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Extensive Summary Advanced Research Methods - MAN-MOD012
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Extensive Summary Advanced Research Methods - MAN-MOD012 - from the year 2023/2024. All mandatory articles from the course guide!
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Summary Articles –Advanced Research Methods
Radboud University
MAN-MOD012
2023/2024
,Content
1. Competing paradigms in qualitative research – Guba et al., - 1994 .................................................................... 2
2. From an idea to a research question – Flick - 2007 ............................................................................................11
3. Qualitative research designs – Flick - 2007 ........................................................................................................14
4. Templates and turns in qualitative studies of strategy and management – Langley & Abdallah - 2011 .........21
5. Qualitative researchers: Cherry-pickers or beachcombers? – Gabriel - 2014 ...................................................30
6. Chapter 20 - Case Studies in Organizational Research – Symon & Cassell - 2012 ...........................................31
7. Chapter 26 - Discourse Analysis and Discursive Research – Symon & Cassell - 2012 .....................................35
8. Seeking qualitative rigor in inductive research: Notes on the Gioia methodology – Gioia et al., - 2013 .........37
9. Gender in academic networking: The role of gatekeepers in professorial recruitment – Van den Brink &
Benschop - 2014 ............................................................................................................................................................41
10. Presenting findings from qualitative research: One size does not fit all! – Reay et al., - 2019 ....................43
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, 1. Competing paradigms in qualitative research – Guba et al., - 1994
There are four different paradigms competing for acceptance as the paradigm of choice in informing and
guiding inquiry, especially qualitative inquiry: positivism, postpositivism, critical theory and related
ideological positions, and constructivism (natural inquiry). Although the title of this article implies that
the term qualitative is an umbrella term superior to the term paradigm (and, indeed, that usage is not
uncommon), according to the authors it is a term that ought to be reserved for a description of
types of methods. Both qualitative and quantitative methods may be used appropriately with any
research paradigm. Questions of method are secondary to questions of paradigm, which we define as the
basic belief system or worldview that guides the investigator, not only in choices of method,
but in ontologically and epistemologically fundamental ways. The interest in alternative paradigms has
been stimulated by a growing dissatisfaction with the patent overemphasis on quantitative methods. It
became clear that the metaphysical assumptions undergirding the conventional paradigm (the
"received view") must be seriously questioned.
The Quantitative/Qualitative Distinction
Mathematics is often termed the "queen of sciences," and those sciences, such as physics and chemistry,
that lend themselves especially well to quantification are known as "hard." Less quantifiable are for
example biology (although that is rapidly changing) and particularly the social sciences, are referred to
as "soft," (less with pejorative intent than to signal their (putative) imprecision and lack of
dependability). Scientific maturity is commonly believed to emerge as the degree of quantification
found within a given field increases. The "received view" of science (positivism, transformed over
the course of this century into postpositivism) focuses on efforts to verify (positivism) or falsify
(postpositivism) a priori hypotheses, stated as mathematical (quantitative) propositions or
propositions that can be easily converted into precise mathematical formulas expressing functional
relationships. Formulaic precision has profits when the aim of science is the prediction and control of
natural phenomena. There exists a widespread conviction that only quantitative data are valid, or of high
quality.
Critiques of the Received View
There are two critiques of the received view, one internal to the conventional paradigm (in terms
of those metaphysical assumptions that define the nature of positivist inquiry) and one external to it
(in terms of those assumptions defining alternative paradigms), to warrant a reconsideration of the
profits of qualitative data, and to question the very assumptions on which the pretended superiority of
quantification has been based. There is a variety of implicit (internal/intraparadigm) problems that have
surfaced challenges to conventional wisdom:
1. Context stripping: precise quantitative approaches that focus on selected subsets of variables
who necessarily "strip" from consideration, through appropriate controls or randomization,
other variables that exist in the context, if allowed to exert their effects, greatly alter findings.
