Research Philosophies and

Approaches

Dr. Usman Khalid

Learning Objectives
 By the end of this chapter, you should be able to:
 Define the key terms ontology, epistemology and axiology and explain their
relevance to business research
 Explain the relevance for business research with such philosophical
perspectives as positivism, realism, pragmatism and interpretivism
 Understand the main research paradigms which are significant for business
research
 State your own epistemological, ontological and axiological positions.

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Activity
 Considering yourself as researchers, please think about and share your
basic belief that guides your research.

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Research Philosophy
 Research method generally explains how one will collect its data and
analyze it. However, research paradigm/philosophy defines basic belief
system or world view that guides the investigation

 They say, “questions of method are secondary to questions of paradigm”,

what do you think?

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Research Philosophy - Implications
 Law of conservation of mass states “… mass in an isolated system
is neither created nor destroyed by chemical reactions or physical
transformations”
 Broader implications of this belief are?
 Matter is indestructible and uncreatable
 Considering universe as a closed system, matter becomes THE OMNIPOTENT
 If one starts exploring universe with this belief, he will?
 Always consider matter as constant
 Might consider his/her experiments wrong if they prove otherwise

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Research Philosophy - Implications
 Now consider this belief, and imagine what will be the implications
for research in natural sciences

(Ar-Rehman-26) ‫ُك ُّل َمْن َعلَ ْيهَ ا فَ ٍان‬

Everything upon the earth will perish

(Ar-Rehman-27) ‫ام‬‫ر‬َ ْ
‫ك‬ ‫ا‬ ‫و‬
‫ل‬
ِ ‫ِ َ ِإْل‬ ‫اَل‬‫ج‬َ ‫ل‬ ْ ‫ا‬ ‫و‬ ُ
‫ذ‬ ‫َويَ ْبقَ ٰى َو ْجهُ َربِّ َك‬
And there will remain the Face of your Lord, Owner of Majesty
and Honor

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Activity
 Why do we need to expand our knowledge horizon??
 For the betterment of human societies
 To seek answers for such questions as
 Who we are?
 Why are we here?
 From where we have come here?
 Is there an end to this world?
 What will happen after this?
 Answers to these questions define how we will live in this world or what
wider objectives and course of action we will choose for ourselves

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Research Philosophy - Implications
 Our beliefs have a crucial impact on the research we are willing to do
 The research is all about understanding our surroundings and ourselves
 We refer this as process of knowledge creation
 Our values/beliefs therefore define the knowledge we create

Belief
Research Knowledge
system

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Research Philosophy - Implications

Belief
Research Knowledge Life
system

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Foundations of Modern Scientific Research

 The education system nurtured by any human civilization is largely

dependent upon its viewpoint towards human beings

 Education system is a tool to develop human capabilities

 Civilization’s basic understanding of human beings or human nature

defines which human capabilities, strengths, attitudes, behaviors,
thought process it wants to nurture in its citizens

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 Foundations of Modern Scientific Research
Knowledge/intellectual revolution
(16th-18th century)

Geocentric vs Heliocentric Galileo and Religion vs

universe Newton Science

Values, morality, religion, dogmas all

René Descartes Rationalism  Age of reason
will be evaluated on scale of reason

Human race prospered because

Charles Darwin Survival of fittest
it was ‘fitter’ than other animals

Adult personality is controlled by unconscious Unconscious mind (id, ego,

Sigmund Freud
mind, which wants to satisfy its sexual instinct superego)

Objective of all human efforts is to Class struggle - Socialism

Karl Marx
gain material success
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Human Beings “were”, They “are”…
A respectful being who is sole purpose of creation of this world. Whose actions are
driven by morality and whose ambitions are far beyond the worldly affairs

A refined and evolved member of animal kingdom, whose actions are driven by basic
instincts and whose objective is to get opulence by spending all his capabilities

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Philosophical Context of Science in Different
Traditions
 Science can’t flourish in absence of a philosophical context/ideology
 Researcher needs an ideology or philosophical context to guide and
justify its scientific quests

 Ideological context of science in West is guided by their dogma that

“science can’t flourish if belief in God is made its foundations”
 The reason being centuries of repression of science by church

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Philosophical Context of Science in Different
Traditions
 Muslim scientific tradition is guided by ideology that “science can’t
reach its zenith if belief in the one God is not made its foundation”
 The rationale of ideology is
 To understand the creator, one needs to understand its creation
 Creation is representation of abilities of the creator
 If one wants to truly understand creation, one must be mindful of the
attributes of creator

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Purpose of Research
 Before starting research, we carefully need to think about…
 Why am I working on this research question?
 What shall be the wider objective of my research?
 Why do we need to expand our knowledge horizon?
 …

 Answers to these questions will define the nature of knowledge we

create and extent of our contribution in development of human
societies.

