Page 127 - Crossing Cultural Boundaries - Cees den Teuling

The threat of AR uncontrollability stems from the situation that there is always an incomplete level of control of the environment and the subjects studied by the researcher. The contingency threat is synonymous to the difficulty to generalize research outcomes or problems, to apply the findings of the research in distant contexts, different from their original context. The data collected by AR, seldom delivers cumulative and strong evidence and leading to an explicit format or showing an exceptional effect. Analysis is often difficult because of the “rich” contexts and realisation of the separation of diverse components. The threat of subjectivity can be caused by the researcher’s strong involvement with the practitioner’s organisation. Although personal attachment with the organisation from researcher’s part, will possibly bias research outcomes, it is inherited in AR since it is impossible for the researcher to be on distance and at the same time to carry out in-depth interventions on both the studied subjects and their environment.
Principles referred to as “methodological antidotes” have been developed to deal with and to compensate the mentioned threats (Kock, 2004). The three methodological antidotes are unit of analysis (Creswell, 2011), grounded theory (Glaser & Strauss, 1967), and multiple iterations (Kock, McQueen & John, 1997). Unit of analysis is described as a prescription that data collection and analysis for research should be centralized in a dedicated unit (or units) for analyses, as priority established and characterized before the commence of the research. To reach a higher external validity of the outcomes and related patterns, more analysing techniques should be used while studying different contexts. For underlying study data collection and statistical analyses were carried out by the researchers of KFU-CASD, methodical analysis was handled by the author-researcher of the underlying study.
The antidote of grounded theory is merely based on the implementation of an adaptation of the Glaser and Strauss (1967) methodology of grounded theory. A three- step coding process is the base of grounded theory methodology, implemented in an iterative mode and targeted to the increase of reliability by analysing larger samples of unstructured research outcomes (data) (Carmines & Zeller, 1979). The adapted version of the grounded theory, adjusted to the requirements of AR, has been derived from the generic format of the grounded theory, adjustable when there is a need for specific research (Strauss & Corbin, 1998). The grounded theory antidote counters the negative influence of all to AR especially implemented in a combination with other methodological antidotes.
125