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

6 –––––––––– QUALITATIVE METHODS IN ORGANIZATION STUDIES ––––––––––––––––––commitments (which we describe in our own empirical work for example Cassell et al., 2000,and Symon, 2000), we did not particularly see the future as a work and organizationalpsychology entirely devoted to postmodernism. What we have argued we would like to see,however, is a more reflexive discipline (Symon et al., 2001). This recognition of the pivotalplace of reflexivity in research practice is not new (for example, Woolgar, 1988), but seemsto be of particular contemporary interest (for example, Holland, 1999; Alvesson andSkoldberg, 2000; Finlay, 2002; Johnson and Duberley, 2003). In a conference paper presentedto the tenth European Congress of Work and Organizational Psychology in 2001, wesuggested that critical appraisal of research practice within our discipline could operate withinseveral different domains:• Critical appraisal of our methodological practices, for example thinking about how theresearch should be designed or conducted in order to provide a convincing account;thinking about alternative interpretations of our results and how these might be refuted;thinking about the role we might have played in producing the results; reflecting on thechoices that were made during the research process and reasons for them.• Acknowledgement of and reflection on our epistemological commitments namely, whilewe can learn about the mechanics of particular research methods (such as have beenoutlined in the collections we have edited), what will also be of importance inunderstanding any research outputs or claims, will be our views on the nature of realityand knowledge. What are we doing when we pursue a research project, seeking a truthor giving an account, and how do we justify the claims we make as a result of ourresearch, through reference to external sources such as mathematical formulae or throughrhetoric and self-reflection? Lewis and Grimes (1999) suggest that researchers engage inmulti-paradigmatic research, re-analysing data from different epistemological perspectives(they use Burrell and Morgan’s meta-theory to structure this process) and thereby giving,they suggest, a more rounded perspective on the phenomenon of interest.• Recognizing the influence of our disciplinary backgrounds on the knowledge weproduce, i.e. we fit people into our (disciplined) way of thinking about the world. Bycreating some particular account, we deny other meanings and interpretations. Beingreflexive in this way would entail reflecting on how the assumptions of our backgrounddiscipline have prompted us to create a particular version of reality through our research.Why were we interested in these particular research questions? What disciplinary-basedinterpretative frameworks inform our accounts? What aspects of our disciplinarybackground lead us to dwell on certain aspects of the research context and not others?And from a more critical perspective, whose voices were allowed to be heard? In addition,viewing our research from the perspective of other disciplines may allow hitherto unseeninsights to emerge.We did not confine our description of this reflexive practice to ‘qualitative’ researchnecessarily (traditionally, reflexivity has been associated with qualitative research), nor toresearch emanating from more subjective research paradigms such as interpretivism orpostmodernism. We would argue that encouraging reflexivity in research practice should bea very important aspect of future research training in general:. . . to make unexamined metatheoretical commitments, and remain unaware of theirorigins, amounts to an abdication of intellectual responsibility which results in poorresearch practices. (Johnson and Duberley, 2003: 1280)