PHILOSOPHICAL UNDERPINNING: - CONDUCTING THE RESEARCH

6. CONDUCTING THE RESEARCH

6.1 PHILOSOPHICAL UNDERPINNING:

THE PHENOMENOLOGICAL-HERMENEUTIC APPROACH 6.1.1 ONTOLOGY AND EPISTEMOLOGY

The objective of this study in the fi rst place was to understand a certain phenomenon and shed more light on it by exploring the phenomenon with an open mind, not from a pre-set starting point. The research approach of this study can be described as an explorative, qualitative case study. One of the characteristics of the study is that the research process was anything but linear in nature. The original starting point, the research questions and the plans were fl exible and adapted to the changes in the process. The very feature of hermeneutic spiral, continuous interaction between em-piric observations and theoretical perspectives, was indeed a prevalent characteristic of the research process in this study. Hermeneutic spiral is the learning process where the researcher incrementally approaches a deeper understanding of the topic and research questions, fed in turn by theory and empirical fi ndings. It is a characteristic of an explorative qualitative research that the data reveals the important observations.

The aim is not to prove a pre-defi ned hypothesis. (See e.g. Alasuutari, 1993, Denzin

& Lincoln, 1994, Hirsjärvi et al., 1997, pp. 160-168, Varto, 1992, p. 69)

The ontological understanding by which the researcher understands the world and the research object in this study is something that needs to be discussed. The object of this study is predominantly the work and more specifi cally boundaries and boundary crossings in one case organisation as described by the research informants. Theoretical approaches are used to a certain extent in describing the context and in the analysis of the data. The focal point is the individuals as part of the collective work system. The basic starting point for this study was a qualitative and explorative approach.¹ Understanding human beings as active constructors of their environment together with others is in line with social constructivism (see e.g. Tynjälä, 1999).

In qualitative research, the basic concepts, theories and concrete choices concerning the case, like methods, are based on the ontological and epistemological understanding of the researcher. Epistemology is concerned with what distinguishes different kinds of knowledge claims – specifi cally with the criteria that allow distinctions between

“knowledge” and “non-knowledge” to be made. Epistemology is interested in the source of knowledge, how it is possible to “know” anything and how any given knowledge can be considered credible. Ontology, on the other hand, is about what exists, the nature of the world and reality. Epistemological and ontological questions are related to each other since claims about what exists in the world imply claims about how “what exists”

may be known. Figure 13 compiles the background orientation and commitments made in this study.

Figure 13. Background orientation and commitments in this study

1. The action research or interventionist approach would have been practically impossible with that starting point idea, with the limited practical resources and the hectic, constantly changing environment in the case organisation.

Background philosophic orientation

-Materialistic border conditions and hum an beings’

collective dim ension needs to be taken into account.

Rechearcher’s role

Research Paradigm: Qua lita tive (interpreta tive , na tura listic) a pproa ch

Research Methodology/Research Design:Ex plora tive Qua lita tive Ca se Study Descriptive, non-experimental, inductive, data driven

The basic initial assumption in this study is that human beings are capable of inter-preting the events taking place in their environment, of making sense of the world and of forming meanings accordingly. The experiences and personal interpretations of the research participants and interviewees are valued. Human beings understand the world and gain knowledge about it through their experiences and in interaction with others;

the contact with reality is indirect and processed through people’s minds. Human be-ings are regarded as being active and intentional; they have feelbe-ings, and plans and they value things from their own perspective. Cultures are created as a consequence of human activity and they, in turn, transform and shape people. Human behaviour and activity are rational compared to animal’s instinctive activity. Human language provides a means for both communication and thinking. (see e.g. Syrjälä et al., 1995, pp. 74-78)

In my view, human beings have a great potential for learning, refl ection and devel-opment. My understanding of learning is based on the constructivist view; this paradigm prevails in modern thinking and educational sciences and emphasises the fact that new knowledge is built on existing knowledge structures. Creative and refl ective aspects of learning are taken into account too compared to the more traditional knowledge processing paradigms. Knowledge gained of reality does not correspond to reality; it depicts reality but is not a copy of it. The biggest differences between various schools within the constructivist approach concern the perspective: individual, group or more extensive social contexts. In this study I have adopted the perspective provided by social constructivism.²

2. According to the socio-cultural approach, (in this study presented through Engeström’s activity theoretical model and its background) people always act in cultural contexts. Their activity is mediated by language and other symbol systems.

