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Contextualizing Methods Choice in Organizational Research

Cranfield University

Alan Bryman

University of Leicester

The field of organizational research displays three trends: widening boundaries, a multiparadigmatic profile, and methodological inventiveness. Choice of research methods, shaped by aims, epistemological concerns, and norms of practice, is thus also influenced by organizational, historical, political, ethical, evidential, and personal factors, typically treated as problems to be overcome. This article argues that those factors constitute a system of inevitable influences and that this contextualization of methods choice has three implications. First, it is difficult to argue that methods choice depends exclusively on links to research aims; choice involves a more complex, interdependent set of considerations. Second, it is difficult to view method as merely a technique for snapping reality into focus; choices of method frame the data windows through which phenomena are observed, influencing interpretative schemas and theoretical development. Third, research competence thus involves addressing coherently the organizational, historical, political, ethical, evidential, and personal factors relevant to an investigation.

Key Words: research methods • organization politics • research ethics • context • paradigm

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