Unlocking the Impact of Paradigms in Personal Interviews

This chapter aims to show the transformation that occurs when a popular research method in collaborative business research—the personal interview—becomes a “paradigm-embedded” research method. Because a paradigm consists of some ultimate presumptions (philosophical hypotheses or normative theses), they influence how researchers understand problems and look at existing research methods and knowledge. The powers of paradigms are substantial and should be noted by researchers engaged in collaborative business research to provide context for their reflections. We depart from the paradigms inspired by Arbnor and Bjerkes’s (Methodology for creating business knowledge (3rd ed.). SAGE Publications, 2009) distinction between an analytical view (positivism), a system view (realism), and an actor view (constructivism). The different paradigmatic preassumptions lead to different interactions between researchers, the business environment, and creation of distinct data. Furthermore, this chapter presents the advantages and disadvantages of the personal interview in the context of each of the three paradigmatic approaches and how, as a collaborative business researcher, one should prepare, initiate, run, and end an interview with an analytical, systemic, and actor-oriented approach, respectively. Data analysis resulting from the three paradigmatic variations of the personal interview is also a focal point of the chapter.