Knowledge creation and learning are basically social phenomena and cannot thus be studied in isolation from their social, cultural and historical situation and development. The research object is primarily social activity and interaction. (This is where my approach differs slightly from the activity-theoretical orientation.) This activity can best be understood in its historical context. Engeström built his model mostly on the theories of Vygotsky and Leontjev who represent the cultural-historical school having critical or Marxist philosophical roots. Engeström (2008) writes that “activity theory was built on the foundation of Marxist analysis of history and society… In a work activity in a capitalist fi rm, the workers are alienated from the overall object, motive and product of their labour. The gap between actions and activity is not only caused by elaborate division of labour but, above all, by the private ownership of the object. This is magni-fi ed in the era of fi nancialization and shareholder value, when the concrete outcomes of work seem to have nothing to do with the success and destiny of the company. Profi t motive is the dominant management motive, not unproblemati-cally appropriated and shared by workers. If activity theory is stripped of its historical analysis of contradictions of capitalism, the theory becomes either another management toolkit or another psychological approach without potential for radical transformations.” In my view activity theoretical framework belongs to the critical studies since it presupposes dissensus (and not consensus) and the research concepts are brought to the research by the researcher and held static through the research process. (see Deetz, 1996 and Järvinen, 2004, pp. 36-37)Likewise Lave & Wenger’s (1991) theory of situated learning can also be categorized as a socio-cultural constructivist approach like proposed by Blackler (1995): “Contemporary versions of activity theory take a variety of forms. However, they are all explicit in their attempts to develop a unifi ed account of knowing and doing, and all emphasise the collective, situated and tentative nature of knowing. Some, like Lave and Wenger concentrate on the processes through which people develop shared conceptions of their activities. Others like Engeström model relationships that exist between a community’s conceptions of its activities and the material, mental and social resources through which it enacts them. While the former approach develops a model of learning as socialization, the latter explores the circumstance in which communities may enact new conceptions of their activities”. (Blackler 1995, p. 1035) According to symbolic interactionism, fi rst developed by Mead (1934) and Blumer (1969), meaning is a social and symbolic product that is created in the interpretative interaction between people. Symbolic interactionism can be traced back to the pragmatic philosophy of John Dewey (1966). In

According to the holistic view of human beings, they are individual “whole” enti-ties that need always be understood within a certain context (see e.g. Rauhala, 1983).

There are two dimensions in my understanding of the human being. First, based on the traditional hermeneutic-phenomenological philosophic orientation, there is an (unexplored) mental dimension in every human being and every human being is basically one harmonious entity. This is my understanding of the human being and his/her individual dimension. However, an individual’s collective dimension is very much affected by materialistic border conditions that have a great effect on how they behave in collective contexts. In my view, a human being is always an entity in which differ-ent parts of the wholeness affect others. When it comes to human beings’ collective dimension, existentialist and cultural elements step in and mix with the essentialist view by letting human beings partly decide what they want to be and by bringing in the cultural and materialistic border conditions that can partly defi ne what human beings can be (see e.g. Hirsjärvi, 1987).

The very research object of this study is the complex modern work context that is characterized with extensive use of modern technologies and requires a strong dis-tributed cognition (see e.g. Boland et al., 1994, Brown, 2000). However, I still believe that there is an individual dimension in every human being even if they are parts of complex work related networks. This individual dimension gives them a power to refl ect on what is going on in their own life or in their surroundings and to make de-cisions accordingly. When it comes to understanding and explaining human activity, an essential philosophical choice and commitment has to be made between idealism (e.g. Rauhala 1989) and materialism (Ollinheimo 1997, 1998). I have opted for a sort of dualism and hold the view that not all human activity and all conceptualisations related to it can be redirected to certain materialistic premises or reasons. However, I do think that the changing environment in workplaces and organisations poses chal-lenges to the idealistic philosophy when combined with phenomenological-hermeneutic

this approach individual interpretation is emphasised even if it is made within given social conditions and structures.

