Qualitative Methodologies in Organization Studies

This chapter provides an introduction to the qualitative methods and their use in the organization studies. It also provides an overview of the book and particular chapters within it.

The aim of the chapter is to raise novice researchers’ awareness of the significance of philosophical assumptions for their practical activity. The text presents the basic terms connected with the methodology of social sciences. The entire discussion is centered on the issue of paradigms. Various approaches within the framework of basic philosophical assumptions are discussed—concerning the nature of social reality (ontologies), the nature of scientific cognition (epistemologies), and practical ways of conducting social research (methodologies). An important element of the text is the presentation of two classifications of paradigms in social sciences with particular consideration given to qualitative research.

Grounded theory is a strategy for conducting qualitative research without having a priori formulated hypotheses, but instead the method requires that researchers continuously compare and contrast pieces of collected empirical material to develop codes and categories that will serve in formulating a theory about the studied phenomenon. This chapter explains the logic of the grounded theory research strategy. The first part of the chapter presents the conceptual roots of the grounded theory approach and differences between deductive and inductive reasoning in theory development. The second part provides a broad description of the consecutive steps in the research process: data gathering, note-making, coding and theory development. Various coding strategies are explained and illustrated with examples. The chapter ends with enumeration of common misunderstandings associated with the grounded theory approach.

The aim of this chapter is to explain what visual anthropology is and to demonstrate her and her sister’s, visual sociology’s, uses in understanding the increasingly sophisticated competition for our (un)divided attention. This fierce, mostly visual and iconic, competition underpins systematically mobilized and individualized interactions and communications. These intense, passionate, individualized, mobile communications happen under our very eyes—otherwise known as processes, ebbs and flows of social life, they accelerate with the mobile multimedia connectivity. Navigating our increasingly complex social worlds (real, fictitious and virtual), comprehending these increasingly sophisticated cultural realities (real, virtual and interactive), requires skills, access to sociocultural capital and empowerment to employ the above-mentioned resources. Hence the growth of interest in visual communications, which facilitate learning outside of the range of control status gatekeepers.

This chapter discusses action research, a strategy for social research that combines the expertise and facilitation of a professional social researcher with the knowledge, energy, and commitments of local stakeholders in a particular set of organizational, community, political, or environmental problems. Together, these actors form a collaborative learning community to define the problems clearly and decide what data are needed to understand the problems and to generate hypotheses about the relevant causes. They then engage together in gathering data, recruiting of additional expertise, and interpreting the results. Finally, they co-design the actions arising from their results to ameliorate the problems, take the actions, and then evaluate the results. They evaluate the results together and, if the results do not meet their expectations, they engage in further cycles of research, analysis, and action until the problems have been addressed to their satisfaction. The learning community so created operates according to a set of values that privilege respect for the knowledge and interests of all participants (including the social researcher), democratic dialogue that aims to permit the group to learn from the experiences and commitments of all of its members, and that is premised on the ability of all people to become more effective researchers and to act more effectively on their own behalf.

It is important to note that the term organisational ethnography can be used in a variety of ways: for example, as a research method; as a descriptive study of people in a particular cultural context; as a theory-informed and theory-informing analysis of (intensive) fieldwork; and as a partly humanities style written account and analysis of events in which the researcher-writer has participated. The present author personally favours a combination of the latter two examples and the chapter will explain that this is probably the most helpful for the doctoral researcher to adopt, given current trends in ethnographic organisational studies and, indeed, the preferences of external examiners working in the field. It will be stressed that it is not helpful to think of ethnography as a research method. Among the various reasons for this is the fact that producing ethnography can involve a whole range of research methods, from interviews and documentary analysis to mini-surveys and life and historical analyses. All of these are secondary, however, to the use of intensive, preferably, participative, observation or ‘field work’. The conclusion will observe that making ethnographies is an especially challenging enterprise, in terms of investigative practices, analytical work and writing. When carried out within organisations it can, however, achieve a depth of insight and theory-relevant analysis that cannot be produced with any other style of organisational research. Its greatest potential lies in its capacity to relate the very mundane, particular and detailed actions of organisational members to larger organisational, social, political and economic ‘wholes’.

Reflexivity has emerged as the new gold standard for qualitative researchers who reject positivist methodologies and traditional criteria of rigour, reliability and validity. But what exactly is reflexivity? How is reflexive different from reflective? And does reflexivity offer a guarantee for quality scholarship? These are some of the questions I will address in this chapter. Reflexivity is a difficult concept to define and an even harder one to deploy or practice. ‘Reflexivity’ is now routinely used as a pompous synonym for ‘reflectiveness’, that is the ability to take a step back from a situation in order to reflect on it. According to this view, reflexive researchers are those who take a step back to question their own assumptions, the interests served by their research, the ramifications of their findings and the ethical foundations of their practice. All this is fine and good, but it is not what reflexivity is all about, or at least it is not all that reflexivity is. If reflexivity is to have some meaning beyond fashionable cliché, it has to recover its fundamental quality. As I see it, this amounts to the ability of human statements to alter the state of what is being stated and the person who states it. More generally, a reflexive activity is one in which subject and object co-create each other. At every moment, the storyteller creates a protagonist, whose predicaments redefine the storyteller. This is an idea present in the now almost forgotten Marxist concept of dialectics where humans and the conditions of their existence co-create each other. A reflexive researcher recognizes that what she says or writes influences and redefines that about which she is writing as well as herself as the author. Reflexivity may be important but it is no guarantee of good quality research work. All the reflexivity in the world will not turn a dull piece of work into an interesting one. Quite the opposite—it will make it still duller. What reflexivity will not replace is the researcher’s intelligence and craft that are equally alert to similarities and exceptions, continuities and discontinuities, plans and improvisations. Above all, what reflexivity cannot replace is the active and inquiring imagination that pressingly and persistently asks two related questions ‘Why?’ and ‘What if?’ In fact, I will argue that without imagination, reflexivity itself ends up as dull academic ritual, another formula with which to elicit the yawning approval of one’s peers.

In this chapter I explore some of the emotional challenges encountered when conducting qualitative research. Throughout the chapter I refer to a carefully selected literature set and qualitative research studies. I also offer some practical guidance to help those engaging in qualitative research.

In this chapter, I aim to provide a review and practical guidance on making research participation accessible by lowering barriers to participation. I outline how barriers to participation constitute barriers to representation. This is at odds with our ethos as qualitative researchers and there are strong ethical and methodological arguments for improving access to research participation. Individual sections discuss possible accommodations and adjustments throughout the research process, from the planning phase, to approaching and recruiting participants, preparing and presenting material, general communication with participants, up to presenting and disseminating research findings. I conclude by stressing that accessible research is necessary, possible and productive.

In this chapter, we explore a number of ethical questions and ethical dilemmas that can arise at different stages of the research process. Rather than attempting to provide an answer to these or a full overview of the ethical issues encountered by researchers, we aim to sensitize the reader to some of the complexities involved in trying to do qualitative research in an ethically sensitive manner. We see ethics not as a uniform set of rules or a formal institutional requirement but rather as an integral element of research praxis. We therefore consider a number of ethical questions that are likely to arise at different stages of the research process and alert the reader to some ethically important moments that they might encounter. We start by looking at some ethical questions linked to the research design. We then turn to discussing ethical challenges associated with negotiating access, trying to obtain informed consent from participants as well as maintaining and managing relationships with them. We conclude by discussing ethical issues in relation to data presentation.