4.1.1 Epistemological and Ontological Assumptions
Mason (1996) advises qualitative researchers to clearly define and express the essence of their enquiry, which will govern the conduct of their research. The first step in doing so, is the articulation of the epistemological and ontological position of the researcher, after which the research questions, the methodology, methods and purpose of the research can be expressed, based on these positions (Mason 1996). The ontological position is concerned with the nature of social reality under investigation; that is, whether the empirical world is assumed to be objective and hence independent of humans, or subjective and socially constructed through human action (Orlikowski and Baroudi 1991). The researcher’s chosen epistemology gives guidance on the principles and rules by which knowledge and explanations about entities in the world should be generated (Mason 1996), and is concerned with research methods (Orlikowski and Baroudi 1991). The researcher’s epistemological, ontological and methodological premises may be termed a paradigm – a set of beliefs that guide action. According to Orlikowski and Baroudi (1991), principles most commonly used for guiding IS research can be classified into the positivist, interpretive and critical paradigms.
IS research can be classified as positivist, if there is evidence of formal propositions, quantifiable measures of variables, hypothesis testing and drawing of inferences about a phenomenon from a representative sample (Klein and Myers 1999). Within the positivist
45
paradigm, epistemological assumptions are based on the pursuit of realism through the empirical testing of theories, while the ontological position is based on objectivity.
IS research can be classified as critical if the main task is seen as one of social critique and the emancipation of those who may be restricted, alienated or dominated, so that their true potential can be realized (Mason 1996). The underlying assumption is that people can act to change their social and economic positions, and consequently, an important objective of critical research is to create awareness and understanding of the various forms of social domination so that people can act to eliminate them (Orlikowski and Baroudi 1991). Critical researchers believe that social reality is historically constituted and hence human beings, organizations and societies are not confined to existing in a particular state (Orlikowski and Baroudi 1991). As such, critical research is focused on the process of development and change of the phenomena under study. The critical ontology assumes that social reality is subjective as it is produced and reproduced by humans, but also as possessing objective properties. As such, the critical epistemology differs from the interpretivist and positivist paradigms, in that both participants’ interpretation of the social world, as well as a critical analysis of the conditions of domination through a particular theoretical framework are required.
The interpretive paradigm assumes that our knowledge of reality is gained only through social constructions such as language, consciousness, shared meanings, documents, tools and other artifacts (Klein and Myers 1999). The ontological assumptions of the interpretive paradigm are based on subjectivity. The fundamental difference between the interpretive and positivist perspectives is that interpretivism asserts that reality and our knowledge of reality are social products and thus must be
46
understood through the eyes of the social actors involved in the construction and sense making of that reality, including the researcher (Orlikowski and Baroudi 1991). Within the interpretivist paradigm, epistemological assumptions are based on the belief that there are multiple realities or relativity. Interpretive research focuses on the complexity of human sensemaking as the situation emerges. It attempts to understand phenomena through the meanings people assign to them. Understanding social reality requires deriving constructs from the field by in-depth examination of and exposure to the phenomenon of interest. More importantly, interpretive methods of research within IS are aimed at producing an understanding of the context of the IS and the process by which the IS influences and is influenced by that context (Klein and Myers 1999).
Some view constructivism as similar to interpretivism (Denzin and Lincoln 2000) and use the terms interchangeably. As such an umbrella paradigm, contructivist- interpretivist has been defined. In a similar vein, some view the constructivist-interpretive perspective as differentiated (Orlikowski and Baroudi 1991) with the weak constructionist and the strong constructionist views as the two primary variants, discernible based on the role of the researcher in investigating the phenomena. In the weak constructionist view, the researcher only describes the existing meaning systems shared by the actors and interprets their action and events. In the strong constructionist view, the researcher’s involvement is more evident. The retelling of the actor’s story cannot be achieved without the intervention of the researcher’s own interpretive scheme, and hence the researcher, in part, helps to create the social reality being studied through the constructs used to view the world. The followers of the strong constructionist view also believe that interpretive methods should replace positivist ones. My beliefs as a
47
researcher can be classified as moderate, as they lie midway between the reticence of the weak constructionist and the excessive claims of the strong constructionist.
Walsham’s (1995) discussion of interpretive work in IS describes four primary rhetorics. The rhetoric of the exploratory study argues that interpretivism exists in service of positivism. Interpretive studies therefore can only be of an exploratory nature and their findings can later be subject to a more positivist approach. The complementary approach rhetoric is a pluralist one which sees interpretive approaches as complementary to positivism and of equal status. The rhetoric of appropriate research issues advocates the fit of the research problem to the paradigm. It argues both for complementarity, but also for the claim that certain research issues are best suited to an interpretive approach. The replacement of positivism rhetoric suggests that positivism should be fully replaced by interpretivism. Based on the foregoing, I support the claims of the school of rhetoric of appropriate research. I believe that the positivist and interpretivist approaches are complementary and of equal status and that the selection of an appropriate paradigm should be based on the compatibility of the chosen perspective with my own research interests and dispositions (Walsham 1995).
Based on theoretical and practical considerations, I selected the interpretive paradigm to guide this study. Firstly, there is little knowledge from prior research on nomadic computing environments whether of the positivist, critical or interpretivist genre. Based on this gap in knowledge, the intent was to understand the diverse contexts within which the nomadic computing environment was used. Accordingly, I chose to study the process of use and how that process was influenced by the diverse contexts in which the nomadic users found themselves. In this way, a baseline theory could be
48
developed which could be used to guide future research. Secondly, the nomadic computing environment had to be uncovered through an intensive methodology which involved intimate interactions with informants who used the environment heavily. Accordingly, I encouraged users to make sense of their own use of the environment and to share this sensemaking with me using their own language, expressions, shared meanings, documents, and other artifacts. Such deep immersion of the researcher into the environment is one important principle of interpretive research (Klein and Myers 1999). Thirdly, the primary intent was to develop a process theory explaining the effectiveness of nomadic users. Because the process of use varied across different contexts, I adopted a perspective that allowed more flexibility to investigate emergent phenomena (Orlikowski and Baroudi 1991; Mason 1996).