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The Research Onion

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Research Philosophy
 The term relates with development of knowledge and nature of that
knowledge
 Materialistic beliefs of researcher will produce materialistic knowledge
 Idealistic beliefs of researcher will produce idealistic knowledge

 Underpins your research strategy and the methods you choose to

support that strategy
 Elaborates the view about the relationship between the knowledge
and the process by which it is developed

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Research Philosophy
 Compare two researchers
 Researcher A is concerned about facts
 Resources needed in a manufacturing process  concerned more with
numbers & machines
 Researcher B is concerned about
 Feelings and attitudes of workers towards their managers  concerned
more with feelings and human beings

 Differing views about what is important or useful

 Research strategies and methods will differ

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Research Philosophy
 No research philosophy is better than other
 One is just good in doing something than other

 By the way, don’t you think, it all depends upon the research
question? Then why are we discussing research philosophies?

 “It all depends upon research question”, is itself a philosophy called

PRAGMATISM.

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Pragmatism
 Argues that the most important determinant of the epistemology,
ontology and axiology you adopt is the research question – one may be
more appropriate than the other for answering particular questions.
 If research question is ambiguous about philosophical foundations, you
are free to choose any quarter
 Mixed methods – qualitative and quantitative techniques in the same
study

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Pragmatism
 ‘study what interests you and is of value to you, study in the different
ways in which you deem appropriate, and use the results in ways that
can bring about positive consequences within your value system’
(Tashakkori and Teddlie 1998:30).

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Ontology, Epistemology & Axiology
 Ontology
 Questions the nature of reality
 Epistemology
 Questions what constitutes acceptable knowledge in a field of study
 Axiology
 Questions the roles our values play in our research choices

 Answers of these three broad questions will determine to which

quarter of research philosophy researcher belongs

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Ontology
 The term is concerned with nature of reality
 Questions the assumptions about the way world operates and
commitment held to particular views

 Two aspects
 Objectivism
 Subjectivism

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Objectivism
 This portrays the position that social realities exist external to social
actors concerned with their existence
 Perceptions/attributes of social actors (managers) don’t influence
performance of social entities (organizations)
 From an objectivist standpoint
 Managers must perform their duties in accordance with set principals
 Formal structures governing the behavior/job of managers is more
important.
 To increase organizational efficiency, one shall focus on identifying
bottlenecks and streamlining the underlying structures

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Subjectivism
 This holds that social phenomena are created from the perceptions and
consequent actions of those social actors concerned with their existence
 Considers social phenomenon a continually evolving process through the
process of social interaction
 Also referred to as social constructionism
 Reality is being socially constructed
 Social actors have differing world views based upon their unique
experiences, which guides/influences their actions

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Epistemology
 What constitutes acceptable knowledge in a field of study
 Compare
 Operations management researcher
 Concerned with the collection and analysis of ‘fact’ i.e. data about
machines, trucks, computers …
 Data for him is less open to bias and hence more ‘objective’
 Researcher working on behavioral aspects of employees
 Concerned with the feelings/attitudes of workers towards their managers
 Feelings/attitudes are social phenomenon with no external reality
 Data is more ‘subjective’ in nature

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Epistemology
 Traditionally science appreciates two sources of knowledge
 Rationalism  Intellect  Greek philosophy
 Empiricism  Experimentation  Knowledge gained through senses
 Today’s West largely appreciates knowledge acquired through
empiricism, or the one gained from “tangible sources”.

 Knowledge is defined as “facts, information and skills acquired through

experience or education, the theoretical or practical understanding of
a subject”

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Activity
 What could be other possible sources of human knowledge?
 Acquired vs Revealed knowledge

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Positivism
 Deals only with the phenomenon that can be observed and will lead to
the production of credible data.
 Operations management researcher is pursuing a positivist philosophy
 More a stance of natural scientist
 ‘working with an observable social reality and that the end product of
such research can be law-like generalizations similar to those produced
by the physical and natural scientists’ (Remenyi et al. 1998:32).
 The researcher is independent of and neither affects nor is affected by
the subject of the research.

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Positivism
 Researcher likely uses a highly structured methodology
 Emphasis is on quantifiable observations that lend themselves to
statistical analysis

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Interpretivism
 One may criticize the positivist tradition and argue that the social
world of business and management is far too complex to lend itself to
theorizing by definite ‘laws’ in the same way as the physical sciences.

