Research Approaches and Designs

Research approaches and methods that are employed for knowledge creation derive from the philosophical paradigms (multivariate/positivistic, interpretive/humanistic, and historical) that are briefly described in Chap. 3 . The present chapter focuses on the positivistic and humanistic paradigms because academic research in business and social sciences has been largely based on these two paradigms and in part because the historical paradigm is often integrated within the two paradigms and is viewed as a distinctive paradigm only in the field of “history” (Alford, 1998). It discusses the key features of, and differences between, the positivistic and humanistic paradigms and their main research approaches or traditions, and it comments on the desirability of their employment in academic studies. This chapter also discusses the mixed methods approach, which integrates the positivistic and humanistic paradigms and has been increasing in popularity as an approach that capitalizes on the strengths of the two traditional approaches and overcomes many of their limitations. Finally, the chapter evaluates these approaches and offers recommendations for their use in academic studies.