1) What is distinctive about "Mode 2" knowledge production?
It involves academics, policy makers and practitioners in problem solving. 'Mode 2' knowledge production is seen as being more suited to management and business research because it uses skills and experience of groups outside of academic institutions to achieve practical advantage. Far from limiting emphasis on practical dissemination of knowledge, it actively encourages application to management problems. Page reference: 7
2) Which of the following is not an example of a middle-range
theory? Structuration Merton (1967) argues that a middle-range theory is one that attempts to understand and explain a limited aspect of social life. Structuration (Giddens:1984) is an example of a grand theory which operates at a more abstract and general level. Page reference: 8, 9 3) An inductive theory is one that: allows theory to emerge out of the data. A deduction is a conclusion drawn logically from an argument or a discussion of things previously established or known. Deductions can be expressed as hypotheses which can then be tested, so answer (a) must be incorrect. However, when we have gathered and analysed the research data, the research findings can be fed back into our existing knowledge, which is a form of induction. This is because induction means moving from the particular to the general. So answer (b) cannot be correct either. The usual application of inductive theory, however, is to allow theory to emerge from our findings. We find an interesting question, we gather data on it and we 'theorise' from our findings. It may be that these 'theories' are, in reality, simply 'interesting insights' rather than 'grand theories' but they can be valuable for all that. The methods used are "neither here nor there" although it may be more likely for deductive theory to use quantitative methods and for inductive approaches to use qualitative methods. Page reference: 13
4) What is the epistemological position held by a positivist?
Events and discourses in the social world prevent us from having direct knowledge of the natural order. Positivism holds that only those phenomena that can be perceived by our senses are 'real' and that knowledge of them is somehow 'real' knowledge. Positivists believe that the methods used in the natural sciences can, indeed should, be used in the social sciences. Essentially this means being completely objective, in other words 'value-free', while gathering empirical data. Although mostly deductive, it allows inductivism as a means of disproving previously held theories or, perhaps more likely, widely-shared hypotheses. Positivists believe they can come to explain human behaviour, whereas the hermeneutic approach to knowledge suggests we can attempt merely to understand it. Page reference: 15,16 5) An interpretivist perspective on the issue of leadership suggests that: it is a construct that is used to make sense of social action. Grint (2000) cites the example of Richard Branson to show how if we use an interpretivist epistemological position we can see how leadership is a process of image construction. Page reference: 18 (Research in focus: 1.11)
6) Which of the following is an ontological question?
Do social entities have an objective reality, external to social actors? Ontology means the study of things outside ourselves, an external reality. Whereas this might seem reasonably straightforward as far as the natural world is concerned, it is far more complicated in the social world. Here, the study is concerned with figuring out whether the place we work in, or the university we study in, actually exist "outside" of the workers and students, say. We might say that the buildings fairly obviously exist (although some philosophers feel we shouldn't be too sure about this!) but what about the nature, or the culture, or the 'atmosphere' of those organizations. Surely these depend a lot on the people in them? So the fundamental ontological question for business research is as shown in answer (d). Page reference: 21 7) The constructionist ontological position suggests that:
social phenomena and their meanings are constantly being
accomplished by social actors. The two main ontological positions in the social sciences are 'objectivism' and 'constructivism'. Whereas the first considers social phenomena to exist independent of people somehow, the second position considers them as a product of social interaction, in a constant state of revision. Answers (b) and (d) state the objectivist viewpoint and answer (a) gives the constructionist position. Both positions have merit when we come to a consideration of how concepts can be operationalized. In more recent times researchers have come to question their own impact on the development of meaning in a social sense, to the point that research of any type can be argued to affect the nature of the research object, so that we can never research a social phenomenon without altering it in some way. This kind of thinking has come to symbolize the 'post-modernist' approach. Page reference: 21, 22 8) According to Burrell & Morgan (1979) which one of the following is not a paradigm within business research methods? Radical positivist Burrell & Morgan (1979) identified four such paradigms. Radical humanist is the "4th" of these, in addition to those listed as options "a", "c", and "d" in this question. In the field of business research, each reflects a different set of assumptions about the nature of organizations. These are useful to help us plan a research strategy but they may not be quite as opposed to each other as was once thought. "Radical" indicates a belief in showing how businesses should change for the better and the steps to be taken for this change. Page reference: 24 9) Quantitative research is: Quantitative research emphasizes quantification in the collection and analysis of data and is therefore more likely to be characterised by the ontology of objectivism, the epistemology of positivism and a deductive approach to theory building. Page reference: 27 10)
Qualitative research strategy places a value on:
generating theories through inductive research about social meanings.
We expect all research to be carried out according to the highest quality
standards, tested for validity and reliability and subjected to ethical considerations. Some research studies numbers of things, like their instances and frequencies of occurrence and the relationship of some things to others along these dimensions. We call these studies 'quantitative'. 'Qualitative' studies, on the other hand, study the reasons people do the things they do, how they feel about that, their general likes and dislikes. The problem is that quantitative studies frequently are interested in how many people feel the same way about something and qualitative studies might want to show what percentage of respondents indicated particular feelings, for example. The real difference between them is more likely to be found in their underlying research orientations, with quantitative approaches being associated with positivism and objectivism and qualitative approaches linked to interpretivism and constructionism. Page reference: 27, 28