Following the review of literature, this chapter introduces and interprets the research methodology and methods that will be adopted in the analysis of the two cities case study. Gephart (2004:456) urges researchers to recognise the need “to use methodologies that are consistent with the assumptions and aims of the theoretical view being expressed.” Therefore the chapter will discuss issues of ontology and epistemology because as Guba and Lincoln (1994:108) argue research should not be “reduced to a question of methods; methods must be fitted within a predetermined methodology.” The chapter will explore the data collection and analysis process, explaining the rationales for the decisions made and the approach taken. Also some discussion of the shortcomings will be elaborated.
Research requirements
Research requirements introduced by Amaratunga et al (2002) are embraced by the researcher and can be observed throughout the current research. These requirements are that there is/are:
• An orderly investigation of a defined problem;
• Appropriate scientific methods used;
• Adequate and representative evidence gathered;
• Logical reasoning, uncoloured by bias, employed in drawing conclusions on the basis of the evidence;
• Grounds for the researcher to be able to demonstrate or prove the validity or reasonableness of their conclusions;
• The cumulative results of research in a given area yield general principles or laws that may be applied with confidence under similar conditions in the future.
Social research and philosophical framework
This section will discuss social research and the philosophical frameworks that support different paradigms. Overall research is conducted in a framework of inquiry which relies
on facts, experiences and data, concepts and constructs, hypothesis and conjectures, principles and laws. In general researchers usually refer to the main aims as listed below (Sarantagos 1998:15):
• Explore social reality for its own sake / or in order to make further research possible,
• Explain social life by providing reliable, valid and well-documented information,
• Evaluate the status of social issues and their effects on society,
• Make Predictions,
• Develop /or Test theories,
• Understand human behaviour and action, to offer a basis for a Critique of social reality,
• Emancipate people,
• Suggest possible solutions to social problems,
• Empower and Liberate people
Sarantagos (1998:16) goes on to argue that researchers and those having an interest in social research may aim at one or more of the following applications:
General Goals Understanding for its own stake
Theoretical Goals: Verification, falsification, modification or discovery of a theory Pragmatic Goals: Solution of social problem
Political Goals: Development of social policy, evaluation of programs and practices, and social criticism; social change and reconstructions;
empowerment and liberation.
For the current research the complexity and sophistication of the chosen research interest are significant factors. As the aims of the research on stakeholders suggests that the research needs to align within the Theoretical, Pragmatic and Political boundaries.
Schools of thought
According to Morse (1994:137) “Philosophy” is “made of ontology and epistemology.
Ontology is concerned with the nature and relations of being, where epistemology is the study or theory of the nature and grounds of knowledge, especially with the reference to its limits and validity”. Perry et al (1999:16) argue that “ontology is reality” and
“epistemology is the relationship between that reality and the researcher”. There are two approaches to social science, based on opposing epistemological stances: Positivism and Phenomenology (Marshall and Rossman 1999, Denzin and Lincoln 1998, Griseri, 2002).
The research philosophy depends on the way that the researcher thinks about the development of knowledge. These two research approaches dominate the literature: with many key texts, such as Saunders et al (2000) and Reményi et al (1998) referring to these as Positivism and Phenomenology. This terminology will be utilised in the initial discussion in this chapter, although it is acknowledged that the usage misrepresents phenomenology. Phenomenology should be recognised as a distinct form of qualitative research and not used as a generic term to refer to all forms of qualitative enquiry.
It would be easy to fall into the trap of thinking that one research approach is ‘better’ than another, but which is ‘better’ depends on the research questions that the researcher is seeking to answer. Silverman (1993) believes that research should be conducted with an emphasis on high methodological sophistication and theoretical awareness, while eschewing the more narrow phenomenological approach, which nevertheless finds favour with later tourism analysis. Given the eclectic perspectives of tourism commentators generally, it comes as no surprise that there is no real consensus when approaching the issue of methodology within the field. (Silverman, 1993)
Approach Concepts Methods
Positivism Social Structure
Social Facts
Quantitative Hypothesis Testing
Phenomenology Social Construction
Meanings
Qualitative
Hypothesis Generation Table 6.1: Two schools of science (Source: Silverman, 1998)
As these two perspectives dominate social research, he refers to them as paradigms.