The exclusionary designs, while increasing the theoretical rigor of a study, detract from its
relevance, that is, its applicability or generalizability, because their outcomes can be applied only
in other similarly truncated or contextually stripped situations (another laboratory, for
example). Qualitative data, it is argued, can redress that imbalance by providing contextual
information;
2. Exclusion of meaning and purpose: human behaviour, unlike that of physical objects, cannot be
understood without reference to the meanings and purposes attached by human actors to their
activities. Qualitative data can provide rich insight into human behaviour;
3. Disjunction of grand theories with local contexts: the etic/emic dilemma. The etic (outsider)
theory brought to bear on an inquiry by an investigator (or the hypotheses proposed to be tested)
may have little or no meaning within the emic (insider) view of studied individuals, groups,
societies, or cultures. Qualitative data is useful for uncovering emic views; theories should
be qualitatively grounded. This is particularly crucial in view of the mounting criticism of social
science as failing to provide for example the material for a criticism of our own Western culture;
2
, 4. Inapplicability of general data to individual cases: sometimes described as the
nomothetic/idiographic disjunction. Generalizations, perhaps statistically meaningful,
have no applicability in the individual case (f.e. 80% of individuals with symptoms have lung
cancer is at best incomplete evidence that a particular patient with such symptoms has lung
cancer). Qualitative data can help to avoid such ambiguities;
5. Exclusion of the discovery dimension in inquiry: used emphasis on the verification of specific, a
priori hypotheses glosses over the source of those hypotheses, usually arrived at by what is
commonly termed the discovery process. In the received view only empirical inquiry deserves
to be called "science." Quantitative normative methodology is privileged over the insights of
creative and divergent thinkers. The call for qualitative inputs is expected to redress this
imbalance.
The intraparadigm problems offer a weighty challenge to conventional methodology, but could be
eliminated, or improved, by greater use of qualitative data. There are critics who have proposed
alternative paradigms and thereby reject the received view which can be justified on several grounds:
1. The theory-ladenness of facts: conventional approaches to research involving the verification or
falsification of hypotheses assume the independence of theoretical and observational languages.
If an inquiry is to be objective, hypotheses must be stated in ways that are independent of the
way of how facts needed to test them are collected. It seems established beyond objection that
theories and facts are interdependent, facts are facts only within some theoretical framework. A
fundamental assumption of the received view is exposed as dubious. If hypotheses and
observations are not independent, "facts" can only be viewed through a theoretical
"window" and objectivity is undermined;
2. The underdetermination of theory: problem is also known as the problem of induction. Not
only are facts determined by the theory window through which one looks for them, but different
theory windows might be equally supported by the same set of "facts." Given a coherent theory,
to derive by deduction what facts ought to exist, it is almost never possible, given a coherent set
of facts, to arrive by induction at a single, ineluctable theory. This difficulty led Popper to reject
the notion of theory verification in favour of the notion of theory falsification. A million white
swans can never establish, with complete confidence, the proposition that all swans are white,
one black swan can falsify it. The historical position of science can, by methods, ultimately
converge on the "real" truth is thus brought sharply into question ;
3. The value-ladenness of facts: just as theories and facts are not independent, neither are values
and facts. It can be argued that theories are themselves value statements. Pretended "facts" are
viewed not only through a theory window, but through a value window as well. The value free
posture of the received view is compromised;
4. The interactive nature of the inquirer-inquired into dyad: the received view of science pictures
the inquirer as standing behind a one-way mirror, viewing natural phenomena as they happen
and recording them objectively. The inquirer (when using proper methodology) does not
influence the phenomena or vice versa. But evidence such as the Heisenberg uncertainty
principle and the Bohr complementarity principle have shattered that ideal in the hard sciences;
even greater scepticism must exist for the social sciences. The notion that findings are created
through the interaction of inquirer and phenomenon (which, in the social sciences, is usually
people) is often a more plausible description of the inquiry process than is the notion that
findings are discovered through objective observation.
The extraparadigm critiques, which raise problems of such consequence, are the reason that the
received view is being widely questioned.
The Nature of Paradigms
A paradigm may be viewed as a set of basic beliefs (or metaphysics) that deals with ultimates
or first principles. It represents a worldview that defines, for its holder, the nature of the "world," the
individual's place in it, and the range of possible relationships to that world and its parts, as, f.e.
cosmologies and theologies do. The beliefs are basic in the sense that they must be accepted simply
on faith (however well argued); there is no way to establish their ultimate truthfulness. Inquiry
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