3 RESEARCH DESIGN
3.3 Quality assessments
The criteria for evaluating the quality of qualitative research has debated for decades (Johnson et al., 2006; Lincoln & Guba, 1985; Welch & Piekkari, 2017). The traditional positivist view, where the main emphasis has been the evaluation of reliability and validity, has been utilized in the vast majority of qualitative studies, regardless of the nature, the paradigm, underlying the study. Lincoln and Cuba (1985) challenged the positivist quality evaluation convention as early as in 1985 and proposed that the criteria for interpretative studies should be credibility, transferability, dependability, and confirmability. After a few years Guba and Lincoln (1994) decided those criteria might have too many parallels with positivist approaches, and proposed authenticity criteria of fairness, ontological authenticity, educative authenticity, catalytic authenticity, and tactical authenticity. Although (or because) the criteria for evaluation is created by the research community itself (Welch & Piekkari, 2017), there is no consensus on the criteria. Where Gioia and colleagues (2013) emphasize the trustworthiness criteria, Schwandt (1996) proposes to abandoning criteriology for regulative norms entirely. As the opinions on quality criteria varies between scholars, Johnson and colleagues (Johnson et al., 2006) underlines the role of philosophical positioning when applying the evaluation criteria for a study.
Bansal and Corley (2011) in their editorial for the Academy of Management Journal (AMJ) encourage qualitative researchers to target flexibility and creativity and to underline authenticity, transparency, reflexivity, and engagement in their qualitative studies. In this study, I follow the notions of Bansal and Corley to explain the quality assessments of the study. All interviews used in this thesis were recorded and fully transcribed, and the analysis was made by two or more researchers, which helped to deepen the understanding of the phenomena through an iterative interaction process between the researchers emphasizing the reflexivity. The interviews were complemented with secondary sources, such as internal documents, company presentations, and annual reports to enhance the understanding and confirm the analysis and to ensure authenticity.
The data and analysis methods are not only described in the articles but also designed to offer valuable descriptions of the phenomenon and the findings to increase transparency. Especially in articles 2 and 3 the voice of the interviewees is central showing the evidence for our conclusions and offering rich descriptions to emphasize the transparency of the studies. If the voice of the interviewees is central in Articles 2 and 3, in Article 1 voice of the researcher plays active role, which Bansal and Corley (2011) term the second important aspect of transparency.
Being action research, the role and voice of researcher has been present throughout the research process and has deeply influenced all phases of the process. The researcher voice is coupled with reflexivity, which asks the researcher to question herself, and question who she becomes in the interaction with respondents (Guba & Lincoln, 2005). I am deeply grateful for not having to undertake this journey of becoming alone, but with experienced colleagues, with whom I have repeatedly had the possibility to reflect on empirical, theoretical, and philosophical questions within different articles. Reinhatrz (1997) argues that we researchers have three types of selves we bring with us: research-based selves, brought selves, and situationally shaped selves. These different selves with distinctive voices we as researchers bring into action in the different research settings. Especially when collecting the data from City of Vaasa, where the role of researchers was more active practitioner than distant researcher, these different selves brought into situations were present continually. Ongoing dialogues with co-author and officials in City of Vaasa were important to reflect critically self or different selves and roles, actions undertook, and observations made. When co-authoring the Articles 2 and 3, reflexivity took place especially in data analyzing process. As the data for these papers consists vast amount of interviews collected from different companies, reflecting repeatedly the different interpretations of researchers, was the key to stress the validity of the results.
The forth important quality aspect according to Bansal and Corley (2011) is engagement, the ability to describe the discovered insight and the way it was deepened further. In Articles 2, and 3, the process of finding the insight is described in detail by using the “Gioia- method” (Corley & Gioia, 2004). The visual model of the method illustrate the data analysis process and the logic of analysis, the engagement. Method not only helps reader to follow the choices made in data analysis phase and but also shows evidence for conclusions. Furthermore, interviewees direct quotations provided in articles both portray and elucidate the authentic sayings and narrates the perceived reality in case organizations.
The rigorous quality assessments - the data collection, analysis and methods- of this study are discussed in more detailed manner in each of the article included to the dissertation.
4 REVIEW OF THE RESULTS: ARTICLE SUMMARIES
The aim of this dissertation is to make sense of the interplay between sociomaterial, cognitive and paradox views in the field of strategy as practice. This objective is delivered by the five articles following the main body of this dissertation, each of which approach the research agenda from different viewpoints. The summary of each article is provided below in order to give reader a short introduction to the research questions, data, and the contributions of each article.