Methodology

Research philosophy

a system of beliefs and assumptions about the development of knowledge

Abduction

known premises are used to generate testable conclusions - Generalising from the interactions between the specific and the general - Data collection is used to explore a phenomenon, identify themes and patterns, locate these in a conceptual framework and test this through subsequent data collection and so forth - Theory generation or modification; incorporating existing theory where appropriate, to build new theory or modify existing theory - iterative approach: we use theory to prepare questions for the interviews, then collect data in the interviews, and apply theory to the data to arrive at a plausible explanation for our observations

Induction

known premises are used to generate untested conclusions Observation - Pattern - Hypthesis - Theory - Generalising from the specific to the general - Data collection is used to explore a phenomenon, identify themes and patterns and create a conceptual framework - Theory generation and building

Choosing a time horizon

longitudinal or cross-sectional

Interpretivism

- Interpretivism emphasises that humans are different from physical phenomena because they create meanings --> Interpretivists study these meanings - As different people of different cultural backgrounds, under different circumstances and at different times make different meanings, and so create and experience different social realities, interpretivists are critical of the positivist attempts to discover definite, universal 'laws' that apply to everybody - Rather they believe that rich insights into humanity are lost if such complexity is reduced entirely to a series of law-like generalisations - purpose of interpretivist research is to create new, richer understandings and interpretations of social worlds and contexts --> For business and management researchers, this means looking at organisations from the perspectives of different groups of people - interpretivism is explicitly subjectivist

Research strategy

- a plan of how a researcher will go about answering her or his research question e.g. Experiment Survey Archival and Documentary Research Case Study Ethnography Action Research Grounded Theory Narrative Inquiry

Quantitative

- any data collection technique (such as a questionnaire) or data analysis procedure (such as graphs or statistics) that generates or uses numerical data --> generally associated with positivism, but there is also "orangainzational attirbutes" we looked into, still befitting our interpretivist approach --> also qualitative reserach larger focus of our research

Qualitative

- any data collection technique (such as an interview) or data analysis procedure (such as categorising data) that generates or uses non-numerical data --> generally associated with interpretivism because researchers need to make sense of the subjective and socially constructed meanings expressed about the phenomenon being studied

Pragmatism

- asserts that concepts are only relevant where they support action - It does this by considering theories, concepts, ideas, hypotheses and research findings not in an abstract form, but in terms of the roles they play as instruments of thought and action, and in terms of their practical consequences in specific contexts - For a pragmatist, research starts with a problem, and aims to contribute practical solutions that inform future practice - If you were to undertake pragmatist research, this would mean that the most important determinant for your research design and strategy would be the research problem that you would try to address, and your research question --> action based (e.g. which tools could be used to xxx) --> could have also worked for our research quesiton

Survey

- associated with a deductive research approach - used for exploratory and descriptive research - questionnaires are popular as they allow the collection of standardised data from a sizeable population in a highly economical way, allowing easy comparison - a full survey with different networks could have benefited our research, but we would have needed a large enough sample size to ensure it is representative --> within the scope of our thesis, a case study appeared more applicable

Epistemology

- assumptions about knowledge, what constitutes acceptable, valid and legitimate knowledge, and how we can communicate knowledge to others - which different types of knowledge - ranging from numerical data to textual and visual data, from facts to interpretations, and including narratives, stories and even fictional accounts - can all be considered legitimate --> we follow the interpretivism philosophy again in the context of this thesis, as we put the focus on narratives, stories, perceptions, and interpretations - also focus on participants' feelings, attitudes, and experiences --> forcasting better with numerical data, but foresight requires subjective, qualitative data --> focus on feelings and attitudes: not only understand what activities are employed to prepare the network for the future, but also what the attitudes of the participants are in regard to these activities --> allowing us to assess their effectiveness better

Ontology

- assumptions about the nature of reality - our ontology determines how we see the world of business and management and, therefore, our choice of what to research for your research project - objectivist researchers: pursue the discovery of universally applicable facts and laws which determine social behavior (more generalizable) - we: subjectivist researcher is interested in different opinions and narratives that can help to account for different social realities of different social actors --> makes sense because foresight activities are heavily influenced by the perception of people who use them

Subjectivism

- assumptions of the arts and humanities - social reality is made from the perceptions and consequent actions of social actors (people) - Nominalism, in its most extreme form, considers that the order and structures of social phenomena we study (and the phenomena themselves) are created by us as research- ers and by other social actors through use of language, conceptual categories, perceptions and consequent actions - social constructionism puts forward that reality is constructed through social interaction in which social actors create partially shared meanings and realities - subjectivist researcher is interested in different opinions and narratives that can help to account for different social realities of different social actors

Objectivism

- assumptions of the natural sciences, arguing that the social reality that we research is external to us and others (referred to as social actors) - embraces realism, which, in its most extreme form, considers social entities to be like physical entities of the natural world, in so far as they exist independently of how we think of them, label them, or even of our awareness of them - the interpretations and experiences of social actors do not influence the existence of the social world - management is an objective entity

Mixed

- combination of quantitative and qualitative --> we use a questionnaire but it was necessary to ask respondents to answer some 'open' questions in their own words rather than ticking the appropriate box --> qualitative methods can be facilitated to help explain observations stemming from quantitative research --> standardized questionnaire including several Likert-scaled questions, but also ask respondents open questions to go in-depth on their experiences and knowledge, rather than just 'ticking a box'

