Impuestos sobre el carbono y regímenes de comercio de derechos de emisión (cap-and-trade)

Research which seeks to enhance knowledge and crosses the boundaries into the unknown is informed by research paradigms (McGregor & Murnane, 2010). It is suggested that research methodologies are comprised of the basic principles of what is considered to be knowledge and the learning behind it, i.e. epistemology and ontology (McGregor & Murnane, 2010). By dictionary definition, epistemology means information that is knowledge based, while ontology is from Greek onta meaning existing things, and logos is a suffix meaning doctrine, and is a branch of metaphysics which treats of the nature of being or existence Ontology is concerned with the nature of reality, and discusses, and is more concerned than is epistemology, with assumptions made about the way the world functions (Saunders et al., 2007).

Research methodologies may differ in what they consider to be knowledge or the epistemological position, or in how they interpret their results, thereby implying that epistemology is relative rather than absolute, therefore, knowledge is relative depending on what the researcher is trying to prove (Saunders and Rojon, 2011). Researchers who adopt a positivist ontology attempt to discover reasons for the way in which the knowable world behaves and try

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to predict what will occur in it (Charmaz, 2006). Their reasoning, predicated in a belief in scientific, logical positivism, dictates that the world of human experience is objective, may be defined and is quantifiable (Charmaz, 2006).

This approach is opposed to an interpretive ontology, which insists that people need to be studied in their natural environment (Saunders et al., 2007). According to the interpretive paradigm, the observer becomes a part of the observed world (Denzin & Lincoln, 2005). It could be said that by observing the world, the researcher changes it as he or she tries to interpret and understand the meanings which people attach to what is going on around them (Denzin &

Lincoln, 2005).

Criticising qualitative research, researchers pursuing a positivist paradigm claim that qualitative researchers are biased because of their involvement. This bias colours their ability and leads to doubting the validity of the research. In contrast, interpretivists argue that the social world in a business and management context, for example, is far too complex to be reduced to simple scientific rules and laws (Saunders et al., 2007).

The simultaneous existence of several paradigms with their associated methodologies and the obvious contradictions involved are considered to discredit the essence of the methodologies, particularly, in fields like consumer behaviour (McGregor & Murnane, 2010). In consumer behaviour research, scholars tend to apply positivist, interpretive or critical ontologies, but for the most part scholarship is vested in the positivist paradigm. To further obfuscate the matter, the characterisation of quantitative research as being positivist and qualitative research as being post-positivist is misleading (McGregor & Murnane, 2010), since qualitative research can be empirical if the methodology is positivist (Rowlands, 2005). It then implies that both qualitative and quantitative research may be positivist. Furthermore, there appears to be no straightforward correlation between epistemological positions and techniques of social research methods, (Bryman, 1984), all of which lends weight to Glaser’s contention of the rhetorical wrestle (Glaser, 1998). Therefore, that this should apply to all research is too broad a statement, for example in social sciences, methodologies such as grounded theory do not employ paradigms but permit a new world view to emerge (Glaser, 1978).

However there are found to be misconceptions around the ontological and epistemological position of the researcher in a grounded theory study. Glaser, and Strauss and Corbin are separated into dissimilar camps, Glaser being regarded as the traditionalist, whilst Strauss and Corbin, are regarded, ontologically, as being evolved constructivist (Mills et al., 2007). Charmaz (2006) understands classic grounded theory to be ontologically objectivist, an approach in which

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the researcher is considered to be neutral, analysing dispassionately, distinct and separate from participants, thereby setting grounded theory, ontologically, as a variation of an objectivist qualitative method. Grounded theory eschews positivism because the theory arises from conceptualisation of the data and preconceptions are avoided (Holton, 2008).

Further, Charmaz (2006) refers to grounded theory as constructivist arguing that its interpretations are themselves constructs. While this could be the case for Strauss and Corbin’s version, Glaserian grounded theory is significantly different from the constructivists, particularly in how data should be analysed and reaching conceptual level by constant comparison (Simmons, 2011). Glaser, throughout his publications (1978, 1992, 2001, 2005, 2011, 2012), stresses repeatedly and most strongly that preconceptions must be avoided, and this includes the use of preconceived research questions and categories. While Simmons (2011) preferring the term oxymoron, quoting Glaser, who considers that this might be so at the most fundamental ontological and epistemological levels, as saying that constructivism involves the researcher constructing the data in his own way, thereby achieving the result that the researcher’s input is likely to have a greater impact than that of the participant. Glaser himself (1978, 1992, 1998, 2001, 2003) contends that the constructivist approach results in forcing the data throughout the research process, contrary to that of classic grounded theory which is grounded in the data. For Glaser’s classic grounded theory, everything must earn its place in the theory via constant comparison, rather than by random importation from other sources, (Glaser, 1998). Classifying grounded theory as a qualitative method is a fundamental distortion, because neither does it builds on pre-existing theories nor does it use any particular kind of data, it is a general method to use on any kind of data but is specifically useful with qualitative data (Glaser, 1998).

Multiple ontological interpretations of grounded theory lead to obfuscation because each critic chooses his or her own paradigm to address grounded theory, settling with the perspective of that ontological position. It is however altogether possible that classic grounded theory contains traces of both objectivism and constructivism, but that does not indicate that it cleaves to either of them. In claiming that classic grounded theory has positivist objectivist underpinnings, its critics (Charmaz, 2006) are failing to understand the aversion which Glaser has to allowing deductions drawn from literature to creep into the research. It is difficult, not to say problematic, for a researcher founded in qualitative or quantitative analysis to remain completely open to the emergence of theory, since grounded theory expects the researcher to eschew preconceptions, literature review, and established theories. The theory emerges from the data, not from extant theories in the literature (Holton, 2007).

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Grounded theory stands or falls by its own vesting in grounding its data, thus it needs to be understood on its own terms. Grounded theory is not specific to qualitative, constructivist or quantitative studies, which, equally, leans towards positivism, but is a general inductive-deductive theory-generating method (Glaser, 1992). Grounded Theory is inductive, but there is some deduction, theoretical sampling fostering deduction upon close examination, the interweaving of induction and deduction is complex and multivariate, and the rhetorical wrestle between induction and deduction is oversimplified (Glaser, 1998)

The philosophical assumptions which lie behind Glaserian grounded theory are that human beings seek to make sense or meaning from their surroundings, and hence their social life is structured around empirically integrated patterns, most of which are latent, and the Core Category is used to organise and explain the principal manner in which the substantive research area’s respondents resolve their main concern. All that is needed is to apply a rigorous, systematic way of uncovering and explaining the patterns (Glaser, 1998). In summary, Glaser (1998) refutes the need for a rhetorical wrestle on two counts: firstly, that grounded theory is a general methodology and is not associated with any extant paradigms, and secondly, that grounded theory is a methodology which can work with any type of data (Glaser, 1998).