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Samenvatting Qualitative Research Methods
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Samenvatting QRM; Qualitative research in business & management, Michael D. Myers.
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Summary Qualitative Research in Business & Management
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Summary Qualitative Research MethodsChapter 2: overview of qualitative research
2.1 why do qualitative research?
Qualitative research methods are designed to help researchers understand the social and cultural context
within which people live.
One of the key benefits of qualitative research is that it allows a researcher to see and understand the context
within which decisions and actions take place.
Qualitative researchers argue that if you want to understand people’s motivations, their reasons, their actions,
and the context for their beliefs and actions in an in-depth way, qualitative research is best (talking to people,
not only quantitative research).
One of the primary motivations for doing qualitative, as opposed to quantitative, research comes from the
observation that, if there is one thing which distinguishes humans from the natural world, it is their ability to
talk. It is only by talking to people, or reading what they have written, that we can find out what they are
thinking, and understanding their thoughts goes a long way towards explaining their actions.
2.2 what is research?
Research is defined as an original investigation undertaken in order to contribute to knowledge and
understanding in a particular field.
Research is a creative activity leading to the production of new knowledge. The knowledge produced is new in
the sense that the facts, the interpretation of those facts, or the theories used to explain them might not have
been used in a particular way before in that specific discipline.
Research typically involves enquiry of an empirical or conceptual nature and is conducted by people with
specialist knowledge about the subject matter, theories, and methods in a specific field. Research may involve
contributing to the intellectual infrastructure of a subject or discipline (e.g. by publishing a dictionary).
As more research is published, the subject matter, theories and methods used in a particular field may change
over time.
If the experts, in evaluating the research, find that the results are sound, and that the findings are new to them,
then we can say that the research project represents an original contribution to knowledge. This way of
evaluating the quality of research in science is called the peer review system.
Some activities do not count as research in a university setting:
The preparation of teaching materials.
The provision of advice or opinion, e.g. consulting work.
Feasibility studies (where the output is a recommendation to a client).
Routine data collection (where there is no attempt to contribute to new knowledge in the field as a
whole).
Routine information systems development (where the output is a new or improved product for a
client, not the experimental design of a new product or service).
Any other routine professional practice.
,2.3. quantitative and qualitative research compared
Quantitative research methods were originally developed in the natural sciences to study natural phenomena.
The numbers ‘come to represent values and levels of theoretical constructs and concepts and the
interpretation of the numbers is viewed as strong scientific evidence of how a phenomenon works’.
Qualitative research methods were developed in the social sciences to enable researchers to study social and
cultural phenomena. Qualitative data sources include observation and participant observation (fieldwork),
interviews and questionnaires, documents and texts, and the researcher’s impressions and reactions.
Qualitative data are mostly a record of what people have said.
Generally speaking, quantitative research is best if you want to have a large sample size and you want to
generalize to a large population.
A major disadvantage of quantitative research is that, as a general rule, many of the social and cultural aspects
of organizations are lost or are treated in a superficial manner. The ‘context’ is usually treated as ‘noise’ or as
something that gets in the way. The quantitative researcher trades context for the ability to generalize across a
population.
Qualitative research is best if you want to study a particular subject in depth. It is good for explanatory
research, when the particular topic is new and there is not much previously published research on that topic. It
is also ideal for studying the social, cultural, and political aspects of people and organizations.
A major disadvantage of qualitative research, however, is that it is often difficult to generalize to a larger
population. You can generalize from qualitative research, but not by using sampling logic.
2.4 triangulation
Triangulation is the idea that you should do more than just one thing in a study. That is, you should use more
than one research method, use two or more techniques to gather data, or combine qualitative and quantitative
research methods in the one study.
It is relatively common for qualitative researchers to triangulate data within a study using just one research
method.
Triangulation is especially challenging if the research methods are substantially different in their underlying
philosophy or approach.
A slightly easier way to achieve the triangulation of research methods is for a single study to include multiple
researchers. In this case, each researcher brings to the table his or her own method of expertise and
experience.
