Management Research: Interpretivism and Positivism

Introduction

In the field of research, the study designs differ significantly because of the ontology that researchers hold. As a result, various existing paradigms and therefore the methodologies applied do vary depending on the theoretical perspectives that the investigators embrace. Positivism and interpretivism are the two common and dominant theories that tend to guide the fact-finding process of a study. Although they present contrasting views, they are the basis of scholastic investigation in the social sciences. Positivism prefers the application of the scientific, empirical, and quantitative methods. The interpretivists, on the other hand, adhere to the application of humanistic qualitative methods. The difference between positivism and interpretivism is important for research because the two methodologies, being diverse and contrasting in so many ways, both constitute fundamental components of the research process. There is evident trade-off between the two techniques, as in essence, each method complements and reinforces the other and it is hard to complete an investigative course without having to borrow from both of them. Therefore, as interpretivism and positivism approaches contrast and support one another, they manifest a subject of interest of this particular research.

Discussion

Interpretivism approach in the social studies utilises the qualitative research approach and applies such methods as participant observation and conducting unstructured interviews with the subjects. Interpretivism is based on two systems of beliefs; relativist ontology, and subjectivist epistemology. In relative ontology, interpretivists perceive reality as something that is based on meanings and the understanding of experiential and social levels (Williman 2015). On the subjectivist epistemology, interpretivists hold the view that people and their knowledge cannot be separated. For interpretivist researchers, a strong relationship exists between a research subject and a researcher.

Positivist viewpoints differ from the interpretivist ones in the sense that their proponents believe that the reality is external to the investigator and very objective. Therefore, the latter should focus on real facts inquiry (Idowu 2017). They exclude metaphysical speculation and emphasise on observable facts. Besides, they use statistical methods to describe the reality and understand the knowledge in the external world (Klenke 2016). Since the social and objective world exists externally to the researchers, their main concern is to gain knowledge from it. According to the positivists, the reality is what is available in the senses (something that can be smelt, seen, touched, felt, etc.).

Interpretivism is an anti-positivism stance that bases its research methodologies on the understanding that reality is multiple and quite relative (Sheppard 2014). Unlike the positivists, interpretivists focus on meanings and do employ a number of methods to help them reflect on different aspects of the issue under investigation (Mingers 207). They assert that natural and social reality are essentially different and hence require varying ways of interpreting them. The interpretivist researchers argue that there is no direct relationship between the subjects (ourselves) and the object, which is the world. In this scenario, the interpretivism researchers interpret various elements of the study to get the reality or knowledge contained therein. They assume that the access to reality and its cognition is only obtained through means of social constructions such as consciousness, language instruments, and shared knowledge (Cowling 2016). The interpretivism uses idealism research to bring together diverse approaches such as social constructivism, hermeneutics, constructivism, and phenomenology. It appreciates the existence of the difference between people (Klenke 2016). The reality exists in one form, but because of the discrepancies between people, it appears to be different. That is, the presentation and perception of reality vary from one person to another because of their inborn differences.

Positivism follows the deductive approach with the aim of locating causality between various variables in the field of study. They, as abovementioned, base their examination on scientific inquiry (Charlwood 2014). Positivists emphasise on the use of empirical data and scientific methods to identify reality in the surrounding world (Reiter 2015). The guiding understanding is that the world consists of regularities that are detectable for the researcher and allow them to make inferences about the real world by making an ethnographic observation, survey, or experimentations (Idowu 2017). The common methods employed by positivist researchers include measuring, surveys, sampling, inferring, and experiments to collect and analyse the quantitative data.

Another difference between the interpretivists and positivists lies in the fact that interpretivism avoids rigid structural frameworks that seem important to the positivist researchers. In addition, they adopt more flexible and personal investigation structures that are not only significant but also receptive in capturing meanings as far as human interaction and social research are concerned (Cowling 2016). The interpretivists enter the research field with some prior assumptions or insight of the study context. As aforementioned, the naturalistic data collection approaches such as observation and interviews are key components of interpretivism research (Williman 2015). In addition to the primary data collection methods, the secondary data research is popular. These methods derive qualitative data that help to define the policies and principles of the interpretivism research approach.

