Philosophical assumptions have a strong influence on the research process – they shape both how we formulate our research questions and how we seek to answer them. However, researchers often underscore the importance of understanding the beliefs and theories that influence their research and also the importance of explicitly informing the reader of a study about its philosophical point of departure. (Creswell 2013) As regards the two main paradigms, for positivists theory is about explaining, predicting, and seeking causality, whereas for interpretivists it is about understanding and showing patterns and connections in a context (Charmaz 2006). Consequently, the paradigms differ in terms of ontology (i.e. assumptions about the nature of reality, ‘what is there to be known’), epistemology (i.e. evidentiary assessment and justification of knowledge claims, ‘what can we know’), and methodology (i.e. procedures by which the knowledge claims are created, ‘how can we know’) (Wynn & Williams 2012).
Between these two prevalent philosophical paradigms, critical realism leverages elements of both to develop knowledge (Bhaskar 1975; 2008), and it is becoming a viable philosophical paradigm for conducting social science research (Wynn & Williams 2012). Critical realism acknowledges the existence of independent structures as well as the subjective knowledge of social actors in a given situation – thus, the world is considered independent from our thoughts about it (Sayer 2000; Wynn & Williams 2012). In other words, the world is socially constructed, but that is not the whole truth as there is the objective reality behind it (Easton 2010). In critical realism, reality is stratified into the three following domains: (1) the real, (2) the actual, (3) and the empirical (Bhaskar 2008). The real comprises the entities and structures of reality and their independent causal powers. The actual is a subset of the real, including the events that occur when the real causal powers of structures and entities are activated. The empirical is a subset
of the actual, consisting of those events that a human observes and experiences via perception or measurement. (Wynn & Williams 2012) This stratified ontology comprises structures and their mechanisms, events resulting from activated mechanisms, and observed experiences, as illustrated in Table 3.
Table 3 The domains of critical realism (Bhaskar 2008, 13)
Domain of real Domain of actual Domain of empirical
Mechanisms X
Events X X
Experiences X X X
Through experiences, we can study the events and increase our understanding of the mechanisms of the real world. Theories revolve around the independent reality, although humans are usually unable to fully understand or observe it (Wynn & Williams 2012). Thus, in critical realism, causality (the relationship between cause and effect) is about ‘detailing the means or processes by which events are generated by structures, actions, and contextual conditions involved in a particular setting’ (Wynn & Williams 2012, 789). In the open systems of the social world, the same causal power can produce different outcomes depending on the conditions, that is, the spatio-temporal relations that the mechanism has with other objects. Due to this contingency, many things can happen, and the future is open. (Sayer 2000) At the same time, ‘the socially constructed view of reality held by a given actor or actors may be incorrect’ (Wynn & Williams 2012, 790), which means that humans with their observations can be fallible about the structures and mechanisms of the reality (Easton 2010).
These acknowledged ontological limitations take us to the epistemology. Instead of the positivist aim to produce predictions, or the interpretivist aim to understand the social or cultural meaning between the events, critical realism aims at producing explanations of the mechanisms that generate certain events. The mechanisms are often not observable or measurable, so we must try to identify them based on observable experiences that we believe have been caused by them. We are not able to observe all the aspects of a phenomenon, for which it is typically impossible to identify the exact causes behind a given outcome, and we may come up with multiple possible explanations. (Wynn & Williams 2012) Our knowledge is mediated as there is the intransitive dimension of scientific knowledge, that is the world that we seek to explain, and the transitive dimension, comprising the researchers’ observations and theories about the world (Bhaskar 2008; Wynn & Williams 2012). Hence, ‘a perfect match between theories and reality is unlikely’ (Wynn & Williams 2012, 793), but by selecting the most likely cause of a given
phenomenon, we generate the most accurate representation of the real world, given our existing knowledge.
When it comes to methodology, in contrast to positivism and interpretivism, critical realism is compatible with a wide range of research methods, but the choices should be compatible with the nature of the object of study and what is to be learned about it. In the social sciences, the objects of the study cannot be studied under controlled conditions, for which we have to attempt to abstract and conceptualise the components and influences. (Sayer 2000) The methodological principles of critical realism start with the explication of events, including their detailed descriptions with details of key actions and outcomes (Wynn & Williams 2012). Hence, critical realists investigate events, that is, the visible behaviours of people, systems, and things as they occur or as they reportedly have happened. Also the non-occurrence of an expected event requires explanation and may give useful insight into the studied phenomenon. (Easton 2010) The study of events enables identifying the relevant elements of structure and context from which these events emerge and the mechanisms that were enacted. Through an iterative retroduction process, events are explained by mechanisms which are capable of producing them, and we can identify the most logical explanation of the observed events given the contextual conditions. Through empirical corroboration, we can further verify with data that the hypothesised mechanisms are sufficient to produce the effects, for example by evaluating whether the explanation holds across multiple cases. However, it must be noted that instead of statistical generalisation to broader populations, the aim under critical realism is rather to utilise the causal explanations of the mechanisms to obtain insights into how and why a similar mechanism could lead to similar or different outcomes in different settings. (Wynn & Williams 2012)
To concretise the discussed three philosophical paradigms, we may compare how the views of international opportunity differ based on the researcher’s underlying philosophical assumptions: (1) For positivist empiricists, the world exists objectively, and opportunities exist out there to be found. Because opportunities exist objectively, they can be evaluated based on their attributes, such as production costs, labour supply, and stability of foreign government. (2) In contrast, the interpretivist, constructivist view sees the world as subjective and socially constructed, whereby opportunities are created or co-created through relationships and interactions in foreign markets. As was noted in Chapter 2, the debate between these two schools of thought continues in terms of whether opportunities are discovered or created. (Ramoglou & Tsang 2016; Chandra 2017) (3) The critical realist view, the one applied in this thesis, builds on both by assuming that ‘opportunities are unrealized abstract possibilities that need to be concretized’ (Chandra 2017, 427). Following the domains of three-layered ontology,
in the real world of structures and mechanisms, there are endless raw opportunities. In the actual world, activated mechanisms generate un-actualised international business possibilities as a subset of the real world. In the empirical world, there are international business opportunities, possible and unlikely, that can be observed and enacted. Realists acknowledge un-actualised opportunities that can be found and evaluated, as positivists argue, and that entrepreneurs’ efforts are necessary in actualising them by creation (e.g. through mobilising resources and marketing), as interpretivists argue. (Chandra 2017) For the actualisation to take place, the entrepreneur must first believe that he/she has recognised an opportunity (Ramoglou & Tsang 2016). Hence, critical realism concretely builds on both paradigms, seeing that opportunities can and need to be both found and created along the internationalisation process in order to be materialised as viable opportunities. Besides me as a researcher having assumptions of the world that are aligned with the critical realist world view, this broad view of opportunities is also fruitful for openly exploring the process of collective international opportunity recognition.