Socio-cultural and cognitive (individual) constructivism should not be understood as mutually exclusive but as mutually complementary; both individual knowledge constructing and the social dynamics should be taken into account. All in all, symbolic interactionism gives more autonomy to the individual than the socio-cultural approaches. However, as Bereiter (1994) puts it: “there is no contradiction between the various approaches within the constructivist approach. Still, in research one has to choose a perspective”. Cognitive (individual) constructivism is always about social constructivism, too; the individuals in any case build up their reality together with others in interaction and in social arenas (see Tynjälä 1999, pp. 28-71). In this study my perspective is close to the socio-cultural approaches and the symbolic interactionism.

In contrast my thinking differs from the social constructionism (the most sociological of constructivist approaches). In Berger’s & Luckman’s (1966) theory of Social Construction of Reality, reality is understood to be a social construct created through interaction. People produce societies; reality is maintained and transformed through the conversations and negotiations people have. Their roots are in post-modern philosophy and the emphasis social sciences have lately given to language/textuality. Their world view, like a literary text, is open to multiple interpretations. This view is post-epistemic in abandoning the traditional view according to which we have to consider how people gain knowledge of the world. Those behind social constructionism maintain that people and their knowledge need to be seen as part of the world, not as a separate entity. By placing knowledge and knowledge creation in language itself, social constructionists abandon dualistic mind of a human being. The difference from Vygotskian thinking is that social constructionists are not interested in psychological processes between people (see Tynjälä 1999).

orientation. People are simply restricted by materialistic mediators in organisational contexts, let alone virtual organisational contexts where the very interaction between people is technologically mediated.

In my study, the research questions centre on individuals being part of complex constantly changing environments. Knowledge is sought from individuals who are a part of the work-related context. In phenomenologically oriented research the start-ing point for the analysis is always a discourse structurstart-ing culture that is language (Ulvinen, 1996, pp. 6-7). My hermeneutic understanding is realistic in the sense that in my opinion the researcher’s target is to strive for objective research fi ndings even if it is not possible to end up with even an interim fi nal truth or an objective depiction of reality. The researcher always interprets through his/her mental structures. The pursuit of optimally objective research fi ndings is achieved by being critical about everything related to the research process, refl ecting on one’s pre-understanding and biases, careful selection of research methods and their detailed description in the report.

The basic idea in the qualitative research paradigm is to take into account how the subjects of the research interpret situations, because their interpretation guides their actions. The knowledge that the researcher seeks and fi nds is also subjective and value-based. Creativity as a basic feature of human activity is based on conscious or unconscious decision-making based on interpretations that are constantly formed in social interaction. Knowledge is restricted to a certain given moment and place and it is tied to the social and cultural situation in question. People use their existing knowledge when they create new social and cultural patterns. Yet the knowledge cannot be used to predict coming things since life itself is unexpected. Knowledge produced by research is not primarily targeted to increase the predictability of certain phenomena but rather to add up to an understanding of social processes and to possibly fi nd new ideas or concepts and encourage discussion. The objective of research is to pursue an understanding of the meanings behind actions. It assumes that reality can be investigated from mul-tiple perspectives – that the world is not an objective thing out there but a function of personal interaction and perception. Out of these multiple realities qualitative research strives to understand how all the parts work together to form a whole. In this paradigm, there are no fi xed hypotheses and no restrictions on the end product. (See e. g.

