Research Methods

Bench marking good practices

A systematic investigation into current perceptions of qualitative methods in management research focused upon issues such as barriers to their use; the ways in which they were assessed; how people defined good practice in this area; and any skills deficits in the researcher community. Research was designed to find out how quality was assessed in qualitative research in the business and management area.

The project involved a review of the literature and a series of 45 in-depth interviews with members of four different groups who have an interest in this area. The groups were:
• key gatekeepers such as those who edited journals, and funded qualitative research
• practitioners who used qualitative research such as opinion pollers and consultants;
• university doctoral programme leaders;
• qualitative researchers.
A key issue that emerged was the extent to which qualitative research was viewed as credible. Sources of research credibility varied widely and in general definitions of credibility were seen to be associated with the quantification of data and were therefore seen to disadvantage qualitative research. Various elements of good practice in relation to qualitative management research were identified (and sometimes disputed) including flexible research design; epistemologically coherent analysis; reflexivity concerning process and product of research; and a persuasive, engaging presentation.

Assessment of the quality of qualitative research appeared to be more of an intuitive decision-making process than the application of known and agreed criteria.

Assessment of the need for training provision for qualitative research
The provision of training for qualitative research it was generally seen as scarce and of poor quality. There was a view that researchers needed to be aware of the complexity associated with conducting qualitative research, and the wide variety of techniques available. More specific training needs included: ‘technical’ skills, such as data analysis techniques and writing up qualitative research appropriately; knowledge of underlying philosophical issues behind qualitative research, and the varieties of approaches available to the researcher; reviewing skills; and skills in supervising qualitative research.

A series of workshops were designed to address deficits:

Skills of the qualitative researcher
Reflexivity
Philosophies that inform qualitative research
Analysis
Range of methods
Writing up and Publishing report
Assessment criteria
Reviewing qualitative papers and research grants
Supervision for qualitative research

Integrating quantitative and qualitative researches are increasingly viewed as compatible after sidelining a period of ‘paradigm wars’. Indeed, multi-strategy research increasingly came to be perceived as a position that offered the best of both worlds. A project was set up to provide a comprehensive assessment of the state of the field with regard to integration of quantitative and qualitative research. Further to identify areas or contexts in which the integration of quantitative and qualitative research is not obviously beneficial;
And to explore an area of research in which quantitative and qualitative research co-exist as separate research strategies or traditions and to analyse the prospects for linking the two sets of findings.

The methods that were used consist of:
1. Content analysis of case studies of the integration of quantitative and qualitative research across the social sciences. Articles in refereed journals in five fields between 1994 and 2003 were analysed.
2. Examination of discursive strategies employed in making the case for combining quantitative and qualitative research.
3. Examination of the prospects for combining published accounts of research combining quantitative and qualitative research in the field of leadership.
4. Interviews with researchers.

The research itself thus entailed a combination of quantitative (analysing content) and qualitative research (exploration of discursive practice), in order to explore different aspects of the overall project.

A cross-sectional design was by far the most common design for the collection of both quantitative and qualitative data. Thus multi-strategy research is typically being carried out with a much more limited range of research designs and research methods than stock phrases such as ‘multi’ and ‘mixed’ might lead one to expect. The modally typical article comprises quantitative data deriving from a survey instrument administered within a cross-sectional design and qualitative data deriving from individual interviews within a cross-sectional design.
In the rational to justify the use of multi-strategy research both complementarity and expansion were the most frequently cited rationales with 29% and 25% of all articles mentioning each of them as a primary rationale. When ‘Practice’ is examined, it is striking that nearly half of all articles can be subsumed into the complementarity category. Multi-strategy research is something of a moveable feast.

The main and most striking feature of these findings is that nearly one half of all articles using both quantitative and qualitative research do not in fact integrate the findings.
Finally, each article was analysed to explore whether any vestiges of the paradigm wars were still operating.

Leadership is a field in which quantitative research has dominated for many decades, but over the last 15 years more and more qualitative studies have appeared. When the studies are examined it is clear that some qualitative studies can be combined with the dominant quantitative paradigm but some cannot. Most difficult to integrate with the still dominant quantitative research paradigm are those qualitative investigations that problematize leadership. Some qualitative research on leadership was similar to much quantitative research in terms of character and the kinds of research questions explored but did not include any quantification. Such studies were particularly easy to merge with quantitative findings.


Source:
ESRC Research Methods Programme