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Article
Publication date: 16 June 2020

Frank Bogna, Aldo Raineri and Geoff Dell

Traditional approaches in qualitative research have adopted one research paradigm linked to an established typology. This paper addresses the unconventional application of two…

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Abstract

Purpose

Traditional approaches in qualitative research have adopted one research paradigm linked to an established typology. This paper addresses the unconventional application of two research paradigms in one study. A critical realist approach was used to augment a constructivist analysis of data in a research project seeking to explore the meaning that managers in small to medium enterprises (SMEs) attach to hazard identification, the construction of a hazard profile reflective of the business and its use in assisting to manage hazards within the SME's safety management system framework. Critical realism offered a complementary but essential framework to explore causal mechanisms that led to a deeper understanding of the findings by searching for the processes and causality that lay beneath the social and organizational phenomena observed.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper compares the two research paradigms in order to seek junctures and apply them to a research project. Analytical tools applied to each research paradigm within the project are presented, followed by a new multiparadigm conceptual model that integrates critical realism and constructivism, providing an original contribution of knowledge to this field of qualitative research.

Findings

The adoption of a multiparadigm model enabled not only the interpretation of social phenomena but also the determination of its causality, enabling a more insightful answering of the research question and leading to a deeper insight into the phenomenology that was studied. This research approach widens the boundaries of qualitative inquiry within organizational research by promoting strategies that challenge more traditionally anchored research typologies, and consequently contributes to better research outcomes.

Research limitations/implications

This study was conducted across four organizations. Similar research is encouraged across a greater number of case studies to validate the process of using a constructivist and critical realist paradigm to gain a more insightful understanding of events and their causality.

Practical implications

The comparison of two research paradigms and consequent provision of a conceptual model (Figure 3) provides potential for the development of further multiparadigm models for research projects within the field of organizational management.

Social implications

This paper has the potential to promote engagement and collaboration between research scholars seeking to explore the use of multiple research paradigms.

Originality/value

Such an approach has not previously been widely discussed or adopted to examine qualitative data, and advances theory in qualitative research. The application of two research paradigms using such an approach can be applied to businesses in a number of different contexts to gain a more insightful understanding of research participant perspectives, observable events arising from those perspectives and their associated causality.

Details

Qualitative Research in Organizations and Management: An International Journal, vol. 15 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1746-5648

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 5 January 2021

David Eriksson and Annika Engström

Operations and supply chain management (OSCM) is a theoretically and philosophically fragmented field. Researchers must consider how they use theory and explain empirical…

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Abstract

Purpose

Operations and supply chain management (OSCM) is a theoretically and philosophically fragmented field. Researchers must consider how they use theory and explain empirical phenomena. This paper aims to use critical realism to introduce more coherence into this fragmented field.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper draws on existing critical realism and abduction literature and this study uses a research process from two PhD projects to investigate critical realism’s role in OSCM research. This paper uses a narrative approach to collect data over a long timeframe, capturing data not commonly used in OSCM research.

Findings

Research that struggles to bridge the gap between theory and data benefits from critical realism, which provides a philosophy and associated methods to identify a suitable theory and guide researchers when they encounter obstacles. While clear steps often outline established methods, researchers are sometimes unable to identify when their research process has reached an obstacle. This paper argues that such obstacles can be treated as “crossroads” offering new research opportunities when correctly evaluated and addressed.

Research limitations/implications

Importantly, researchers should be able to reflect upon their own research processes, enabling a better understanding of these processes and the discovery of new research directions. Researchers can use critical realism, abduction and systematic combining to bridge the divide between theory and data in OSCM.

Originality/value

This paper contributes to the field’s discussion regarding the roles of critical realism and abduction, synthesizing multiple academic sources, highlighting critical realism’s importance and providing a novel means of addressing difficulties in navigating an eclectic research area. This paper offers a philosophical alternate to the field, which is often instead considered from a positivistic standpoint. The paper is valuable to researchers in the OSCM field, who can use the research to improve their selection of data and theories, as well as their understanding of their own research processes.

