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agenda

• recapitulation

• social constructionism

• critical realism

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social constructionism

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premises of symbolic interactionism

• “... that human beings act towards things on the basis of the meanings

that the things have for them”

• “... that the meaning of such things is derived from, or arises out of, the

social interaction one has with one’s fellows”

• “that these meanings are handled in, and modified through, an

interpretative process used by the person in dealing with the things he

[sic!] encounters”

(Blumer, 1969, p. 2)

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dirty work

• “... that human beings act towards things on

the basis of the meanings that the things have

for them”

• “... that the meaning of such things is derived

from, or arises out of, the social interaction

one has with one’s fellows”

• “that these meanings are handled in, and

modified through, an interpretative process

used by the person in dealing with the things

he [sic!] encounters”

• management accountants enact their role on

the basis of the symbolism of dirty work

(unclean/polluted)

• these interpretations formed/enacted/

confirmed in the interactions with other

management accountants and operational

managers

• the interpretations are handled in a conscious

process of re-affirming them and in re-

interpreting dirt to dust

(Blumer, 1969, p. 2) (Morales & Lambert, 2013)

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social interaction

• non-symbolic interaction

• symbolic interaction

• “presentation of gestures and a response to the meaning of those

gestures” (Blumer, 1969, p. 9)

• “the gesture has meaning for both the person who makes it and to the

person to whom it is directed” (Blumer, 1969, p. 9)

• ‘triadic nature of meaning (G.H. Mead)

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social order

• “the stable features of everyday activities” (Garfinkel, 1964, p. 226)

• the Hobbesian problem of social order: “how is society possible?”

• usually explained through ‘ontological units’ connected and stabilised

across time and space through social structures, ‘mechanisms’, rules, moral

orders

• however ...

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social order

• however ...

• how do we know when to modify a routine?

• how do we recognise a modified routine?

• what regulates the application of a rule?

• ...

Nasser Alajmi

social order

• however ...

• how do we know when to modify a routine?

• how do we recognise a modified routine?

• what regulates the application of a rule?

• ...

“Focusing on ontological units (things, habits, routines) begs the question of what order prop- erties allow them to be mutually seen as units and intelligibly employed on any particular occasion”

(Rawls, 2008, p. 706)

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social interaction

• non-symbolic interaction

• symbolic interaction

• “presentation of gestures and a response to the meaning of those

gestures” (Blumer, 1969, p. 9)

• “the gesture has meaning for both the person who makes it and to the

person to whom it is directed” (Blumer, 1969, p. 9)

• ‘triadic nature of meaning’ (G.H. Mead)

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‘emic’ perspective

“The contention that people act on the basis of the meaning of their objects has profound methodological implications. It signifies immediately that if the scholar wishes to understand the action of people it is necessary for him [sic!] to see their objects as they see them. Failure to see their objects as they see them, or a substitution of his [sic!] meanings of the object for their meanings is the gravest kind of error that the social scientist can commit. It leads to the setting up of a fictitious world. Simply put, people act towards things on the basis of the meaning that these things have for them, not on the basis of the meaning that these things have for the outside scholar.”

(Blumer, 1969, p. 51)

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epistemological principles

• road to empirical validation “lies in the examination of the empirical

social world” (Blumer, 1969, p. 34)

• “the research scholar [usually] does not have a firsthand acquaintance

with the sphere of social life [studied]” (Blumer, 1969, p. 35)

• modes of naturalistic inquiry

• exploration

• inspection

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nature of the empirical world

• “the empirical world necessarily exists always in the form of human

pictures and conceptions of it” (Blumer, 1969, p. 22)

• however images and conceptions are nor independent from the empirical

reality à reality can “talk back”

• “empirical science is an enterprise that seeks to develop images and

conceptions that can successfully handle and accommodate the resistance

offered by the empirical world under study” (Blumer, 1969, p. 22)

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ontology of social constructionism (symbolic interactionism)

nominalism ontology in social constructionism

social reality is created by subjects through their interactions and interpretations

• “... that human beings act towards things on the basis of the meanings that the things have for them”

• “that these meanings are handled in, and modified through, an interpretative process used by the person in dealing with the things he [sic!] encounters”

• social reality is fluid • however: reality can ‘talk back’ and thus there is an

element of realism

actors influence structures and regularities • “... that the meaning of such things is derived from, or

arises out of, the social interaction one has with one’s fellows”

facts are constructed through categorizations • facts are constituted through immersion in the

empirical field

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epistemology of social constructionism (symbolic interactionism)

constructivism epistemology in social constructionism

scientific knowledge is an interpretation of interpretations and thus created by the researcher

• researchers have to try to see the social world as the actors see them (à exploration)

• “empirical science is an enterprise that seeks to develop images and conceptions that can successfully handle and accommodate the resistance offered by the empirical world under study” (Blumer, 1969, p. 22)

concepts are grounded in the field’s perspectives • developing concepts and their interrelations through

“intense scrutiny of [their] instances in the social world” (Blumer, 1969, p. 45) (à inspection)

scientific ‘explanations’ aim at understanding the field’s reality constructions (‘Verstehen’)

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critical realism

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basic methodological assumptions of critical realism

• social reality exists independent from researchers’ perceptions

• researchers’ perceptions (observations) of social reality are

mediated by theories

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what is reality?