Descripto-explanatory studies

- descriptive research employed is a precursor to a following explanation --> we aim at describing the case's situation and processes via the standardized questionnaire as well as open-ended input, and then draw from our case data and theories to explain the phenomenon of networked foresight

Postmodernism

- emphasises the role of language and of power relations, seeking to question accepted ways of thinking and give voice to alternative marginalised views - Postmodernists go even further than interpretivists in their critique of positivism and objectivism, attributing even more importance to the role of language - what is generally considered to be 'right' and 'true' is decided collectively

Types of assumptions in research philosophy

- epistemological assumptions: assumptions about human knowledge - ontological assumptions: about the realities you encounter in your research - axiological assumptions: about your own values influence your research process

Explanatory research

- establish causal relationships between variables

Purpose of research design

- exploratory, descriptive, explanatory or evaluative purpose

Evaluative research

- find out how well something works - assessing the effectiveness of an organisational or business strategy, policy, programme, initiative or process --> we found some parts which don't work in our case, but the objective of the study is to showcase NF, rather than evaluating the practice --> NF not well-researched enough yet --> this could be a future research project

Critical realism

- focuses on explaining what we see and experi- ence, in terms of the underlying structures of reality that shape the observable events - reality as external and independent, but not directly accessible through our observation and knowledge of it - Critical realists highlight how often our senses deceive us - Critical realism claims there are two steps to understanding the world. First, there are the sensations and events we experience. Second, there is the mental processing that goes on sometime after the experience, when we 'reason backwards' from our experi- ences to the underlying reality that might have caused them

Descriptive research

- gain an accurate profile of events, persons or situations

Case study

- in-depth inquiry into a topic or phenomenon within its real-life setting - sets out to understand the dynam- ics of the topic being studied within its setting or context - we investigate corporate foresight in the specific context of a multi-organizational network - frequently utilized with a mixed methods approach to completely understand the dynamics of the studied phenomenon --> bad: small sample of data, as well as its interpretive approach, have some researchers disapprove of this approach, questioning its reliability and generalizability

Experiment

- purpose of an experiment is to study the probability of a change in an independent variable causing a change in another, dependent variable --> does not work well for open research questions, so not useful to our research

Reliability

- replication and consistency --> If a researcher is able to replicate an earlier research design and achieve the same findings, then that research would be seen as being reliable

Axiology

- role of values and ethics within the research process - we as researchers and our interviewees are subjective, which could lead to a decreased reliability of this thesis - various values of interviewees benefits our research, as they paint a more diverse and thus more accurate picture of the network - An axiological implication of this is that interpretivists recognise that their interpretation of research materials and data, and thus their own values and beliefs, play an important role in the research process

Archival and documentary research

- scope too small for this thesis - NF is still under-researched, so finding useful data would have been unlikely

Longitudinal studies

- study change and development

Cross-sectional studies

- study of a particular phenomenon (or phenomena) at a particular time

Validity

- the appropriateness of the measures used, accuracy of the analysis of the results and generalisability of the findings --> participant validation could have been used (but not enough time)

Positivism

- the philosophical stance of the natural scientist and entails working with an observable social reality to produce law-like generalisations - promises unambiguous and accurate knowledge --> NF heavily dependent on social actors, so rather individual cases and law-like generalisations unlikely

Exploratory study

- valuable means to ask open questions to discover what is happening and gain insights about a topic of interest --> useful if you wish to clarify your understanding of an issue (e.g. lit review or in-depth interviews) --> not super relevant to us because we did not want to look at what the issue of environmental dynamism is on networks, but examine how they prepare for the future in it

data collection approach

- view of the phenomenologists, --> focus on the interview participants' recollections and interpretations of experiences --> to do so, we place a large emphasis on understanding the experiences from each interviewee's point of view --> research is to be replicated, other researchers might interpret the participants' input differently, decreasing the reliability of this thesis

Approaches to theory development

Deduction, Abduction, Induction

How to distinguish between these assumptions?

Objectivism and subjectivism

5 major philosophies

Positivism Critical realism Interpretivism Postmodernism Pragmatism

Typical methods for philosophies

Positivism: Typically deductive, highly structured, large samples, measurement, typically quantitative methods of analysis, but a range of data can be analysed Critical realism: Retroductive, in-depth historically situated analysis of pre-existing structures and emerging agency. Range of methods and data types to fit subject matter Interpretivism: Typically inductive. Small samples, in-depth investigations, qualitative methods of analysis, but a range of data can be interpreted Postmodernism: Typically deconstructive - reading texts and realities against themselves In-depth investigations of anomalies, silences and absences Range of data types, typically qualitative methods of analysis Pragmatism: Following research problem and research question Range of methods: mixed, multiple, qualitative, quantitative, action research Emphasis on practical solutions and outcomes

Quality

Reliability & validity

Methodological choice

quantitative, qualitative or mixed methods research design

Deduction

when the premises are true, the conclusion must also be true Theory - Hypothesis - Observation - Confirmation - Generalising from the general to the specific - Data collection is used to evaluate propositions or hypotheses related to an existing theory - Theory falsification or verification