Research Methodology

Chapter 04 - Summary Note

Understanding research philosophies

and approaches

G.G.N.M.L.C.K Nawarathna
# 17253

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Chapter 4 - Understanding research philosophies and approaches

Table of Contents
4.1 Introduction ............................................................................................................................... 1
4.2 Understanding your research philosophy: why research philosophy is important ................... 1
4.3 Research approaches ................................................................................................................. 4
4.4 Summary ................................................................................................................................... 5

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4.1 Introduction
Basically through this chapter concerned about principally with the first two of the onion’s layers
which are research philosophy and research approach.

4.2 Understanding your research philosophy: why research philosophy is

important
The research philosophy guideline which contains important assumptions about the way in view
the world and these assumptions will underpin research strategy and the methods that choose as
part of that strategy. In other words; Research philosophy is a term that describes the
development of knowledge and the nature of that knowledge Method that chooses to collect data
belongs in the centre of the research ‘onion’, as shown below. The research onion depicts the
aspects underlying the choice of data collection techniques.

Understanding research philosophy is important because the very purpose of research is also to
develop new knowledge. It is not true that one philosophy is better than another, but they might
be suited to achieve different things. There are three major ways of thinking about research
philosophy: epistemology, ontology and axiology. Each contains important differences which
will influence the way in which empower think about the research process.

Ontology
Ontology is a philosophical position that refers to the nature of reality. One aspect of ontology is
objectivism and another one is subjectivism.

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Objectivism means that things exist with a purpose independent of those social actors concerned
with their existence. Objectivists think that the culture of an organization is something that an
organization has while subjectivist tend to view the culture as something an organization is
Management theory is leaning towards the objectivist way of thinking. Another aspect of
subjectivism is which holds that social occurrences are created through the perceptions and
consequent actions of the involved social actors. People who adopt a subjectivist way of thinking
find it is necessary to explore the details of a situation to be able to understand what is going on.
This is termed social constructionism.
Epistemology
Epistemology refers to what constitutes acceptable knowledge in an area of study. It addresses
the questions: ‘What is knowledge?’, ‘How is knowledge acquired?’ and ‘What do people know?
Positivism
The philosophy of positivism is the philosophical stance of a natural scientist which holds that
collecting data about an observable reality and searching for regularities and causal relationships
will lead to the creation of a new theory or new generalisations. Other characterizations of
positivism are:
1. The researcher is independent of the subject of the research, he is value-neutral (his
feelings are included in the research)
2. Cyclical relationship between hypothesis testing and theoretical development
3. Quantifiable observations that lend themselves to statistical analysis

Realism
Realism claims that whatever we sense is reality and objects exist without concern of the human
mind. Therefore realism contradicts idealism, which states that only the mind and its contents
exist and also assumes a scientific approach to the development of knowledge. There exist two
kinds of realism:
• Direct realism – what you see is what you get, what we perceive and experience with our
senses displays the world in an accurate way.
• Critical realism – what we experience are sensations, images of existing things in the real
world, not the existing things themselves. What we experience are mere illusions.

Main difference between these two kinds of realism is regarding the capacity of research to
change the world. A direct realist would state that the world is relatively unchangeable whereas a
critical realist would claim that the researcher’s understanding to that which is being studied
could be changed. Many researchers claim that what we explore is just part of the bigger picture.
Thus researchers usually adopt a critical realism point of view.

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Interpretivism
This refers to understand the differences between humans in our role as social actors. We
interpret our daily social roles in accordance with the meaning we give to these roles.
Interpretivism stems from two intellectual heritages
• Phenomenology - considers the way in which we as humans make sense of the world
around us
• Symbolic interactionism - Continual process of interpreting the social world lives in and
interprets the actions of the people that interact. These interpretations lead to adjustments
of own meaning and actions.

