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

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– HERMENEUTIC UNDERSTANDING–––––––201CONCLUSION: THE PRIVILEGED RACONTEUR ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––Gadamer has this concept of the ‘dialectic of experience (which) has its proper fulfilment notin definite knowledge but in the openness to experience that is made possible by experienceitself ’ (1985: 355). Lying at the heart of the hermeneutic approach is this notion of opennessto the data, the artful development of the interplay between the intuition of the researcher,the data (text or whatever) of the subjects of study, the interpretive frameworks that arebrought to bear on the analysis of the text and, ultimately, the reader. If this openness isundertaken in good faith then the product of the research is an account that is on the onehand truthful (authentic) to the data but is, on the other hand, not the only truth (authenticaccount) that could be produced. In this overview of hermeneutic understanding we havepresented it as a way of approaching research that is based on the notion that research is ahuman, subjective activity but that this humanity is a crucial resource in the development ofunderstanding.NOTES ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––1 The word ‘tradition’ carries many meanings. In one sense it represents the past as captured ina text. In another sense the word can be used much more widely. It can be a text, or aconversation, or an ethnographic study or interviews that represent a particular group of peopleor research topic.2 The author acknowledges support for this research from the Economic and Social ResearchCouncil Grant Number R000221639.FURTHER READING ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––The chapter on hermeneutics in Alvesson and Sköldberg (2000) is a wide ranging andstimulating overview of the topic, which also asks some challenging questions about thehermeneutic approach. The chapter by Schwandt (2000) also provides an extremely usefuloverview of hermeneutics and places it into the context of other approaches to qualitativeresearch. Although Gummesson (2000) is not solely concerned with the hermeneuticapproach, his book includes a number of accessible insights into hermeneutics as an approachto qualitative methods. The books by Bleicher (1980 and 1982) both represent fine-grainedstudies of hermeneutics and locate the topic into general preoccupations about the nature ofresearch in the social sciences.REFERENCES ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––Alvesson, M. and Sköldberg, K. (2000) Reflexive Methodology: New Vistas for Qualitative Research, London: Sage Publications.Bettelheim, B. (1983) Freud and Man’s Soul, London: Chatto and Windus.Bion, W.R. (1970) Attention and Interpretation, London: Tavistock.Blaikie, N. (1993) Approaches to Social Enquiry, Cambridge: Polity Press.Bleicher, J. (1980) Contemporary Hermeneutics: Hermeneutics as Method, Philosophy and Critique, London: Routledge andKegan Paul.