Sarantagos (1998:31) sees “paradigm” as a “set of propositions that explain how the world is perceived; contains a world view, a way of breaking down the complexity of the real world, telling researchers and social scientists in general what is important- what is legitimate – what is reasonable”. Similarly, Denzin and Lincoln (1998) see a “paradigm”
as a basic set of beliefs that guide actions, encompassing three elements, which are:
Ontology, Epistemology, and Methodology.
Scholars Ontology Epistemology Methodology
Denzin and
Table 6.2: Key scholars define ontology, epistemology and methodology
Recently, Griseri (2002) encapsulated, (see table 6.3), Lincoln and Guba’s work by identifying the key differences of the philosophical stances within the paradigm elements.
Approach Ontology Epistemology Methodology
Phenomenology
Table 6.3: Philosophical approach vs paradigm elements (Source: Griseri, 2002)
The positivist perspective
Positivism searches for causal explanations and fundamental laws, and generally reduces the whole to the simplest possible elements in order to facilitate analysis. Positivism infers that reality exists and that it is fully apprehendable; the researcher does not have any influence over the research subject and assumes that the truth is always obtained (Reményi et al, 1998). As they argue (1998:32)"Being a positivist implies that the researcher is working with an observable social reality and that the end product of such can be the derivation of law or law-like generalizations similar to those produced by the physical and natural scientists."
Positivism is the oldest theory in the social sciences and has been linked with the French philosopher Comte at the nineteen century. According to Sarantagos (1998:35) as a
“school of thought and as the basis of research, positivism dominated for the largest part of social science history where as a philosophical perspective holds intellectual sway within the domain of social research”. Comte argued that social phenomena could be investigated in a parallel manner to the physical world (Griseri, 2002).
According to Comte, positivism “asserted that only verifiable claims based directly on experience could be considered genuine knowledge” (Patton, 2002:92). Sarantagos (1998:3) reviews Comte and states that “he believed social investigators should not seek explanations of social problems in theological principles or metaphysical theories, but rather in society itself and in the structure of social relations. Therefore the new methods must be scientific and it was essential to study society and people as we see them rather than as they are interpreted by philosophers and theologians”.
However, a strong critical argument of the positivist position is that "the social world of business and management is far too complex to lend itself to theorizing by definite ‘law’
in the same way as the physical sciences". (Saunders et al, 2000:86) Furthermore, Patton (2002) and Griseri (2002), see some negative criticisms of Positivism as the table 6.4 shows below:
Criticisms of Positivism Facts Cannot be Isolated from Theories,
Researchers Cannot be Entirely Independent of the Subject of their Research,
Subjects Cannot be Entirely Independent of the Theories which Explain their Behaviour, In Social Research, Values Cannot be Eliminated from the Investigation,
Theoretical Explanations are more than Mere Predictions of Phenomena. Table 6.4: Criticisms of positivism
Easterby-Smith et al (1991) highlight the strengths and weaknesses of Positivism as a stance dominated by quantitative methods, as shown in table 6.5. Regardless of that, as Schrag (1992:5) puts it “despite the attacks levelled against it, the positivist paradigm is hard to avoid.”
Strengths Weaknesses
They can provide wide coverage of the range of situations
They can be fast and economical
Where statistics are aggregated from large samples, they may be of considerable relevance to policy decisions
The methods used tend to be rather inflexible and artificial
They are not very effective in understanding processes or the significance that people attach to actions They are not very helpful in generating theories
Because they focus on what is, or what has been recently, they make it hard for policy makers to infer what changes and actions should take place in the future Table 6.5: Strengths and weaknesses of a positivist approach
The phenomenological perspective
Phenomenology derives from the Greek word phenomenon which means “To show it self” - to put into light or manifest something that can become visible in itself. Van Manen (1990:206), states that “phenomenology asks for every nature of a phenomenon, for that which makes a some-thing what it is and without which it could not be what it is.” Marshall and Rossman (1999:112) define Phenomenology as “the study of lived experience and the ways we understand those experiences to develop a worldview. It rests on an assumption that there is a structure and essence to shared experiences that can
understanding of the nature or meaning of our everyday experiences.”
However, in a more general view phenomenological inquiry is one that uses qualitative and naturalistic approaches to inductively and holistically understand human experience in context-specific settings rather than search for external causes or fundamental laws (Reményi et al, 1998). Phenomenologists suggest that reality is relative to the view of the observer (researcher), and can influence the studied subjects, (Lincoln and Guba 1985).
