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To start with, ontology is the basis of the research design (Blaikie, 2000; Camilleri, 2012).

A widely accepted definition of ontology that is also embraced by the researcher, states that this concept deals with the nature of existence, the various approaches of understanding the nature of the world view (Saunders et al., 2009). Thus, the ontological assumptions concern the principal nature of being, the existence of entities, the extent to which our beliefs constitute social reality (McMullen & Shepherd, 2006). Similarly, the ontological position of each one of us mirrors our views on the nature of reality (Blaikie, 2000; Camilleri, 2012).

In doing so, the ontological assumptions are closely related to the assumptions about how knowledge can be acquired, referred to as epistemology. In other words, epistemology relates to the nature and theory of knowledge, and how we, as human beings, try to bring understanding, meaning, and interpretation to the world around us (Borland & Lindgreen, 2013), the study of how we know things and what constitutes acceptable knowledge (Bernard, 2000; Saunders et al., 2009). Moreover, it also includes the possibility of adding to the existing knowledge. Interestingly, there are also other notions which relate to epistemology. For instance, Rawwas, Arjoon and Sidani (2013) defined epistemology as

158 the philosophical branch that evaluates competing views of the morality, definition, nature, sources, standards, and functions of knowledge. Blaikie (2000) described epistemology as the knowledge about reality. He stated that there are various ways of gaining knowledge of social reality, whatever it is understood to be. Arguably, the knowledge and the routes of discovering it can be dynamic. As time passes, prior knowledge evolves and changes. One of the main purposes of social research is to acquire knowledge about things that are happening or happened in the past, in real world settings (Bryman & Bell, 2007).

Therefore, epistemology considers the research methods, as it states how knowledge can be generated and argued for (Eriksson & Kovalainen, 2008). In the present research project, the aim and objectives are not only a matter of academic interest, but also concerns marketing practitioners in the banking industry context, by enhancing their existing knowledge of conducting successful CRM campaigns with choice within collectivistic societies. Thus, this research thesis will add to the existing knowledge in a real world setting.

The discussion about the ontological and epistemological philosophies leads to the various research paradigms (Blaikie, 2000). Denzin and Lincoln (2003) define a research paradigm as an interpretative framework. Other scholars (e.g., Hussey & Hussey, 1997; MacDonald, 2010) define the phrase research paradigm as the beliefs and philosophies that provide the principles and guidelines as to how research is conducted. In scholarly research, different names are often used to describe the same paradigms. However, according to several scholars, there are three main research paradigms: Positivism, Critical Realism (CR), and Constructivism/ Interpretivism (Sarantakos, 1998; Babbie, 2004). Following, this research will describe the applied paradigm of Critical Realism.

159 5.2.2. Critical Realism

Critical Realism has been popularized by Bhaskar in 1979 as a response to the core limitations of the main research paradigms, such as the empirical and interpretivist view of science (Mingers, 2000; Syed, Mingers & Murray 2009). Today, CR is transformed in an influential philosophical paradigm in various disciplines (such as economics, geography, organization theory, international relations, sociology, management, and research methods) because it provides a way out of the various philosophical debates due to the fact that recognizes and takes into consideration the complexities of the real world setting (Mingers, 2000; Syed et al., 2009; Easton, 2010). As a philosophical paradigm, CR advances various interrelated ontological and methodological assumptions that distinct it from both, positivism and interpretivism/ constructivism (Reed, 2005). As a result, these claims have important implications for the reformulation of social theory and research (ibid.).

According to Sayer (1992, p. 5), CR and the marketing ontology offers the following eight key assumptions:

1. ''The world exists independently of our knowledge of it

2. Our knowledge of the world is fallible and theory-laden. Concepts of truth and falsity fail to provide a coherent view of the relationship between knowledge and its object. Nevertheless, knowledge is not immune to empirical check, and its effectiveness in informing and explaining successful material practice is not mere accident

160 3. Knowledge develops neither wholly continuously, as the steady accumulation of facts within a stable conceptual framework, nor discontinuously, through simultaneous and universal changes in concepts

4. There is necessity in the world; objects — whether natural or social — necessarily have particular powers or ways of acting and particular susceptibilities

5. The world is differentiated and stratified, consisting not only of events, but objects, including structures, which have powers and liabilities capable of generating events.