• “a stratified, open system of emergent entities”

• open system

- nothing can be studied in isolation from its context

• entities

- “things which ‘make a difference’ in their own right

• emergence

- “an entity has causal properties that are greater than the sum of its ‘lower level’ parts”

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entities

• essence and causal powers

• types of entities

• materially real entities

• ideally real entities

• artefactually real entities

• socially real entities

(Fleetwood, 2004, pp. 32-37)

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stratified ontology

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF SOCIAL RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 3

In CR ontology, reality is strati!ed into three levels. "e !rst is the empirical level, which is the realm of events as we experience them. At this level, events or objects can be measured empirically and are o#en explained through ‘common sense,’ but these events are always mediated through the !lter of human experience and interpretation. "is is the transitive level of reality, where social ideas, meanings, decisions, and actions occur – but, importantly, these can be causal. "e middle level con- sists of the actual. At this level, there is no !lter of human experience. Events occur whether or not we experience or interpret them, and these true occurrences are o#en di$erent from what is observed at the empirical level (Danermark et al., 2002, p. 20). Finally, the third level is the real. At this level causal structures, or ‘causal mechanisms,’ exist. "ese are the inherent properties in an object or structure that act as causal forces to produce events (i.e. those appearing at the empirical level). It is the primary goal of CR to explain social events through reference to these causal mechanisms and the e$ects they can have throughout the three-layered ‘iceberg’ of reality (see Figure 1).

"e iceberg metaphor (Figure 1) is not meant to suggest that any one level is more or less ‘real,’ or that the levels do not interact. Indeed, all levels of the iceberg are part of the same entity or, here, the same reality. "e metaphor is meant to illustrate the CR ontology and epistemology as it relates to human knowledge of reality, to illustrate in graphic form the limitations of the epistemic fallacy. As Bhaskar (1979) pointed out, unlike the natural world, social structures are in fact activity-dependent. In other words, causal mechanisms ‘exist only in virtue of the activities they govern and cannot be empirically identi!ed independently of them’ (p. 48). "is means that causal mechanisms are social products that can ultimately be understood through – and indeed, that exist within – phenomena at the empirical level (e.g. human actions and ideas that are generated by these mechanisms), making these phenomena relevant for scienti!c investigation.

All social structures possess causal powers and liabilities. "ese are ‘potentialities’ inherent in an object or structure that enable or constrain it from acting in certain ways (Psillos, 2007). Conditions in the open social world can prevent or facilitate the actualization of a structure’s causal power, meaning it may or may not have an observable impact at the empirical level. For this reason, the process of retroduction investigates particular social conditions under which a causal mechanism takes e$ect in the world.

Figure 1.!An iceberg metaphor for CR ontology.

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“It is the primary goal of CR to explain social events through reference to these causal mechanisms and the effects they can have throughout the three-layered ‘iceberg’ of reality”

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causation in critical realism

effect / event

mechanism

structure conditions (other mechanisms)

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abduction/retroduction

empirical observation

theory-informed potential explanation

abduction theoretical redescription

retroduction identifying necessary contextual conditions

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example: Saskatchewan Farm Women Study

effect / event

mechanism

structure conditions (other mechanisms)

gender relations

gender ideology

corporatisation

farm women’s ‘double detachment’

neoliberal capitalism large agri-businesses

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ontology of critical realism

realism ontology in critical realism

social reality exists outside and independent of the researcher

• stratified (depth) ontology • ‘empirical’ – observable • ‘actual’ – partly observable • ‘real’ – not observable

facts can be discovered • rational judgment human action & interaction is governed by structures, laws, regularities

• mechanisms and causal powers • entities have essential inherent causal powers

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epistemology of critical realism

(post-) positivism epistemology in critical realism

scientific knowledge is (shall) be an objective representation of reality

• scientific knowledge aims at objectively representing reality, but is necessarily influenced by researchers’ interpretations: scientific knowledge is relative

concepts must be defined so as to be measurable • concepts are developed from the field in an

abductive/retroductive process • concepts do not have to be measurable

scientific explanations aim at discovering causal relations scientific knowledge is nomothetic

• scientific explanations aim at uncovering causal mechanisms: scientific knowledge is, however, not nomothetic

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References

Ackroyd, S., & Karlsson, J. C. (2014). Critical realism, research techniques, and research designs. In P. K. Edwards, J. O’Mahoney, & S. Vincent (Eds.),

Studying organizations using critical realism : A practical guide (pp. 21-45). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Blumer, H. (1969). The methiodological position of symabolic interactionism. In H. Blumer (Ed.), Symbolic interationism: Perspective and method (pp. 1-60).

Berkeley: University of California Press.

Fleetwood, S. (2004). An ontology for organisation and management studies. In S. Fleetwood & S. Ackroyd (Eds.), Critical realist applications in

management and organisation studies (pp. 27.53). London and New York: Routledge.

Fletcher, A. J. (2017). Applying critical realism in qualitative research: methodology meets method. International Journal of Social Research Methodology,

20(2), 181-194. doi:10.1080/13645579.2016.1144401

Garfinkel, H. (1964). Studies of the routine grounds of e eryday activities. Social Problems, 11(3), 225-250. doi:10.2307/79872

Morales, J., & Lambert, C. (2013). Dirty work and the construction of identity. An ethnographic study of management accounting practices. Accounting,

Organizations and Society, 38(3), 228-244. doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.aos.2013.04.001

Neuman, W.L. (2014). Social research methods: Qualitative and quantitative approaches (7th ed.) Harlow: Pearson.

O’Mahoney, J., & Vincent, S. (2014). Critical realism as an empirical project: A beginner’s guide. In P. K. Edwards, J. O’Mahoney, & S. Vincent (Eds.),

Studying organizations using critial realism: A practical guide (pp. 1-20). Oxford: Oxford.

Rawls, A. W. (2008). Harold Garfinkel, Ethnomethodology and Workplace Studies. Organization Studies, 29(5), 701-732.

doi:10.1177/0170840608088768

doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.aos.2013.04.001

Nasser Alajmi