Book part
Publication date: 7 October 2019

Chris Corces-Zimmerman and Tonia Floramaria Guida

This chapter seeks to open a conversation around the increasingly pressing question of what is the role of the white researcher in qualitative Critical whiteness Studies (CwS…

Abstract

This chapter seeks to open a conversation around the increasingly pressing question of what is the role of the white researcher in qualitative Critical whiteness Studies (CwS) research in higher education. While the past 30 years have seen an increase in scholarship that critiques the ways that whiteness operates in higher education at both individual and institutional levels, to date no work exists that explores how this research should be conducted. In introducing a Critical whiteness Methodology (CwM) for higher education, this chapter is intended to provide an initial framework to inform the ways that white CwS scholars conceptualize, and conduct themselves throughout the research process. Grounded in core theoretical frameworks in CwS and influenced by critical race theory (CRT) and critical race methodologies (CRM), we propose five tenets that serve as a starting point in the conceptualization of a CwM. Utilizing these tenets, we then provide suggestions that white researchers can utilize to intentionally structure their research designs, protocols, and practices to actively challenge whiteness through CwS scholarship in higher education.

Details

Theory and Method in Higher Education Research
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-83867-842-5

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 1 July 2006

Lynette Kvasny and Helen Richardson

The purpose of this article is to reflect on the development of critical research in information systems and give an overview of the papers chosen for this special issue.

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Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this article is to reflect on the development of critical research in information systems and give an overview of the papers chosen for this special issue.

Design/methodology/approach

To set the scene by discussing the origins and the developing field of critical research in information systems and to analyse each paper, suggesting ways in which it relates to the chosen themes.

Findings

The papers chosen address theoretical foundations, paradigmatic and methodological issues, empirical studies and praxis and reflexivity in critical information systems research.

Originality/value

Highlights the growing interest in critical research in the information systems discipline and enables reflection on the difficulties, barriers and opportunities for development.

Details

Information Technology & People, vol. 19 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0959-3845

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 25 July 2019

Sven Modell

The purpose of this paper is to contrast actor-network theory (ANT) and critical realism (CR) as two contemporary approaches to critical accounting research and advance a critique…

1416

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to contrast actor-network theory (ANT) and critical realism (CR) as two contemporary approaches to critical accounting research and advance a critique centred on the neglect of social structures in the former perspective.

Design/methodology/approach

This is a conceptual paper based on a critical reading of ANT inspired by CR.

Findings

Although the author does not question the ability of ANT to be imbued with critical intent per se, the author is critical of its tendency to downplay the significance of pre-existing, social structures and the concomitant neglect of enduring and ubiquitous states of structural stability as an ontological possibility. This may lead to an overly optimistic view that naively valorises agency as a largely unfettered engine of emancipation. By contrast, CR offers a deeper and more nuanced ontological conception of how social structures constrain as well as enable emancipation. In contrast to the highly empiricist epistemology of ANT, it also provides an epistemological rationale for going beyond empirical descriptions of how social structures work to advance theoretically informed, explanatory critiques that are better suited for realising less easily observable opportunities for emancipation.

Research limitations/implications

The paper advances the debate about how social structures should be examined in critical accounting research and the relative merits of doing so in advancing emancipatory projects.

Originality/value

The paper is an attempt to contrast ANT and CR as two distinct approaches to critical accounting research and thus extends the debate about what such research is and could be.

Details

Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, vol. 33 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0951-3574

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 29 September 2023

Olivier Fuchs and Craig Robinson

Critical realism is an increasingly popular “lens” through which complex events, entities and phenomena can be studied. Yet detailed operationalisations of critical realism are at…

Abstract

Purpose

Critical realism is an increasingly popular “lens” through which complex events, entities and phenomena can be studied. Yet detailed operationalisations of critical realism are at present relatively scarce. This study's objective here is built on existing debates by developing an open systems model of reality, a basis for designing appropriate, internally consistent methodologies.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors use a qualitative case study examining changing practices for client contact management in professional services firms during restrictions imposed by the COVID-19 crisis to show how the model can be operationalised across all stages of a research study.

Findings

This study contributes to the literature on qualitative applications of critical realism by providing a detailed example of how the research paradigm influenced choices at every stage of the case study process.

Originality/value

More importantly, this model of reality as an open system provides a tool for other researchers to use in their own operationalisation of critical realism in a variety of different settings.