Usher et al. 1997, pp. 18-22, Silverman 1995, pp. 47-51, Denzin & Lincoln, 1994, Syrjälä et al. 1995, p. 76).³

3. Even if the basic assumptions behind this research and me as a researcher are based on the research tradition of hu-manistic sciences, there are phenomena that modern information technologies, for example, have brought about and in my view should be taken into account when researching modern organisations. Firstly, modern working environments encompassing various technology-based devices leading to the fact that they cannot be understood as mere interaction systems between people. This concerns both asynchronous and synchronous virtual collaborative environments. People involved in various activities do not only process cognitive actions in their minds or in interaction with each other. They are more and more intensively part of complex technology-based activity systems. Secondly, my ontological orientation justifi es knowledge engineering efforts, attempting to arrive at semantic ontologies and metadata systems for different kinds of information systems or IT/ICT environments so that they would best meet the human user requirements.

Thirdly, I have to consider the historical era western societies are living in, whether it is described as post-modernism or

6.1.2 RESEARCH SETTING IN THIS CASE STUDY

Qualitative approach was chosen for this research predominantly for three reasons.

First, it suits well for investigating human notions and understanding of a certain phenomenon. Secondly, there is a need to take people’s natural environments or sur-roundings into account and describe comprehensively the quality of the phenomena presented in research questions. Thirdly, I wanted to possibly discover new emerging issues related to the phenomenon under investigation. The overall research setting and process of this study is described in Figure 14. Exploratory studies are conducted to investigate little-understood phenomena, to discover important variables or to gener-ate hypotheses for further research. Case study as a research strgener-ategy and a mix of data gathering methods suit well this approach. (see e.g. Marshall & Rossman, 1995, p.

41, Järvinen, 2004, p. 74, Syrjälä et al., 1995)

Figure 14. Overall research setting and process

It would have been possible to choose a more quantitative approach and to develop the survey and the interviews in that direction. However, I wanted to take a more explorative approach and to endeavour to see how it really happens and what people’s insights concerning it are, how they interpret their environment and how they feel about

as high modernism (see e.g. Usher et al., 1997 and Giddens, 1991). In post-modern societies universalisms of any kind are losing their traditional effi cacy, leading to a situation in which individuals must choose between a range of lifestyle options and ethical dilemmas. While offering new opportunities for self-defi nition it has also created a situation in which the self is in a constant state of crisis. However, even if this is acknowledged as a new emerging societal feature, this study does not want to take a post-modern approach to making research (deconstruction, non-holistic understanding of the nature of human being).

working in a possibly boundaryless environment. A qualitative approach is a good option if one wants to discover something that is not yet coded in pre-defi ned categorisations.

The basic approach has been to use the most relevant parts of various data gathering methods fl exibly if they are deemed to serve the purpose and objectives of this study.

Even if the overall approach is qualitative, some quantitative data was gathered and will be used partly to describe the phenomenon; this is mostly in the form of descriptive basic facts and fi gures. The hermeneutic approach enabled me to study and evaluate existing literature and existing theories, my own understanding of the phenomenon, research data and further possibilities and needs for the data to take place in a cyclical manner. These phases intertwined in the research process. Also, the writing of the research report progressed alongside with the above-mentioned steps.

Case study – and, in particular, qualitative case study – as a research design in its own right can be regarded as an approach that is distinct from other approaches to a research problem. The philosophical assumptions underlying the case study most often draw on the qualitative research paradigm. A qualitative case study is an intensive, holistic description and analysis of a single instance, phenomenon, or social unit. The main emphasis is on description and interpretation within a certain context. Case studies are particularistic in that they focus on a specifi c situation or phenomenon; they are descriptive and they are heuristic – that is, they offer insights into the phenomenon under study. Qualitative inquiry is inductive – focusing on process, understanding, and interpretation – rather than deductive or experimental. As Yin (1984) observes, case study is a design particularly suited to situations where it is impossible to separate the phenomenon’s variables from their context. Stake (1981) claims that knowledge learned from a case study is different from other research knowledge in four important ways: it is more concrete and more contextual; it is more developed by reader inter-pretation as readers bring in their own experience and understanding, which lead to

In document Boundaryless Work An Explorative Case Study on the Nature of Boundaries and Boundary Crossings in Rapidly Changing Research & Development Work (sivua 105-112)