Positivists prefer the application of the quantitative methods because they have a good representativeness as well as reliability (Venkatesh 2013). In the history of research, positivists have placed the importance of doing investigations following the quantitative methods such as the large-scale survey over observations to understand the society as a whole, uncover social trends, and discover the relationship between various variables in the society (Reiter 2015). Positivists reject intuitive, metaphysical, theological, and introspective knowledge. They assert that the only valid knowledge is that which is scientific and can be proven to be the same severally no matter what resources will be spent on it. In the field of economics, the practicing researchers emulate the methodological assumptions of the classical positivism but in a defector fashion. The majority of economists rarely concern themselves with the matters of epistemology explicitly.

Qualitative and Quantitative in Interpretivism and Positivism

As aforementioned, positivists and interpretivists associate themselves with using quantitative and qualitative research techniques respectively (Hepwoth 2016). For many years, scholars interested in the study of the organisational culture, have discussed the merits and demerits of qualitative and quantitative ways of examining certain concepts. They have compared the two paradigms to find out which is appropriate in conducting social studies for the improvement of the organisational culture. The interpretive camp points out that the rich experiences and perceptions of an organisation are important because they help in the understanding of cultural dynamics (Idowu 2017). For this reason, the interpretive researchers claim that the study of an organisational culture cannot be limited to a two-by-two matrix (McNabb 2015). The positivists, on the other hand, argue that leaders need to be in possession of hard empirical data to make their studies a success.

Positivists use statistical models and techniques to explain data. They deal with numbers, which are considered as hard research. Contrastingly, the interpretivists deal with the perceptual interpretation of social realities without numbers and therefore, this approach is considered as soft research. Positivism is deductive and therefore, the investigators deal directly with prediction, testing, and operationalisation. In quantitative methods, the emphasis is put on the statistical measures and procedures justifying data validity (Quick & Hall 2015). The fundamental characteristic of the interpretivism is the commitment to viewing events, actions, values, and norms from the perspective of the subjects studied (McNabb 2015). Therefore, a subjective approach involves a sense of preparedness to empathise with the study subjects. In addition, it involves the capacity to penetrate into the frames and boundaries of meanings in which they operate.

Positivists, being interested in causal relationships, employ the language of variables. Unlike the interpretivists, they do not hold any interest in cases themselves but rather in the properties of the cases that make them different. The objective of the positivist is to understand what law causes a specific outcome in the social life. For example, they try to investigate the causal relationship between economic growth and democratization. Interpretivists, also known as neo-positivists have a different approach. They make a relaxed assumption that knowledge is context-free and the causal relationships among variables are present everywhere and all the time. Thus, they concentrate on the cases proper and not the variables.

The quantitative researchers adopt an objective approach stressing more on the breadth of the matter as opposed to the depth and aim to make inferences or generalisation of the study findings to the entire population (Hasan 2016). Positivists prefer quantitative methodology instead of cultural exploration in the circumstances in which intensive methods maybe ruled out because of time factors as well as due to organisational policy and human resources scantiness. Positivists argue that quantitative techniques maximise precision, systematisation, comparability, repeatability, convenience, cost-effectiveness, and large-scale of the study (Idowu 2017). These assumptions may rank far from secure when scrutinised from a qualitative research paradigm perspective. It is also good to note that even from a quantitative standpoint the level of statistical precision of some investigations remains questionable.

The qualitative techniques tend to look into how people understand their experiences. The use of qualitative methods and approaches in the study is normally linked to a broader theoretical critique of the quantitative methodology (Ritchie et al. 2013). The critics point out problems related to naturalism. In social science studies, naturalism refers to the employment of the methodologies and procedures only applicable in the natural sciences to study the peculiar social phenomena (Babones 2016). Therefore, the qualitative methods in the study of organisational culture are aimed at exploring the meanings (Beuving & De Vries 2015). They seek to determine the meaning and are normally preferred in the investigation of social issues because some epistemological, ethical, and practical aspects are difficult to measure empirically.