Accordingly, facts are created by the inquirer, who interprets the multiple phenomena.
The strengths and weaknesses of the phenomenological approach rely largely on qualitative methods as table 6.6 shows.
Strengths Weaknesses
Ability to look at change processes, Adjust to new issues and ideas as emerge,
To contribute to the evolution of new theories.
Data collection can take up a great deal of time and resources, Analysis and interpretation of data may be very difficult, Qualitative studies often feel very untidy because it is hard to control their pace, progress and end points,
People may give low credibility to studies based on a phenomenological approach.
Table 6.6: Strengths and weaknesses of phenomenology (Adapted from Easterby-Smith et al, 1991:32)
Carson et al (2001:5), identify phenomenology as belonging to “Interpretivism” (derived by the Greeks as hermeneuein, meaning to interpret). Interpretivism allows the focus of research to be on understanding what is happening in a given context, as figure 6.1 illustrates.
Fig 6.1: Continuum of research philosophies (Adapted from Carlson et al. 2001:5)
Easterby-Smith et al (1991) summarise the main differences between the positivist and phenomenological approaches as table 6.7 shows below,
Theme Positivism Paradigm Phenomenological Paradigm
Basic Beliefs
Observer is part of what is observed Science is driven by human interests Look at the totality of each situation Develop ideas through induction from data Table 6.7: Key features of the paradigms (Easterby-Smith et al, 1991:27)
Qualitative and quantitative research approaches to methodology
A methodology is a “model which entails theoretical principles as well as a framework that provides guidelines about how research is done in the context of a particular paradigm” (Sarantagos 1998:32) Methodology refers to “where and what a researcher
Positivism/
such as logic used for arriving at insights and as a means of communication, so that other people can inspect and evaluate the research” (Carson et al, 2001:1). Straus and Corbin (1998:3) define methodology as: “a way of thinking about and studying social reality”.
Perry et al (1999) argue that methodology should be seen as the collection of the technique(s) used by the researcher to discover the reality.
Research may be categorised into two distinct types; Qualitative and Quantitative according to the schools of thought:
Quantitative research approaches are characterised by the assumptions that human behaviour can be explained by what may be termed “social facts”, which can be investigated by methodologies that utilise the deductive logic of the natural sciences, (Horne, 1994). Quantitative investigations look for distinguishing characteristics, elements, properties and empirical boundaries, and tend to measure how much or how often (Nau, 1995). A quantitative research study allows flexibility in the treatment of data, in terms of comparative analysis, statistical analysis, and repeatability of data collection in order to verify reliability.
Qualitative research approaches have traditionally been favoured when the main research objective is to improve the understanding of a phenomenon, especially when this phenomenon is complex and deeply embedded in its context. Also, qualitative methods are strong in those areas that have been identified as potential weaknesses within the quantitative approach, such as the use of interviews and observations to provide a deep, rather than broad set of knowledge about a particular phenomenon and their appropriateness to investigate cognitive and affective aspects of discipline.
The contrast between the two types of research may be summarised as table 6.8 shows below:
Qualitative Research Quantitative Research
Used to conceptualise and explore new phenomena
Emic perspective Naturalistic setting
Hypotheses emerge in the process of data collection
Small number of samples studies in depth Especially appropriate to psychological research focused on personal experience
Used to determine causal relations among phenomena
Etic perspective Laboratory setting
Hypotheses formulated prior to data collection Large statistically determined sample of subjects studied only in relation to predetermined hypotheses Especially appropriate to research on physical objects.
Table 6.8: Qualitative vs quantitative research (Morse and Mitcham, 2002)
As Carson et al (2001) state, traditionally social scientists when faced with a new phenomenon employed qualitative research methods such as in-depth interviews with key informants and focused on or worked with people likely to be affected by the phenomenon. They conclude that transparency has the highest significance in qualitative research and there should be clear and precise evidence. The validity of this transparency can be strengthened by linking the interpretation to prior theory and to any conceptual theory building in a study. A list of the most important techniques, are illustrated in the Table 6.9, according to their uses.