2.5 research in business and management
A key feature of a qualitative or quantitative study, as opposed to a purely conceptual study, is that it is an
empirical investigation, i.e. it relies on empirical data from the natural or social world. The empirical
investigation seeks to contribute to the body of knowledge in a particular field.
A researcher finds a topic or a research problem that is relevant to the body of knowledge in a particular
discipline. In order to answer the question raised by the problem, the researcher subsequently uses a research
method to find some empirical evidence. These findings are hopefully significant enough to be published and
hence add to the body of knowledge. A new researcher then comes along and starts the process once more.
,2.6 rigour and relevance in research
Rigorous research Relevant research
‘scientific research’ Relevant to business practitioners
Emphasis on meeting scientific standards such as Emphasis on being immediately relevant to practice
validity and reliability
Subject to academic peer review Published in consulting reports or industry magazines
Published in academic journals
Theoretical contribution Practical contribution
Rigorous research is usually defined as research that meets the standards of ‘scientific’ research; it is research
that has been conducted according to the scientific model of research, subject to peer review, and published in
an academic journal.
Relevant research is usually defined as research that is of immediate relevance to business professionals. The
research can be used right away. This kind of research is usually seen as more akin to consulting.
An in-depth study, in particular, needs to look at the complexity of organizations, including the ‘complex,
unquantifiable issues’ that are the reality of business. A case study researcher or an ethnographer may well
study the social, cultural, and political aspects of a company.
, Chapter 3: research design
3.1 introduction
A research design is the plan for an entire qualitative research project. This plan should be written in a research
proposal that says what you are going to do.
Research design involved deciding upon all the various components of a research project: your philosophical
assumptions, your research method, which data collection techniques you will use, your approach to
qualitative data analysis, your approach to writing up, and, if applicable, how you plan to publish your findings.
The main purpose of research design is to provide a road map of the whole research project. You should be
flexible and willing to change your plan as the research project progresses.
Another purpose of a research design is to convince your potential supervisor(s), advisory committee,
department, school, and/or research funding committee that you are capable of doing the research and that
your research project is viable.
A proposal is essentially an argument ‘intended to convince the reader that the proposed research is
significant, relevant, and interesting, that the design of the study is sound, and that the researcher is capable of
successfully conducting the study’
3.2 choosing a topic
There are three important requirements in deciding upon a topic:
1. You are interested in the topic.
2. A faculty member is prepared to supervise you.
3. You can obtain relevant qualitative data on the topic.
Once you have decided upon a topic, the next task is to develop one or more research questions. These
questions should be framed in such a way that they are answerable empirically, i.e. by obtaining qualitative
data. The questions should also be relevant to a particular issue that is (or potentially is) of concern in your
chosen field of study. The questions should be designed to solve a research problem.
As a general rule, the top academic journals in every field publish the best research and they like to be the first
to publish a new idea.
The first step in the procedure for starting the process of research design is to read the research literature on a
particular topic in a business discipline. After going through the other steps, such as generating a list of
potential research questions, you are then ready to move on to the next stage of research design.
3.3 theoretical framework
All qualitative research projects need to have some kind of theoretical framework, which may be developed
before you begin the empirical research, during the project, or after (as in grounded theory).
The key is to find or create a theoretical framework that matches or fits the research problem that you have
decided to investigate. This theoretical framework, as a product of your literature review, then drives how the
research project is carried out.
In the explanatory phase, researchers are simply trying to figure out what is going on, and it is for this phase
that qualitative research is particularly suited. However, qualitative research can be used in theory-testing
studies, when researchers have a better idea of what to test.
Using deductive reasoning, a researcher starts ‘top-down’ so to speak and begins with a general theory about
the topic. This theory might be operationalized into one or more hypotheses, which are then tested by
collecting empirical data. One the data are analyzed, the hypotheses and the theory are confirmed or not, as
the case may be.
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