essential-guide-to-qualitative-in-organizational-research

194 –––––––––– QUALITATIVE METHODS IN ORGANIZATION STUDIES ––––––––––––––––––organizations is constructed through a social practice in which such distinctions are notmeaningful’ (1989: 591). In these readings of audit or accountancy, the objective aspect wouldinclude such social constructions as the codified rules of audit or accountancy, professionalcodes of practice, regulatory features that govern the relationship between the professional andthe organizations in which they are undertaking the audit or accountancy practice. Thesubjective aspect would be such matters as the way the auditor or accountant, consciously orunconsciously, experiences the professional activity in relation to other aspects of being humanand how the auditor or accountant understands his/her relationship with the self and withothers. This subjective aspect may be individual or it may be a shared understanding orcollusion. It may be seen that in this sense the subjective and the objective elide into oneanother. In this sense the research interest would be in understanding how the auditor or theaccountant constructs and tells the story of the processes by which audit or accountancy isaccomplished.However the researcher is not looking at the experience of the subjects alone; there is alsothe position of the interpreter as the scene unfolds and in the process of interpretation.Gadamer suggests that the hermeneutic circle. . . is not formal in nature. It is neither subjective nor objective, but describesunderstanding as the interplay of the movement of tradition 1 and the movement of theinterpreter. The anticipation of meaning that governs our understanding of a text is notan act of subjectivity, but proceeds from a commonality that binds us to the tradition . . .(Gadamer, 1985: 293)The problem is, however, that this version of the hermeneutic circle ‘can only serve tosanction prevalent use of language’ (Bleicher, 1980: 161) because of the emphasis oncommonality of tradition.An extension of this to the exploration of patterns of communication that are fractured,where that commonality may be lacking, is suggested by Habermas who has an interest inhermeneutics but is also thought of as a critical theorist. In this tradition the hermeneuticaspect lies ‘in the sense that it enables self-conscious reflection on the social conditionssurrounding the production, dissemination, and reception of texts’ and the critical elementlies in an analysis of the contribution of these texts to ‘the creation and maintenance of powerdifferentials’ (Phillips and Brown, 1993: 1547) where it is assumed that the language of powerdifferentials leads to a distortion of communications.Within the hermeneutic tradition this interest in meaning and understanding has theconsequence (intended within the neo-idealist tradition) of an interest in improvingcommunication and self-understanding in an essentially ameliorative way. This moraldimension can give an interesting edge to the research activity. Tillery, for example, wantedto explore ‘the complex relationship of ethics, writing and power (which) continues to be amajor concern for scholars and teachers of technical communication’ (2001: 1970). In herresearch she is guided by Gadamer’s assertion that: ‘the practical science directed towards thispractical knowledge . . . must arise from practice itself and with all the typical generalizationsthat it brings to explicit consciousness, be related back to practice’ (2001: 92). Tillery addsthat hermeneutics can be a process of cultural critique that is crucial for understanding howideology functions.