. Do you find the philosophical background of the study compatible with its overall logic?
Why? Why not?
EXERCISE 2.2
1. How and in what ways is the philosophical positioning of the qualitative approach and
methodology chosen in the research shown in the dissertation?
2. Elaborate and explicate the connections between the philosophical concepts used and
the methodology chosen.