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Crotty (2003) affirms that every research design should contain four interrelated approaches to explain and justify the methodology and method used. The research design for this study is established by the framework illustrated in Table 3-1.

75 Table 3-1: Research Design (Source: Author)

Four Approaches to Research Design This Study’s Research Design Epistemology -

the theory of knowledge

Subjective reality

(Burrell and Morgan, 1979) Qualitative inquiry:

theoretical perspective - the philosophical traditions

Interpretive perspective (Crotty, 2003; Patton, 2002) Methodology -

the strategy, how to plan the data collection

Explorative research approach Multi-method qualitative strategy Method -

the technique, how to collect the data

Qualitative interviews (Flick, 2006; Kvale, 2008; Rapley, 2004) supported with secondary data, documents, workshop and discussion group, observation and conversations (Saunders et al., 2009)

Crotty (2003) argues that ontology sits alongside epistemology, being a way of understanding what is, while epistemology is an understanding of what it means to know (p.10). Researchers tend to perceive human beings and their world either in terms of a more subjective and/or objective reality (Burrell and Morgan, 1979). However, these realities lie on a continuum and advocates of either may incorporate insights from the other end of the continuum (Morgan and Smircich, 1980). In an objective approach, reality is perceived as a concrete process or structure, which exists independently and regardless of social actors (Bryman and Bell, 2007, p.21). This view has mainly been applied to investigate the structure of organisational networks and is, so far, the dominant approach used to operationalise social capital as a network constellation (Koka and Prescott, 2002).

In contrast, subjective approaches view reality as socially constructed (Burrell and Morgan, 1979) and related to personal issues, motives, emotions and perceptions (Gray, 2004). This study rests on the subjective view of reality, where individuals and

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groups construct their social world and meaning “out of something” (Crotty, 2003, p.9), and thus create their realities of which they are part (Denzin, 2002). Because different people have different ideas about meanings, they make their own personal sense of truth (Crotty, 2003). In designing and analysing this research, I have assumed that a network comes to exist among small businesses because “conscious beings construe [this network]. As a [network], it too is constructed, sustained and reproduced through social life” (Crotty, 2003, p.55, subject under study inserted). Hence, the meanings each individual ascribes to these interactions makes any social interaction of daily life complex (Marshall and Rossman, 1995) and I investigate this complex meaning using a qualitative approach. Having identified the ontological and epistemological stances towards the idea of a subjective view of the world being socially constructed, I now explain my theoretical perspective.

A broad choice of methodologies (Crotty, 2003) derives from contrasting theoretical traditions and their underlying qualitative inquiry (Patton, 2002). Creswell (2012) suggests that novice qualitative researchers should choose one methodology to inform scientific learning. However, Watson (1997) suggests pragmatically drawing on insights from various methodologies, as a strict adherence to one particular choice is restrictive and not realistic. Theoretical perspectives can be distinguished according to ‘how meaning is perceived’ or ‘what kind of meaning’ the analysis seeks to explore (Hollstein, 2006). Patton (2002) distinguishes between theoretical perspectives by asking foundational questions, which are rooted in philosophy, sociology, political science, economic studies, etc. There is not just a single question that is relevant to this research. For example, there are questions about a common set of symbols and understandings (symbolic interaction), the conditions under which a human act may

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take place (hermeneutics), and what theories emerge from systematic comparative analysis and are grounded in the data (grounded theory) (p.133).

This qualitative study largely aims to capture and understand the complex social phenomenon of network content, operation and management, and is thus grounded in the interpretivist paradigm. According to Gephart (2004), the interpretive perspective highlights a ‘relation to somebody’. The interpretive paradigm asserts that social reality “does not exist in any concrete sense, but is the product of [the] subjective and inter-subjective experience of individuals” (Morgan, 1980, p.608). These experiences of human beings produce authentic meanings. These concepts are created in certain contexts that constitute individuals’ social reality (Crotty, 2003), which means that the participant’s perspective is explored, rather than the researcher’s. Therefore, the idea is to interact with those involved in the research, generate data, and extract underlying patterns and order from their social lives (Morgan, 1980; Strauss and Corbin, 1990). By doing so, the perceived individuals’ thoughts, impressions and feelings as well as their motives and personal evaluations regarding their own and individual experiences can be captured by analysing the data (Trigg, 1985). As a consequence, the investigator needs to be reflexive because of the sensitive and subjective data generated. Also, an open research approach is required to capture the subjective realities of the social actors. This is in contrast to an objective approach, which uses theories to generate hypotheses to test a particular phenomenon. An interpretive approach is open and flexible, which provides a framework to gain an authentic picture of the complex social reality of the investigated phenomenon (Bryman and Bell, 2007). Thus, this approach is appropriate for investigating organisations embedded in networks. Here, an organisation is a “social community” (Kogut and Zander, 1996, p.503). Ultimately, certain emerging conditions and mechanisms need

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to be considered in order to explore the foundations of networks and the underlying patterns of the social actions of individuals in their embedded networks.

There seems to be a broad consensus of the common characteristics ascribed to qualitative approaches (Rossman and Rallis, 2003, p.8ff.) among the community of qualitative researchers (Cassell and Symon, 2004). These common characteristics are used to justify the qualitative inquiry into which this study neatly fits, as illustrated in Table 3-2.

Table 3-2: Characteristics of Qualitative Research (Source: Author)

Common Characteristics Research Setting

Takes place in a natural setting reflecting normal everyday life

Gathering data about the small or medium-sized businesses of the participants,

focusing on their networking activities and information-sharing approaches, to understand how they experience their (net-)work

Holistic view Rich descriptions, given by individuals concerned with the study context, used to examine the relations among various emerging aspects

Description of Lebenswelten from the inside, capturing data on the perspective of social actors

To ask the networkers about their meanings of their experiences with networking and networks

Multiple methods Applying qualitative interview data, and secondary data including documents, websites, concepts and brochures

Focus on context SME networks, network management

and operation (knowledge transfer), German tourism destination

Reflexive, flexible and iterative reasoning

Going back and forth between data collection, data analysis and understanding from the theory and literature review

Interpretive Explore, reflect, and interpret the

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First, the research take place in a natural setting, which reflects the normal everyday lives of individuals (Miles and Huberman, 1994). Second, the research takes a holistic view of the subject under investigation (Patton, 1999). Third, the research focuses on the description of Lebenswelten from the inside and captures data on the perspectives of social actors (Flick et al., 2009; Rubin and Rubin, 1995). Fourth, the research uses multiple methods to capture individuals’ perceptions and interpretations of meanings (Denzin and Lincoln, 2005; Van Maanen, 1979). Fifth, the research focuses on context-specific settings (Crotty, 2003; Patton, 2002; Schwandt, 2000). Sixth, the study is emergent rather than tightly prefigured (Strauss and Corbin, 1990) and finally, it is fundamentally interpretive (Cassell and Symon, 2004; Rossman and Rallis, 2003).