As mentioned earlier, interpretivists lay stress on research depth as opposed to its breadth and they do not target at making any inferences or generalisations (Ritchie et al. 2013). Their findings also do not stand as a representation of a large population (Holloway & Galvin 2016). This kind of investigation is an explorative process that focuses on viewing the meanings from a more holistic perspective. It follows a rational interpretive approach which gave it its name (Reiter 2015). The interpretivism studies are descriptive unlike the positivism empirical research. Therefore, the core difference between the positivism and interpretivism techniques and methods (quantitative and qualitative) is in the issue of objectivity and subjectivity in conducting the investigation.

The existence of objective and subjective choices in research is because of the ontological differences as well as the nature of the organisation of idea in the two approaches (Holloway & Galvin 2016). The advantage of qualitative methods in exploring the organisational cultures or behaviours of the study subjects is their ability to demarcate social structures by following the patterns that individual behaviour displays (Hassan 2016). Such an approach allows the investigators to have not only the detailed but also meaningful examination and analysis of underlying beliefs, values, and assumptions in the study subject in relation to an organisational culture.

Positivists and interpretivists have played a crucial role in the studies of organisations and business communities. The two approaches have some kind of appeal (Reiter 2015). Both believe that to understand the meaning of something, a more profound investigation of that entity is necessary. Therefore, as any organisation encompasses the values, assumptions, and beliefs of people working in it (Thanh & Thanh 2015), they, being unconscious and powerful, can drive behavior characteristics incognito (Ormston et al. 2014). Most of these values, assumptions, and beliefs are not taken seriously by the positivist camp as they do not believe in the power of survey as an instrument to capture them scientifically. Anyway, such emotional and subjective perspectives can only be captured best using the qualitative analysis that interpretivism favours in social science research.

Trade-Offs between Interpretivism and Positivism

The trade-off between the qualitative and quantitative techniques is seen in the way the two techniques works (Venkatesh et al. 2013). A research study cannot be purely quantitative or qualitative but integrates the methods of the two approaches to compensate the weaknesses of one using the strengths of the other (Thanh & Thanh 2015). Both techniques must work together if a more comprehensive and complete understanding of phenomena has to be realized. There are occasions when the two approaches work together to achieve the best possible outcome from both.

For example, in the study to determine the buying behavior of shoppers in a supermarket, a researcher will have to apply the two research techniques in analyzing the various trends (Tsang 2014). The study can begin by stating the hypothesis (what positivist do) and then get in the field to collect data and information to prove the hypothesis as either being true or false. The data collection process is quantitative (counting) and seeks to confirm the claims set by the hypothesis. The researcher records the numbers of customers who touch the product and buy it and those who touch and do not buy. Here, counting and recording of numerical data occurs. Afterwards, the researcher will seek to understand why some customers bought the item in question while others did not. Here, he has to apply the qualitative techniques to get the answer. He has to use interviews or questionnaires to get the explanation behind the product selection by the shopper (Quick & Hall 2015). Through observation and counting, the researcher notes how many subjects bought the product whereas through interviewing an investigator discovers the reason behind the choice of it.

Researchers use a combination of the quantitative and qualitative data and methods to improve the result and outcomes of their study (Ritchie et al. 2013). The interdependence between the qualitative and quantitative methods ensures that the limitation revealed by one type of data is balanced by the strength of the other. In such a scenario, understanding of issues is improved because of the integrative ways of reaching the same point.

Conclusion

Interpretivism and positivism are popular approaches in the field of research. They differ in their perception and understanding of what constitutes reality. However, the interdependence and causal relationship between them is what matters the most. Positivism prefers the application of the quantitative research methods and methodologies and they focus on the breadth of knowledge acquired scientifically. On the other hand, interpretivism prefers qualitative methods of investigation. They focus more on the depth of knowledge rather than the breadth of it. The trade-off between them is achieved in cases where one technique cannot do alone. As mentioned severally in this essay, some researchers combine the two research approaches so that the weaknesses of any of them could be corrected with another. The analysis of the hard data of the quantitative research requires the application of the soft data employed by the interpretivism or qualitative researches. The interpretivists apply research techniques such as observation and interviews to collect information from the study subjects. Positivists use statistical methods such as sampling, experiment, and survey to collect the needed data. Finally, although interpretivism and positivism research paradigms differ in their methodologies and there is a clear ontological difference between the two theoretical perspectives, they complement each other in one way or another to make the intended research richer and more representative.