Techniques and methods Uses
Comprehensive methodologies; allows for gathering wide range of data: allow for observation, what people say, written materials, documentary evidence;
and over time, not one-off, time-specific approach
Table 6.9: Qualitative techniques and methods and their uses (Source: Carson et al, 2001) Theory construction in both qualitative and quantitative - comparison
Sarantagos (1998:9) summarises the field and emphasises the vital and imperative value of theory into the research; “a theory is a set of systematic tested and logically interrelated propositions that have been developed through research and that explain social phenomena”. He continues and adds that theory and research are very closely interrelated, especially in two ways. On the one hand theory directs research by providing guidelines and basic assumptions, and on the other hand, research provides the way of establishing formulating strengthening and revising a theory. Theory construction is based on a systematic approach employing clear, explicit and formal procedures in all aspects of the research process including: defining concepts, variables and classificatory systems.
The intention of this methodological thinking is to arrive at a set of logically interrelated propositions that describe, interpret, explain and predict social phenomena in order to lead into the development, acceptance, rejection or modification of a theory. As described and highlighted previously the two types of research vary and theory building is perceptibly different, as table 6.10 shows, below. In summary, qualitative researchers
concern and express reservations about the way theory is defined, constructed and used.
In contrast, quantitative researchers present an image of theory and its relationship to research that is fundamentally different, impressive and most of all popular.
Differences Quantitative Research Qualitative Research Logic of Theory
Direction of Theory building
Verification
Concepts
Generalisations
Deductive
Begins from Theory
Takes place after theory building is completed
Firmly defined before research begins
Inductive, sample –to- population generalisations
Inductive
Begins with reality
Data generation, analysis and theory verification take place concurrently
Begins with orienting, sensitising or flexible concepts
Analytic or exemplar generalisations
Table 6.10: Theory building in qualitative and quantitative research (Sarantagos, 1998:15)
Philosophical stance of the research
There are many reasons why clarification of the philosophical stance is vital and useful, at the outset of every research study. The three main reasons are to help the “knowledge of philosophy,” “research design”, and “researcher abilities”. (Easterby-Smith et al, 1991)
In order to describe the philosophical stance of the current research it is necessary to summarise the key outstanding philosophies; as table 6.11 shows.
Positivist Phenomenology Reality is single, tangible and fragment able,
Knower and the known were independent,
Only time and context bound working hypotheses, or ideographic statements, are possible,
All entities are in a state of mutual simultaneous shaping, so that is impossible to distinguish causes from effects,
Inquiry is value bound, for investigations Table 6.11: Positivist vs phenomenology (Source: Lincoln and Guba, 1985)
For this research, the phenomenological paradigm was adopted. The positivist approach was rejected due to the following reasons;
• To critically evaluate the level and limitations of stakeholder involvement suggested a case study approach is required with the involvement and participation from participants, the conduct of interviews with individuals over a lengthy period and the injection of additional elements by analysing archival information and by retrospective interviewing.
• The multiple case study approach did not make use of hypotheses that are required for positivist approaches (Bryman, 2001).
• Moreover, the research examines the phenomenon from a holistic approach, (Lincoln and Guba, 1985; Marshall and Rossman, 1999).
• There was no intention to produce generalisable law type statements about the phenomenon.
Tribe (2001) has addressed these issues in terms of tourism research, making a number of useful points. He argues that much of the research in tourism comes from a positivist
orientation, with a concern for how things are and how things really work tracing their roots back to such disciplines as marketing, management and planning. Tribe (2001:443) argues that “The world of ‘ought’ is therefore ruled out of bounds in favour of the world of ‘is’”. However he goes on to argue (2001:445) that further research based on what he identifies as the interpretative tradition seeks to “promote understanding of tourism from the point of view of all stakeholders in the tourism environment. The extent of the tourism world and tourism aims and purposes are not determined or predefined. Rather part of the interpretative method is to seek agreement and understanding of the tourism world and tourism purposes.” The adoption of a mainly phenomenological stance provided a course of action in conducting the multiple case study approach. Additionally, case studies are designed to bring out details from the viewpoint of the participants by using multiple sources of data. Although, mainly a phenomenological paradigm was selected, the research design did not rigidly adhere to the paradigm’s assumptions.
According to Easterby-Smith (1991:22) “when one looks at the practice of the research, even self confessed extremists do not hold consistently to one position or the other…there are many researchers who adopt a pragmatic view by deliberately combining methods.”
The research approach has been also influenced by the “realism paradigm”. Within the realism paradigm, the focus is on the rigorously analytical method of case study research
The research approach has been also influenced by the “realism paradigm”. Within the realism paradigm, the focus is on the rigorously analytical method of case study research