Qualitative Research Methods

MODERN ORGANIZATION THEORY

TERM PROJECT

QUALITATIVE RESEARCH METHODS

FROM AN ORGANIZATION MANAGEMENT PERSPECTIVE

Эhsan Ulaю Kocaoрlu

JANUARY 2006

CONTENTS

Definition of Qualitative Research in Social Sciences

Approaches to Management Research

Positivism versus Phenomenology

Deductive and Inductive

Schools of Thought in Management Research

Major Qualitaitve Research Approaches

Ethnographic Approach

Phenomenology

Field Research

Grounded Theory

Case study

Action Research

Narrative research

Qualitative Data Collection Techniques

Interviews

Workshops / Focus Groups

Literature Review

Participant Observation

Nonparticipant Observation

Data Analysis and Analytic Techniques

Analytic induction

Constant comparison

Coding

Enumaration

Memoing

Integrative diagrams and sessions:

Quality of Qualitative Research

Credibility

Transferability

Dependability

Confirmability

Discussion and Conclusion

References

Definition of Qualitative Research in Social Sciences

The label qualitative methods is an umbrella term covering an array of interpretive techniques which seek to describe, decode, translate and otherwise come to terms with the meaning, not the frequency, of certain more or less naturally occurring phenomena in the social world. It involves the use of a vast array of non-statistical data collection and analysis techniques and rich mixture of inductive theory building practice. Figure 1 gives a good description of what of what type of research is considered qualitative together with what is not from research strategy and pupose to data collection and analysis methods.

Typically the observation and testing of theoretical predictions entail the researcher's a priori conceptualization, operationalization and statistical measurement of dimensions of respondents' behaviour rather than beginning with their subjective perspectives.

Indeed, human subjectivity is often specifically excluded from explanations of behaviour because such "inner" subjective causes are taken to be empirically unobservable and hence inadmissible as "genuinely scientific explanations".

In contrast, qualitative research has a direct interest in accessing actors' subjective meanings and interpretations in order to explain their behaviour, although whether or not this is possible in an objective manner has been subjected to much debate. Such commitments to understand are premised upon the idea that to follow the approach of the natural sciences in the study of the social world is an error because human action, unlike the behaviour of non-sentient objects in the natural world, has an internal subjective logic which must be understood in order to make it intelligible.

Quantitative measures of phenomena are seen to impose an external researcher-derived logic which excludes, or at best distorts rather than captures, actors' subjectivity from the data collected.

Hence qualitative management research has been seen as arising in response to these perceived limitations in conventional quantitative management research.

Approaches to Management Research

Positivism versus Phenomenology

"There is a long-standing debate about the most appropriate philosophical position from which methods should be derived. In the red-corner is phenomenology, in the blue- corner is positivism" (Young, 2005 in Zikmund, 1988).

Social scientists of a Positivist influence advocate that the social world exists externally and it can be measured through a scientific approach, for example through objective methods involving meticulous testing and observation. Theory is deduced through rigorous testing and observation, and seeks to explain causal relationships between variables i.e. through experimental, quasi-experimental, survey and rigorously defined methods (Young, 2005 in Denzin and Lincoln, 1994).

The alternative view of the Phenomenology approach states that reality is socially constructed rather than objectively determined. The focus here is on understanding what is happening and why, and collecting data from social interactions in the natural world using a naturalistic set of methodological procedures i.e. case studies, ethnography, observation and interviews (Denzin and Lincoln, 1994). Phenomenology is often referred to in a variety of terms e.g. Constructivism, Interpretivism, Naturalistic Inquiry, Qualitative Enquiry, Ethnographic, Post Positivism, Hermeneutics and Humanism (Young, 2005 in Robson, 1983 and Easterby-Smith et. al., 1991). Table 1 summarises the key differences between the two perspectives.

Deductive and Inductive

As presented in Table 1, the Positivist and Phenomenological perspectives use, respectively, a Deductive research approach and an Inductive research approach. The deductive research involves beginning a study with a theory