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A well-known scientist once gave a public lecture on astronomy. He described how the earth orbits around the sun and how the sun, in turn, orbits around the center of a vast collection of stars called our galaxy. At the end of the lecture, a little old lady at the back of the room got up and said: “What you have told us is rubbish. The world is really a flat plate supported on the back of a giant tortoise.” The scientist gave a superior smile before replying, “What is the tortoise standing on?” “You’re very clever, young man,” said the old lady. “But it’s turtles all the way down!”

Understanding the most appropriate research philosophy to underpin any piece of scholarly inquiry is crucial if one hopes to address research problems in a manner distinct from those already evidenced across extant literature. Distinct philosophical ideas and positions are often associated with specific research designs, therefore influencing the research approach adopted in any given study. Identifying an appropriate philosophical approach requires robust comprehension of how philosophical positions differ, alongside a reflective understanding of one's own perceptions and beliefs regarding what knowledge and reality “are” and how new knowledge is discovered, developed, and/or confirmed. This chapter therefore discusses different research paradigms and philosophies in order to identify core distinctions therein, highlighting the advantages and the challenges associated with different philosophical approaches to research along the way.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the utility of a pragmatist epistemology as a viable methodological avenue for addressing the challenges associated with the normative models of science that dominate organisational management. At the same time, theorisation of a paradigm grounded in a pragmatic epistemology is presented.

The paper seeks to explore the different assumptions guiding a pragmatist epistemology, based on the development of an alternative philosophic framework, such as an indigenous paradigm that draws its logic from a Māori worldview. In doing so, it counters the ideological tension created by the disjunction of applying an epistemological perspective that aligns with what we conceptualise as a mainstream Western view of knowledge creation and maintaining the integrity of taking an indigenous worldview.

In the paper, we argue that kaupapa Māori research, as an indigenous paradigm draws from a pragmatist epistemology, providing a platform for a culturally attuned response to mainstream organisational research.

The paper is of use to qualitative researchers, in and beyond indigenous contexts, as it grounded in a methodological approach that draws from a pragmatic epistemology offering insightful, more richly contextualised research avenues in organisation and management.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the nature of brand contract in B2B from two perspectives: the theological and pragmatic.

A review of the branding literature challenges the dominant notion of the brand covenant as a firm driven, unilateral promise, referred to as a theological contract. The study adds to this the pragmatic perspective of a social contract, as deployed by the social sciences and IMP literatures. A tentative framework of a dialectical contract is developed through drawing on three cases of Chinese suppliers for the focal firm, IKEA.

First, both types of contract are identified in the firm’s practices. Second, the specific goals and roles of managers and suppliers in each contract are defined. The theological contract is used by managers to strengthen suppliers’ beliefs in the company’s vision and mission, while the pragmatic one is employed by both parties for the implementation of the brand’s norms and brand equity. Third, a new framework for and the definition of a dual, dialectical brand contract in B2B are developed.

Managers are advised to mediate between the theological pledge of their brand and its pragmatic implementation.

The paper challenges the dominant theological discourse in extant branding literature and puts forward a dialectical approach as a new proposition.

This paper examines the limits of pragmatism in strategy formulation in the new, knowledge‐rich economy. By tracing the history of pragmatism in social and management thought, and assessing the commonalties and complementarities between a firm’s vision and mission, we explore the possibility and consequences of an intangible resource curse for firms pursuing strategies of incessant pragmatic growth in the expanding Web‐based domain. Ultimately, we posit a combined influence of market‐based governance and strategy simplification as an effective antidote to the executive intangible resource binging, which is sustainable as long as confidence and trust continue to be shared among the firm stakeholders.

The aim of this special issue is to bring together contributions from diverse perspectives interested in challenging the quantitative/qualitative divide within organisation and management research.

The papers in this special issue explore at a methodological or paradigmatic level (rather than at the level of particular research methods) the possible ways in which different research methodologies converge, diverge and overlap. Rather that asking questions about the validity and intrinsic value of certain methodologies, we are encouraged to shift gear towards assessing how useful these methodologies are in terms of carrying us from the world of practice to theory and vice‐versa. If methodologies help us to progress our thinking and our practices, they are “true” in a pragmatist sense. If they stall our thinking and do not influence in any way our practices, then they are probably untrue.

It is hoped that the papers presented in this special issue help us process our ideas and experiences in a progressive way, towards finding better, more robust ways of approaching our research practices.

Of course, it is for the reader to decide if this project has made an impact on their own thinking and practical endeavour but we remain convinced that the dichotomy between quantitative and qualitative methodologies is not productive and must be abandoned in favour of a heterodox and more pragmatic approach to methodology.

Theories of knowledge are critical to practical reasoning. Nevertheless, most students of management pay little or no attention to the disciplines that deal most directly with questions about knowledge, its origins, and its nature: epistemology primarily, but the philosophy of science and other related disciplines as well. Even where underlying philosophical assumptions influence their thinking and writing, students of practical reasoning often fail to acknowledge these influences. That is a great pity. By looking to epistemology, a richer and more coherent development of practical reasoning and its contribution to administrative inquiry as a field of intellectual endeavor may be possible. Moreover, the relationship between our understanding of knowledge and our understanding of practical reasoning is potentially reciprocal. A fuller exploration of this relationship may help us better understand social epistemology as well as promote conceptual development in the fields of practical reasoning and administrative inquiry.

Social theory contains contributions related to the processes of semiosis. Between the subjective experience of intentional meanings and objectivized structure of meanings there is a sphere of meaningful interactions and collective actions. Arguments are presented that it is possible to integrate symbolic interactionist orientation and Durkheimian tradition in the study of social symbolism in the perspective of collective action approach and pragmatism. That allows going beyond the cognitive limitations inherited from phenomenological view on symbolism as manifested in the concepts of P. Berger and T. Luckmann about the social construction of reality. A model for a multidimensional analysis of social symbolism and its functions is proposed.

The decisive antidualism in Bourdieu’s thought permits searching for the complementary traits of his theory of symbolic social system and symbolic interactionism, rather than opposition. The theory of the symbolic social system, which is characterized by the double structure of meanings in the order of social relations and its symbolic representation in the narrower sense, has many convergent points of view with the symbolic interactionists’ perspective, starting with the category of habitus. Conceptual frameworks of structuralist constructivism and symbolic interactionism have one major difference – in Bourdieu’s theory the individual self is not inscribed. There are, however, strong common premises in terms of epistemology, theory of meaning and social ontology. Both epistemologies are antidualistic and relativistic (antiessentialism). Both approaches are based on a common theory of the social origin of meaning (anticognitivism). Both social ontologies are constructivist (social construction of reality). However, Bourdieu’s concept of symbolic struggle for control over the commonsense world-view introduces a new, political dimension to interpretive sociology.