Details

Qualitative Research Journal, vol. ahead-of-print no. ahead-of-print
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1443-9883

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 14 July 2023

Francheska D. Starks and Mary McMillan Terry

This study aims to examine how critical love theory is operationalized in K-12 classrooms to support Black children. The authors use BlackCrit and a conceptual framework of…

Abstract

Purpose

This study aims to examine how critical love theory is operationalized in K-12 classrooms to support Black children. The authors use BlackCrit and a conceptual framework of critical love to describe the strategies educators used as pro-Black pedagogies of resistance.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors conducted a thematic analysis to identify how critical love praxis is used by K-12 educators as a tool to address anti-Blackness, neoliberal multiculturalism and ahistoricism as defined by the framings of BlackCrit theory. The authors produced a literature synthesis of qualitative research that responds to this study’s research questions: How are critical love theories operationalized? What educator practices do researchers identify as material manifestations of critical love?; and How and to what extent do critical love praxis address anti-Blackness, neoliberal multiculturalism and ahistorical approaches to social transformation as defined by BlackCrit theory?

Findings

Critical love theories manifest as critical love praxis. Educators used critical love praxis to address anti-Blackness, neoliberal multiculturalism and ahistoricism by cultivating and supporting the co-creation of homeplace for Black students in K-12 education. Homeplace is cultivated through critical love praxis as classroom-focused, person-focused and politically focused approaches.

Originality/value

This study’s findings extend current theoretical research on critical love by describing its material form in K-12 education and by identifying how a critical love praxis can work to directly challenge anti-Blackness. The authors find implications for their work in teacher education and teachers’ in-service professional development.

Details

Journal for Multicultural Education, vol. ahead-of-print no. ahead-of-print
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2053-535X

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 19 July 2013

Paul Duckett, David Fryer, Rebecca Lawthom, Brona Nic Giolla Easpaig and Harriet Radermacher

The purpose of this paper is to answer the question “what is good research?” from the perspective of critical researchers working in the discipline of psychology.

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Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to answer the question “what is good research?” from the perspective of critical researchers working in the discipline of psychology.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors first look at what it means to be “good”, then what it means to be critical and then interlink these two as a means of providing a context to understand why there appears to be so little critical research around. Findings– The authors have put together a narrative that they hope is readable but that still pulls on the different ways each of them have approached the topic of defining good research and thinking about critical research.

Originality/value

The authors have personally witnessed the disappearance‐ing of critical activists, anti‐psychiatry activists, disability rights activists, trades unionists, critical scholars; and put forward a reason (among others) as to why there is so little good critical research, which is that the status quo is implacably ferocious in its efforts to close it down wherever it occurs. Indeed, if the status quo is not doing its damnedest to close down the research you are doing, you can be reasonably sure it is not good critical research.

Details

Qualitative Research Journal, vol. 13 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1443-9883

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 19 July 2019

Célia Lemaire and Pauline Paquin

Teacher-researchers carry out two singular, demanding and time-consuming, activities: research and teaching. Some, convinced of the cross-fertilization of these two activities…

Abstract

Purpose

Teacher-researchers carry out two singular, demanding and time-consuming, activities: research and teaching. Some, convinced of the cross-fertilization of these two activities, try to introduce elements of their research into their courses. This intention becomes a major challenge for interpretive and critical teacher-researchers in accounting who cannot rely on textbooks, mostly oriented for the mainstream. The purpose of this paper is to investigate how those teacher-researchers proceed to infuse their research into their courses.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper is an exploratory qualitative study based on interviews.

Findings

The results show three typical profiles that correspond to three ways of infusing research into courses, and how these profiles can evolve and combine.

Originality/value

The identification of teacher-researcher profiles allows categorization of how they infuse their research into their teaching. By listing the constraints imposed on teacher-researchers intending to infuse research, proposals for ways to overcome the identified constraints that hinder the cross-fertilization of research and teaching are suggested. The paper also reexamines the status of teachers-researchers in accounting who address a critical approach in their teaching.

Details

Qualitative Research in Accounting & Management, vol. 16 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1176-6093

Keywords

11 – 20 of over 213000