It is important for a researcher to understand the world of his research subjects and to understand
the world from own point of view.
Axiology
Axiology is refers to strand of philosophy that studies judgments about value. This includes
values in the fields of ethics and aesthetics. One’s own values play a crucial role in all stages of
the research process. Our values are the guiding line for all our actions (Heron 1996).
Research Paradigms
The term paradigm is frequently used in the social sciences, but it often leads to confusion due to
its multiple meanings and paradigm as a way of examining social occurrences from which
particular understandings of these phenomena can be gained and explanations attempted.
This exist how the four paradigms can be arranged as below.

Four paradigms for the analysis of social theory

1. Functionalist paradigm – Frequently used in business management research operates which

functionalists assume that an organization is rational entities, in which rational explanations
will provide solutions to rational problems.

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2. Radical structuralist paradigm – Refers to approach research with a view to achieving

fundamental change based within organizations and reporting relationships, patterns of
conflict. and the extent to which these relationships may produce dysfunctional ties.
3. Interpretive paradigm – when adopting this paradigm one is concerned with understanding
the fundamental meanings attached to organizational life. Instead of rationalities this one
wishes to discover irrationalities. In this paradigm being involved in the everyday activities
of the organization in order to understand and explain what is happening is more important
that to try to change things.
4. Radical humanist paradigm – Dimension which adopts a critical perspective of
organizational life. It emphasizes the consequences of one’s words and deeds on others.
Working with this paradigm one wishes to change things.

4.3 Research approaches

This related to whether research should use deductive approach or inductive approach, if it is use
deductive approach how to develop a theory and hypothesis and design a research strategy to test
the hypothesis, or the inductive approach, in which would collect data and develop theory as a
result of data analysis. Research approaches to the different research philosophies, deduction
owes more to positivism and induction to Interpretivism, although we believe that such labeling
is potentially misleading and of no real practical value.

Deduction: testing theory

Deduction concerned as scientific research which involves the development of a theory that is
subjected to a rigorous test. . Deduction is the development of theory and hypotheses which are
tested by using a research strategy. Deductive reasoning is done when a conclusion is logically
derived from a set of premises. The conclusion will be true when all these premises are proven to
be true.
This exist five stages in an inductive research as below.
1. Forming a hypothesis to form a theory
2. Deduce testable premises
3. Examine these premises and the logic of the argument that produced them, relate it to existing
theories
4. Testing the premises by collecting data to measure variables or concepts
5. Analyze the results, if they are not consistent with the premises the theory is false and should
be rejected, or modified. If the results are consistent that a new theory is formed.
There are four general characterizations for deduction
• Reliability - every research should use a highly structured methodology, so that it is easy
to replicate. If this is the case the research is reliable.
• Concepts need to be operationalized in such a way that enables facts to be measured.

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• Principle of
reductionism is being followed
• Generalization

Induction: building theory

An alternative approach to conducting research. With inductive reasoning it is not true that when
a set of premises are true that a clear conclusion can be formed. Because the conclusion is based
on observations made by humans and humans make mistakes. Therefore conclusion is never
guaranteed.
Combining research approaches
There are two main research approaches which are deduction and induction. Deductive research
can be quicker to complete, through devoted to setting up the study prior to data collection and
analysis. When concern about inductive research; that can be much more protracted. Perhaps the
most important of these are the emphasis of the research and the nature of the research topic. A
topic on which there is a wealth of literature from which you can define a theoretical framework
and a hypothesis lends itself more readily to deduction. Finally, there is the question of audiences
which typically overlooked but are central to the progress of fieldwork.

4.4 Summary
In the term research philosophy relates to the development of knowledge and the nature of that
knowledge and philosophy contains important assumptions about the way of review the world.
Basically there are two main research approaches which are deduction approach and induction
approach. There are three major ways of thinking about research philosophy including
epistemology, ontology and axiology. Each contains important differences which will influence
the way that think about the research process. Pragmatism holds that the most important
determinant of the epistemology, ontology and axiology adopted is the research question