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Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
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TY - JOUR
T1 - The philosophy and practice of interpretivist research in entrepreneurship: Quality, validation and trust
AU - Leitch, Claire
AU - Hill, Frances
AU - Harrison, Richard
PY - 2010/1
Y1 - 2010/1
N2 - Knowledge production in entrepreneurship requires inclusivity as well as diversity and pluralism in research perspectives and approaches. In this article, the authors address concerns about interpretivist research regarding validity, reliability, objectivity, generalizability, and communicability of results that militate against its more widespread acceptance. Following the nonfoundationalist argument that all observation is theory-laden, context specific, and that there are no external criteria against which to assess research design and execution and the data produced, the authors propose that quality must be internalized within the underlying research philosophy rather than something to be tested upon completion. This requires a shift from the notion of validity as an outcome to validation as a process. To elucidate this, they provide a guiding framework and present a case illustration that will assist an interpretivist entrepreneurship researcher to establish and demonstrate the quality of their work.
AB - Knowledge production in entrepreneurship requires inclusivity as well as diversity and pluralism in research perspectives and approaches. In this article, the authors address concerns about interpretivist research regarding validity, reliability, objectivity, generalizability, and communicability of results that militate against its more widespread acceptance. Following the nonfoundationalist argument that all observation is theory-laden, context specific, and that there are no external criteria against which to assess research design and execution and the data produced, the authors propose that quality must be internalized within the underlying research philosophy rather than something to be tested upon completion. This requires a shift from the notion of validity as an outcome to validation as a process. To elucidate this, they provide a guiding framework and present a case illustration that will assist an interpretivist entrepreneurship researcher to establish and demonstrate the quality of their work.
KW - entrepreneurship
KW - interpretivist research
KW - quality
KW - validation
U2 - 10.1177/1094428109339839
DO - 10.1177/1094428109339839
M3 - Journal article
VL - 13
SP - 67
EP - 84
JO - Organizational Research Methods
JF - Organizational Research Methods
SN - 1094-4281
IS - 1
ER -