Slide 1.

Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill, Research Methods for Business Students, 5th Edition, © Mark Saunders, Philip Lewis and Adrian Thornhill 2009
Slide 1.2

Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill, Research Methods for Business Students, 5th Edition, © Mark Saunders, Philip Lewis and Adrian Thornhill 2009
Slide 1.3

Why philosophy ?
• All research is based on assumptions
– about how the world is perceived
– about how we can best come to understand it.
• Nobody really knows how we can best understand
the world
• Philosophers have been arguing about it for 1000s
of years,
• For us, as researchers, need to consider how we
know about the world around us. What is our
philosophical approach to knowledge?
Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill, Research Methods for Business Students, 5th Edition, © Mark Saunders, Philip Lewis and Adrian Thornhill 2009
Slide 1.4

• Analysis of the impact of advertising costs on level

of profits of companies

• Analysis of leadership style on employee motivation

in organizations

Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill, Research Methods for Business Students, 5th Edition, © Mark Saunders, Philip Lewis and Adrian Thornhill 2009
Slide 1.5

Two major ways of thinking about research

philosophy

• Ontology …is about what things are; what is reality ?

• Epistemology….is about the way we know things.

How can I know reality?

Your ontology and epistemology create a holistic view of

how knowledge is viewed and how we can see ourselves
in relation to this knowledge, and the methodological
strategies we use to discover it.
Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill, Research Methods for Business Students, 5th Edition, © Mark Saunders, Philip Lewis and Adrian Thornhill 2009
 Ontology –
Slide 1.6

Ontology is the science of being…what is reality? What is truth?

• What kind of objects exist in the social world?

• Do social entities exist independently of our

perceptions of them?

• Is social reality external to social actors or

constructed by them?

Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill, Research Methods for Business Students, 5th Edition, © Mark Saunders, Philip Lewis and Adrian Thornhill 2009
Slide 1.7

What is objectivism?
• Objectivism is an ontological position that asserts that
social phenomena and their meanings have an existence
that is independent of social actors. There is a single
reality or truth.

• Social reality is out there without any influence from the

social actors. Truth can be discovered using objective
measurements.

• Ex management in the organisation has a reality that is

separate from the managers that inhabit that reality
Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill, Research Methods for Business Students, 5th Edition, © Mark Saunders, Philip Lewis and Adrian Thornhill 2009
Slide 1.8

What is constructivism?
• Constructionism is an ontological position which asserts
that social phenomena and their meanings are created
from the perceptions and consequent actions of social
actors. …there are multiple realities shaped by context

• Social actors have an active role in the construction of the

social reality. Instead of being external to the individuals,
reality is an on-going transformation in the process of
construction and reconstruction by social actors

• It implies that researchers' own accounts of the social

world are constructions and knowledge is indeterminate.
Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill, Research Methods for Business Students, 5th Edition, © Mark Saunders, Philip Lewis and Adrian Thornhill 2009
Slide 1.9

Epistemology-how knowledge is derived?

• “How do we know what we know?”

• It is about the researcher’s view regarding what constitutes

acceptable knowledge. What should be considered
acceptable knowledge in a discipline?

• Can the approach to the study of the social world ,

including management, be the same as the approach to
studying natural sciences? Can the social world be studied
according to the same principles as the natural sciences?

Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill, Research Methods for Business Students, 5th Edition, © Mark Saunders, Philip Lewis and Adrian Thornhill 2009
 Positivism…research philosophy used by the natural sciences
Slide 1.10

• Only observable phenomena can provide credible data, facts and be

warranted as knowledge.

• Makes detached interpretations about the data that have been

collected in an objective manner…the researcher is independent of
the subject of the research and the researcher is not affected by the
subject of the research

• Focus on highly structured methodology and methods(ex

questionnaires) and observations can be quantified permitting
statistical analysis; the end product of the research are law-like
generalizations

• Human are regarded as natural objects and their behaviour can be

explained by external forces that act on them-such as social norms,
social class, gender, etc
Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill, Research Methods for Business Students, 5th Edition, © Mark Saunders, Philip Lewis and Adrian Thornhill 2009
Slide 1.11

Positivists
believe that there is a single reality(reality is stable) ,
which can be measured and known from an objective
viewpoint, and therefore they are more likely to use
quantitative methods (experiments/surveys) to
measure this reality.

The assumption is that the researcher is independent

of and neither affects nor is affected by the subject of
the research.

Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill, Research Methods for Business Students, 5th Edition, © Mark Saunders, Philip Lewis and Adrian Thornhill 2009
 Interpretivism
Slide 1.12

• Interpretivism advocates that it is necessary for the researcher to

understand the differences between humans in our role as social actors

•The subject matter of social sciences(people and their institutions) is

fundamentally different from the natural sciences. The social world of
business and management is far too complex for the traditional natural
sciences approaches-therefore it cannot be generalized…it depends on
particular sets of circumstances and individuals.

•It is the role of interpretivists to seek to understand the subjective

reality of those they study –to understand their motives, actions and
intentions. Investigating social actors requires different methods and
procedures…..the goal is to understand individuals behaviour in an
emphatic way….. i.e to understand their world from their point of view.
Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill, Research Methods for Business Students, 5th Edition, © Mark Saunders, Philip Lewis and Adrian Thornhill 2009
Slide 1.13

Interpretivists
believe that there is no single reality or truth, and
therefore reality needs to be interpreted, and
therefore they are more likely to use qualitative
methods(interviews/participant observation) to get
those multiple realities.

Supports the view that scientists(who are subjective

entities and are part of the world they are observing)
cannot avoid affecting those phenomena they study.
Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill, Research Methods for Business Students, 5th Edition, © Mark Saunders, Philip Lewis and Adrian Thornhill 2009
Slide 1.14

Pragmatism
• Either or both observable phenomena and
subjective meanings can provide acceptable
knowledge dependent upon the research question.

• Focus on practical applied research, integrating

different perspectives to help interpret the data

• What is most important is the research question….it

is perfectly possible to work with the different
philosophies
Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill, Research Methods for Business Students, 5th Edition, © Mark Saunders, Philip Lewis and Adrian Thornhill 2009
Slide 1.15

Pragmatists
believe that reality is constantly renegotiated,
debated, interpreted, and therefore the best method
to use is the one that solves the problem

Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill, Research Methods for Business Students, 5th Edition, © Mark Saunders, Philip Lewis and Adrian Thornhill 2009
Slide 1.16

Remember that

Your ontology (what is reality?) dictates

your epistemology(how do we know
something?) which dictates your
methodology(how do you go about finding it
out?) which dictates your methods(data
collection and analysis techniques)

Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill, Research Methods for Business Students, 5th Edition, © Mark Saunders, Philip Lewis and Adrian Thornhill 2009
Slide 1.17

Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill, Research Methods for Business Students, 5th Edition, © Mark Saunders, Philip Lewis and Adrian Thornhill 2009
Slide 1.18

What ontology and epistemology and approach

would be linked to experiments? to in-depth
interviews?

Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill, Research Methods for Business Students, 5th Edition, © Mark Saunders, Philip Lewis and Adrian Thornhill 2009