Nuances and Realities of Leadership Challenges
The nature of the subject – Leadership challenges during the accelerated technology evolution – to explore the nuances and potentially hidden realities called for a qualitative approach underpinned by the interpretive philosophy.
The research philosophy embraced for this dissertation is interpretivism combined with latent post-positivism, which drives the development of knowledge based on observable reality whilst recognising the influence of the researcher’s own experience, limitations and biases, and the former allows the participant and the researcher to construct a picture of the reality and increase understanding where it is lacking (Robson 2011).
The researcher’s own product management and innovation experience and his research to date highlighting important themes and considerations were used to define the quantitative data collection component, fostering objectivity and comparability through controlled and logical fact-based evaluation of data (Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill, 2016).
As Robson (2011) suggests, the Interpretivism is suitable to raise our understanding of the topic. Based on the research philosophy, the researcher chose to utilise the deductive top-down research approach, drawing on general understanding of the leadership challenges of the accelerated technology evolution, whilst using the inductive approach to illuminate findings where required.
Qualitative methods allow the study of complex processes and phenomena in their character and on the other hand quantitative methods produce a nomothetic science based on statistical regularities (Miles, Huberman and Saldana 2013)
As Fisher (2010) points out, a mixed data collection method – Qualitative and Quantitative – would have reveal a more genuine picture of the research objective. (Molina-Azorin and Cameron (2010) argue that mixed methods research is advantageous in comparison to mono methods. The scholar relinquishes the qualitative method in accordance to available research time frame.
Bibliography:
Miles, M.B. Huberman, A.M. and Saldana, J. (2013) Qualitative Data Analysis, A Methods Sourcebook, Third Edition, Sage Publications, Inc,
Molina Azorin, J. and Cameron, R. (2010) “The Application of Mixed Methods in Organisational Research: A Literature Review”, Electronic Journal of Business Research Methods, vol. 8, Issue 2, pp. 95-10
Robson, C. (2011) Real World Research. 3rd ed. Chichester, John Wiley and Sons.
Saunders, M., Lewis, P. and Thornhill, A. (2016) Research Methods for Business Students 7. ed. Essex, UK: Pearson, pp.394,568,579
