BACKGROUND ISSUES IN ORGANISATION RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

Introductory.ppt Feb-02 / 1

BACKGROUND ISSUES IN ORGANISATION RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

• Epistemology • Ontology• Helping students reflect on the

connection between their theories and their realities


EPISTEMOLOGICAL CONCERNS

• The way we behave is motivated by the way we (individually and socially) give meaning to events. What demarcates ‘justified belief’ from ‘not

justified’ belief? What demarcates ‘rationality’ from ‘irrationality’?

• Understandings become so embedded that they are our ‘common-sense’ When we investigate the world (as scientists,

consultants or practitioners or in everyday life) these common sense assumptions come into play.

» P Johnson, J Duberley (2000) Understanding Management Research, Sage


WATCHING ME WATCHING YOU …

• Episteme = knowledge or science.• Logos = knowledge, theory, or account.

• Epistemology is knowledge about knowledge – how we come to know what we know. Epistemology is one step removed from knowledge

itself. Epistemological assumptions specify what is

scientifically permissible...

- i.e. how we discriminate the warranted from the unwarranted, the rational from the non-rational, the scientific from the non-scientific.

• There is however the epistemological paradox.

- The way we discriminate warranted from unwarranted is based on that same understanding of the nature of knowledge.

» P Johnson, J Duberley (2000) Understanding Management Research, Sage


AND THEN THERE IS ONTOLOGY …

• Ontology is ‘the science or study of being.’ Ontology is our view about what is 'real' What exists? What is 'real'? What is not 'real'?

» N Blaikie (1993) Approaches to social enquiry, Polity

• Schein looked at managerial assumptions that condition the 'psychological contract':

Rational economic – people maximise self interest. Social – people wish to work together, are social. Self-actualisation – people are autonomously self-

motivated.

• These are ontological positionsE. Schein (1988) Organizational Psychology, Prentice Hall


PROBLEMTISING ONTOLOGY

• What happened on 11th September 2001?

• What is your theory?• What do you assume to be the reality?

• http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x1dpio_what-happened-to-wtc-building-7-on_news


PROBLEMATISING EPISTEMOLOGY

• What is your theory now? (Has it changed?)

• What is your reality now? (Has it changed?)

• What is the connection between your theory of reality (epistemology) and reality itself (ontology)?


IMPACT OF THE EXERCISE

R: Is there anything about the first three days at the university that linger in the memory?

K: Especially myself, when I started having those sessions, the thinking of my mind…the way I used to think…it completely changed because you think about…you limit yourself…you don’t go beyond the limit…but there are so many possibilities, so many ways of thinking. Those sessions changed my thinking completely. I used to think that if somebody said something, I used to think ‘okay fine’ without a second thought, but now I think could there be something else. I used to believe everybody about everything…

R: It opened up possibilities? K: Yes.R: You don’t take things at face value.K: No – not any more.


IMPACT OF THE EXERCISE

R: What about the research training…did it come back and affect the way you thought about things?

S: The September 11th thing always stuck in my mind in the sense that…when we went through all the assumptions, with ‘facts’ and things. When we meet someone, we individually screen somebody via their body language. It always stuck in my mind “don’t assume what somebody is going to be like…don’t forget September 11th” (laughs).

R: (laughs)S: That stuff kept coming back to me. I kept thinking ‘don’t

assume…you haven’t spoken to these people yet’. It’s so easy to assume…

BACKGROUND ISSUES IN ORGANISATION RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

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