 Interpretivism advocates that it is necessary for the researcher to

understand differences between humans in our role as social actors.
 Emphasizes the difference between conducting research among people
rather than objects such as trucks and computers

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Realism
 What the senses show us as reality is the truth: that objects have an
existence independent of the human mind
 The reality is quite independent of the mind
 Realism is opposed to idealism (the theory that only the mind and its
contents exist).
 Similar to positivism in that
 Assumes a scientific approach to knowledge development
 Through collection and analysis of data

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Direct Realism & Critical Realism
 Direct realism
 What we experience through our senses portrays the world accurately
 Critical realism
 What we experience are sensations, the images of the things in the real
world, not the things directly.
 For example, when you next watch an international cricket match on
television you are likely to see an advertisement for the sponsor in a
prominent position on the actual playing surface. This looks like it is
standing upright on the field.

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Direct Realism & Critical Realism
 From a critical realist’s perspective
 Business and management research is concerned with the social world
 Researchers will only be able to understand what is going on in the social
world if they understand the social structures that have given rise to the
phenomena that they are trying to understand.
 What we normally see is only a part of the bigger picture

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Axiology
 Is a branch of philosophy that studies judgements about value.
 May include studying aesthetic and ethical values.
 Values are guiding reasons for all human actions
 Knowing axiological foundations are important
 Values of researcher influence all stages of research process
 Choice of one topic or data collection methodology over other are
largely influenced by axiological choices of researcher.

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Comparison of Four Research Philosophies
 Three dimensions
to differentiate
between four
philosophical
traditions

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Classwork
 Think again and state your own ontological, epistemological and
axiological position(s).

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Research Paradigms
 Paradigm is a way of examining social phenomena from which
particular understanding of these phenomena can be gained and
explanations attempted

Research Conceptual
paradigms dimensions

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Activity
 Elaborate subjectivist and objectivist research paradigms for the
analysis of social theory

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Radical Change
 Evaluates the way organizational affairs may be conducted in order to
make fundamental changes to the normal order of things
 Adopts a critical perspective on the organizational life

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Regulatory Perspective
 Relatively less judgmental and critical
 Seeks to explain the way in which organizational affairs are regulated
and offer suggestions as to how they may be improved within the
framework of the way things are done at present.

 The radical change dimension approaches organizational problems

from the viewpoint of overturning the existing state of affairs; the
regulatory dimension seeks to work within the existing state of affairs.

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Classwork
 Write brief notes on each of the four research paradigms
 Saunders et al.  Chapter 4, p. 120-121

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Research Approaches
 Clarity about theoretical foundations of the research plays crucial part
in designing of research project
 Research approach guides us how we relate the research project with
theory
 Two main approaches
 Deduction
 Induction

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Deduction: Testing Theory
 Development of a theory that is subjected to a rigorous test
 It involves development of a theory and hypothesis and design a
research strategy to test the hypothesis
 Owes more to positivism
 Has its origins in research in the natural science (laws present the
basis of explanation)

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Deduction: Testing Theory
 Five stages of deductive research
1. Deducing a hypothesis (a testable proposition about the relationship
between two or more concepts or variables) from the theory
2. Expressing the hypothesis in operational terms (that is, indicating exactly
how the concepts or variables are to be measured), which propose a
relationship between two specific concepts or variables
3. Testing this operational hypothesis (this will involve one or more of the
strategies)
4. Examining the specific outcome of the inquiry (it will either tend to
confirm the theory or indicate the need for its modification)
5. If necessary, modifying the theory in the light of the findings.

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Deduction: Testing Theory

 H 1: Information sharing with suppliers increases e-procurement

performance in informal markets

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Induction: Building Theory
 Concerned with collecting data and developing theory as a result of
data analysis
 Purpose is to get a feel of what is going on, to better understand the
nature of the problem.
 More compatible with the social science research, which considers
human related phenomenon as continuously evolving (changing),
rather than thinking research objects (humans) respond in a
mechanistic way to certain circumstances ( laws in natural science)

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Induction: Building Theory
 Inductive research is likely to be practically concerned with the
context in which events take place.

 Relatively less structured methodologies are adopted when compared

to deductive research to accommodate the dynamic nature of
research objects and environment

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Induction: Building Theory

 Research question: How information sharing with suppliers effects e-

procurement performance in informal markets?

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Activity
 Discuss in groups why knowing your research approach is
important?

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Research Approaches
 Choice of research approach is important as
 It enables you to take a more informed decision about your research
design
 It will help you to think about those research strategies and choices that
will work for you and, crucially, those that will not
 Knowledge of the different research traditions enables you to adapt your
research design to cater for constraints.

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Differences Between Induction and Deduction

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 Thank You

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