All research builds on philosophical and theoretical foundations. You’ll remember from Track I that these are based on the Quantitative or Qualitative paradigm, your specialization in the program, and specific theories of business/management and information technology.
You learned about specialization assumptions when you studied the various schools of thought in the scholarly literature in your field. When you study a field, you were adopting—whether you realized it at the time—a set of specialization assumptions, that is, ideas and practices that are taken for granted within that school of thought.
You will address your dissertation’s theoretical framework in Track 3—qualitative researchers should note that, except in grounded theory, most qualitative research deigns do not use a theoretical framework—although each design or approach within qualitative methodology does have a set of theoretical premises and commitments to which it must adhere. (More on that in Track 3.)
Here in Track 2, our focus is on the philosophical assumptions and paradigms that underlie your research. In this study guide, you will review
Finally, in Unit 3, you'll apply this material to your own study and complete the "Assumptions" section of your school's Research Plan for Track 2.
Terms synonymous with research philosophies include:
Research traditions or philosophies play this role:
These four key assumptions have imposing sounding names, but they are understandable. When you design a research project (indeed, when you design any project at all), there are certain kinds of things you take for granted, that is, assume. You don't need to prove them or calculate them, you simply accept them as givens.
For instance, if you wish to study the concept of leadership, you take it for granted that leadership is something real. We call this an ontological assumption, from the Greek word that means "reality".
You also assume that leadership can be studied productively, that we can learn something meaningful and useful about it. This comes from the Greek word "episteme-" which means knowledge. Epistemological assumptions are about what can be known.
You take it for granted that to learn about leadership would be a good thing, and that there are right and wrong ways to go about doing it. This kind of assumption comes from the Greek word axioma, meaning something that is worthy and fitting.
And finally, you take certain methods for learning about leadership for granted—you assume that there are some methods of inquiry that will be workable and others that will not. These methodological assumptions are based on the previous three kinds of assumptions.
How do we know what we should assume? The answer to that is in the paradigm we choose to work within. In Track 2, we will focus on the two main paradigms in social science research. There are others, but these two have stood the test of time since the days of Plato and Aristotle. They are logical positivism and interpretivism. We will take them one at a time.
Positivism is a philosophy that holds that empirical evidence obtained through the senses is the only firm foundation for knowledge. Further, it insists that valid knowledge can only be assumed if all observers come up with essentially the same description of a thing. Last, it requires that these descriptions be uniform across all researchers or observers, which leads to the requirement that measurement is the royal road to knowledge. Thus, positivism leads to the following four sets of assumptions:
As should be obvious, such assumptions lead to quantitative studies, which rely on objective measurement of observable phenomena. That which cannot be measured cannot be reliably known.
Positivistic Research Study Example:
In 2012 Venkatesh, Thong and Xu published their article, "Consumer Acceptance and Use of Information Technology: Extending the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology," examining consumer acceptance and use of information technology. (If you wish to review the entire article, it is linked in the Track 2 Courseroom Resources section.) Venkatesh, Thong and Xu made the following assumptions:
Venkatesh, V., Morris, M. G., Davis, G. B., & Davis, F. D. (2003) User acceptance of information technology: Toward a unified view. MIS Quarterly, 27, 425–478.
A second main paradigm or philosophical camp is known as interpretivism, or social constructivism. This philosophy has been more recent in development, but its roots are in the philosophy of Plato and his teacher Socrates, who held that the truth, even if it is only dimly shadowed by human approximations of it, can only be approached through careful reflection and dialog with others. Simply put, we can only interpret the truth, not measure it. We can only know what we can learn in thoughtful discussion with other seekers. Human beings, that is, construct their realities and truths by talking together about them.
Here is how the four groups of assumptions look to an interpretivist (a social constructivist):
As the positivist paradigm leads inevitably to objective, quantifiable methods, the interpretivist paradigm leads to methods that involve qualitative inquiry—researcher and participant talking together, constructing a new reality together.
Interpretivistic Research Study Example:
Kreiner, Hollensbe, and Sheep (2009) published a qualitative study, "Balancing Borders and Bridges: Negotiating the Work-Home Interface via Boundary Work Tactics," designed to determine attitudes and opinions of clergy in balancing their work and home lives. (If you wish to read the entire article, it is available as a link in the Resources area of the Track 2 Courseroom.) “Attitudes and opinions” are classic qualitative focuses. Quantitative opinion surveys simply ask people to rate pre-determined opinions on a scale of some sort, but the qualitative approach is to ask for the opinions and attitudes in the participant’s own words. Then the researcher interprets those words to create a new reality, a set of themes or descriptions that transcends what any single individual may have thought before.
The four sets of assumptions look different from this interpretivist perspective:
Kreiner, G. E., Hollensbe, E. C., & Sheep, M. L. (2009). Balancing borders and bridges: Negotiating the work-home interface via boundary work tactics. Academy of Management Journal, 52, 704–730.
Use Table 1 below to review the two major paradigms operating in social science research today, and the assumptions associated with them.
Table 1. Dominant Research Paradigms and Their Assumptions
Assumptions | Post-Positivist | Interpretive |
---|---|---|
Ontological (nature of reality). | Fixed, stable, observable, and measurable. | Multiple realities that are socially constructed by individuals. |
Epistemological (knowledge). | Gained through scientific and experimental research. Knowledge is objective and quantifiable. | Gained through understanding the meaning of the process or experience. |
Axiological (role of values). | Emphasis is on the objective researcher, value free; subjectivity and bias lead to error. | Researcher's subjective values, intuition, and biases are important; learning participants' subjective ideas valuable. |
Methodological (research strategies). |
Experimental, quasi-experimental, and non-experimental (e.g., correlation) research. Quantifiable methods only. | Qualitative methods only: phenomenology, ethnography, case study, grounded theory, heuristics, and generic qualitative. |
Doc. reference: phd_t2_sobt_u03s1_h01_assumptn.html