These structures may be present even where, as in the social world and much of the natural world, they do not generate regular patterns of events

6. Social phenomena such as actions, texts, and institutions are concept-dependent. We therefore not only have to explain their production and material effects but to understand, read, or interpret what they mean. Although they have to be interpreted by starting from the researcher’s own frames of meaning, by and large, they exist regardless of researchers’ interpretation of them. A qualified version of (1), therefore, applies to the social world. In view of (4) – (6), the methods of social science and natural science have both differences and similarities

7. Science or the production of any kind of knowledge is a social practice. For better or worse (not just worse), the conditions and social relations of the production of knowledge influence its content. Knowledge is also largely — though not exclusively — linguistic, and the nature of language and the way we communicate are not incidental to what is known and communicated. Awareness of these relationships is vital in evaluating knowledge

161 8. Social science must be critical of its object. In order to be able to explain and understand social phenomena, we have to evaluate them critically (Easton, 2002, 2010)''.

However, the ontological assumptions that are central to CR are the related issues of causality and explanation (Easton, 2002, 2010). According to the CR view, causality is not defined as a relationship between Cause and Effect, but the liabilities or causal powers of relations and objects, or in a more broad meaning, their mechanisms (ibid.). In other words, the phenomena that scientific research and explanation are directed are the underlying mechanisms and structures that generate empirical events. Hence, CR focuses on a stratified ontology in which underlying mechanisms or structures create regularities and events at the surface (Reed 2005). In that perspective, a causal explanation is one that recognizes the objects and their mechanisms and how they combine to create/ cause events (Easton, 2002, 2010). Therefore, the aim of CR is to provide an explanation or description of observable phenomena according to the underlying mechanisms or structures (Collier, 1994; Andriof, 2000). Accordingly, Saunders et al.’s (2009, p. 115) explanation of CR provides this dimension clearly: “what we experience are sensations, the images of the things in the real world, not the world directly”. The word mechanism is used with various names such as generative mechanisms, deep structures, or deep processes. Relationships between objects are central to critical realist explanations (ibid.). Following, these underlying mechanisms or structures cannot be accessed directly to sense experience and have to be theoretically developed through a conceptual abstraction process (Blaikie, 2000;

Reed, 2005). Finally, as theoretically reconstructed frameworks and explanations of

162 underlying mechanisms or structures explain actual events and outcomes, theories from scientific research provide provisional accounts and descriptions of phenomena that are constantly open to reformulation and revision (ibid.). Therefore, CR argues that, it is necessary to assess scientific theories that compete with each other and explanations in accordance with the comparative explanatory power of the accounts and descriptions that they provide, of the mechanisms and structures that create discernible patterns of events and outcomes (Reed, 2005).

According to these ontological assumptions, a number of epistemological arguments follow. In general, CR states that the world is socially constructed but claims that this is not absolute (Easton, 2010). CR construes the world and reality appears at some point (ibid.).

According to Saunders et al. (2009), CR relies on the fact that phenomena create sensations which are open to misinterpretation, and it tries to explain it within a context or contexts.

CR accepts that social phenomena in our world are intrinsically meaningful, and therefore that meaning is both externally descriptive and constitutive of them. Meaning has to be comprehended, not be counted or measured (Easton, 2010).

According to these arguments, CR is described by an epistemology that accepts, that our knowledge is at all times historically and socially relative, but is different between the intransitive domain of the objects of our knowledge and the transitive, subject-dependent aspects of knowledge (Syed et al., 2009). Also, CR is committed to methodological pluralism in relation to its ontological pluralism. Since CR acknowledges the existence of a number of structures (social, material, and conceptual), it also argues that it is necessary to have various research methods to access them (ibid.). Thus CR is relatively acceptable with respect to the applied research methods. In contrast with interpretivism and positivism, CR

163 is compatible with a wide variety of research methods, but the chosen research methods should depend on the nature of the phenomenon of study and what one seeks to find out about it (Easton, 2010). Third, CR argues that no social theory can be absolutely descriptive, it must always be evaluative to some point, and therefore no positivistic separation can occur between values and facts (Syed et al., 2009).

In conclusion, two main assumptions derive from the above discussion and characterize the epistemological assumptions of CR. First, social systems are by nature open and interactive (Mingers, 2000). Even though this characteristic applies for natural systems also, they can, however, be controlled in the laboratory or be artificially closed. However, this situation, in general, is not feasible in social systems. The core impact is that testing theories is very difficult, since predicted effects could or could not happen depending on various factors. It concentrates not on a theory's predictive power, but explanatory power; and second, the possibilities of measurement are very few since the phenomena are intrinsically meaningful, and meanings cannot be compared or measured properly, only described and understood (ibid.).