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This chapter addresses current trends regarding how the meta-theory of critical realism (CR) frames comparative and international education research and practice. It introduces the key tenets of CR and explores how these ideas have been and can be applied in educational research. It demonstrates how CR provides a valuable alternative to the positivist, interpretivist and constructivist paradigms, and leverages elements of all three to provide new approaches to develop knowledge that is free from the dualisms embedded in their ontological assumptions. I argue that by offering a dialectical understanding of structure and agency, as well as the material and ideational dimension of social reality, CR provides an ontological framework that does not do conceptual violence to the reality we seek to research. This ontological basis is particularly valuable to the social justice agenda of educational research in general because it allows researchers to work beneath the surface of empirical research to disclose the field of possibilities for social action.

No scholar or researcher is able to provide robust evidence that counters the scant reflection on metatheory – mostly ontology and epistemology – underlying management studies in general, and industrial marketing and purchasing research in particular. This paper is a contribution to the indispensable discussion of metatheoretical alternatives in research, and most importantly, the strengths and shortcomings thereof, and respective implications on research questions, objectives, and findings.

The relationship between ontology, realism, and normativity is complex and contentious. While naturalist and realist stances have tended to ground questions of normativity in ontology and accounts of human nature, critical theories have been critical of the relationship between ontological and normative projects. Queer theory in particular has been critical of ontological endeavors. Exploring the problem of normativity and ontology, this paper will make the case that the critical realist ontology of open systems and complex, contingent, conjunctural causation deeply resonates with queer theory, generating a queer ontology that both allows for and undermines ontological and normative projects.

We seek to expand the disability theoretical toolkits of higher education scholars to include frameworks that view disability as multivalent. We start by describing limitations scholars can encounter when employing traditional medical, social, and minority frameworks. Then, we draw upon: (1) the temporal and fluid understandings of disability in critical disability theory, (2) the value critical realism gives to the body, impairment, and the environment, and (3) the work of Deaf epistemologies to call attention to the varied communication methods disabled college students use to encourage the use of frameworks that promote intersectional understandings that are authentic to lived experiences. We extend scholars’ toolkits by encouraging the use of frameworks that value diverse human neurology and draw attention to the hegemonic dominance of Western thought. We conclude by discussing four implications and two limitations for higher education scholars.

This article argues that critical realism (CR) offers an ontological position suited to understanding the dynamic relations between multinational companies (MNCs) and the complex political spaces within which they operate. After outlining the core assumptions of CR, the key arguments are elaborated through two case studies which focus on issues of staffing and expatriation. The first case concerns recent developments in the Middle East, highlighting the shifting reality of nationality-based definitions of staffing the MNC, and the second examines the internationalisation of Chinese firms, exploring the way MNCs restructure space to retain access to home-country advantages.

This chapter highlights the personal side of research methods. We begin with an overview of Hans-Georg Gadamer's insights into the general problem of method in the social sciences and hermeneutics. This is followed by an overview of Michael Polanyi's explanation of the practice of scientific investigation. The second half of the chapter considers implications of the personal side of methods for how we conduct management research. This section discusses critical realism as a philosophy of science consistent with the assumptions of our field, the reasons for methodological pluralism and possible responses, and management research as a social practice.

Development theory in college describes and explains how students develop. This chapter explores ways to balance and consolidate differentiation and integration in this theory. First, it traces the origins, history and current development of the theory, which evolves from an integrative understanding to a differentiated one. Subsequently, it identifies the tensions between integration and differentiation in this evolution. This chapter consider two directions towards the theoretical consolidation of differentiation and integration: (1) returning to how integrative understandings were achieved and exploring research directions that further advance integrative understandings; (2) recognizing the parallel evolution of North American student development theory in theorising about learning from a critical realism perspective, and, by overlaying this theory upon such a perspective, reconstructing it towards consolidation. This chapter concludes by discussing two implications for further higher education research that draws on student development theory.

We propose that management scholars can improve their research by triangulating alternative philosophies of science to gain a richer and more holistic understanding of complex managerial problems. We illustrate the proposition by triangulating with three scientific philosophies – positivism, postmodernism, and critical realism – to design a study in response to a debate in the sociology of professions. After summarizing and applying positivism, postmodernism, and critical realism to reveal their differing research approaches, we discuss how to deal with the convergent and divergent information often produced by triangulating philosophies of science. Although common views of triangulation emphasize reliability by focusing on convergent information from different methods, we emphasize validity by discussing how divergent information from different methods reveal important aspects and values of a complex phenomenon that often go unrecognized without triangulation.