Running Head: METHODOLOGY 1
Student's Name:
METHODOLOGY
Date:
METHODOLOGY 2
LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT AND ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE
Last Name, First Name
Cognate: Organizational Leadership
Research Track: Dissertation
Research Paradigm: Constructivism
Planned Research Design: Single Case Study
Proposed Topic: The Failure of Leaders to Adjust their Strategies to Reflect their External
Environment Leading to a Slow Adaptation to the Dynamic Business World and a Reduction in
Organizational Performance.
METHODOLOGY 3
INTRODUCTION
The general problem to be addressed is leaders' failure to adjust their strategies to reflect
the external environment in which their organizations operate, resulting in slow adaptation to the
dynamic business world and a reduction in organizational performance. This research will be
zeroing in on leaders in the military specifically as part of our research. This research entails
obtaining permission from various military organizations to carry out the research. This
document will dive deep into our research paradigm, which is Constructivism. Constructivism
can be explained as reality being decided by an individual. My research paradigm aims to
explain our view of reality regarding our proposed topic and provide a broader perspective. This
document will delve into the methodology I have selected as a fit for this research. In-depth
discussion as to why a flexible research design using qualitative methods, specifically a single
case study was selected will be explained below.
DISCUSSION OF RESEARCH PARADIGM
My research paradigm is Constructivism. Constructivism can basically be categorized as
a theory that incorporates observation and scientific study relating to how people learn.
Constructivism theory explains that reality is a construct of the human mind and thoughts,
making it subjective. It further explains that people develop knowledge and understanding of
things of the world through experiencing things and events and thinking and reviewing those
experiences they encounter, which means that people are the active developers of the knowledge
they acquire. When people meet something new, they always tend to refer back to their previous
encounters and ideas. To determine the essence of the recent meeting regarding whether it is
valid enough to change what they already know and believe or not relevant enough. Hence the
new information can be discarded. For this to be possible, one is expected to ask more questions,
explore new possibilities, and finally, examine what one knows. (Theys, 2017)
This paradigm is the most suitable for this study. It will open up the organization from
the inside as the research seeks to explain various actions of the leaders in the selected military
organization based on their experiences and events they have encountered in their operations.
From the proposed topic of research, the research intends to get to know the reasons as to why
leaders in the military fail to adjust their strategies to match the external environment. A few
METHODOLOGY 4
relevant research questions were earlier developed that touch on every aspect of this problem
statement intended for the research. Relating the problem statement to our paradigm, this
research will want to determine the experiences of various military organization leaders I want to
study. One of the purposes of the research is to get to know the experiences that cause them to
fail to adjust their strategies accordingly. Another objective of this research is to learn more
about past experiences where they altered their approach, and the outcome was not pleasant,
forcing them to stick to the strategies that 'seem to have always worked' for them. This research
would entail wanting to know of the events where they felt they might have wanted to change or
adjust their strategies, but they failed to do so due to unavoidable circumstances. (Grant, 2016).
There are various research practices categorized in this research paradigm. The researcher
is expected to collect participant-generated explanations. I hope to have the opportunity to
interact with various leaders and employees from the selected military organization that I would
interview and ask some questions regarding their experiences and organizational operations that
they can openly share with us. Another practice involves focusing on only one concept: the
failure of leaders in the military to adjust their strategies to match the external world in our case.
This paradigm also incorporates the integration of some of our values as researchers.
(Kratochwil, 2017) studying the context and environment of the leaders in their organization to
tackle various aspects of the research.
DISCUSSION OF METHODOLOGY
This study will be conducted with a flexible design using qualitative methods.
Specifically, a single case study design will be used. The flexible research design is the most
suitable for this study. The research aims at targetting our research participants more closely
without wasting time and resources by following through with blind trials, which may be time-
consuming and ineffective. This design enables us to apply various methods that are not rigid
during our research. When it comes to qualitative methods, this method emphasizes people's
experiences, beliefs, ideas, thoughts, feelings, and perceptions, directly linking to the research
paradigm, Constructivism that emphasizes reality as determined by individuals. The qualitative
approach focuses on human demeanor and social associations between people. Qualitative
methods' primary purpose is to develop new knowledge founded from the research participants'
own experiences and beliefs rather than pre-determined hypotheses. (Kelly, 2017).
METHODOLOGY 5
With the research questions laid out, the research intends to determine why leaders fail to
adjust their strategies to reflect the external world environment and choose to adapt their
approach. The research also intends to seek the leaders' experiences and beliefs regarding this
concept, where I would like to ask a few questions that may lead us to get the responses the
research seeks. Qualitative methods prove to be inductive and interpretative. One cannot
precisely predict what the leaders will say. It is purely out of the experience and will prove to be
much more helpful in understanding our topic's operations. (Usher and Jackson, 2019). The
research will be carried out in a military organization, one of the organizations that rarely share
information with anyone hence some of the responses might not be sufficient. This method is
suitable as it gives room for flexibility throughout the research to switch up our research methods
and adapt accordingly with any emerging issues.. This method is concerned with finding out the
answers to the whys and hows, and with regards to our three main research questions, the
research will focus more on the reasons for the choice of actions of the leaders that affect the
organization as a whole.
A single case study design was specifically selected for this research, where the intention
is to seek permission to carry out the research in a military organization of choice. This research
intends to utilize data collection methods such as individual interviews of the leaders, participant
observations, and focus group discussions. Sufficient procedures have been set in case one is not
acceptable by the organization. By focusing on a single organization, a more detailed and rich
understanding of the proposed topic will be obtained, hopefully on the first-hand experience.
This method is suitable as it is not time-consuming as the research is majorly concerned by the
quality of data rather than quantity. Choosing to focus on one organization, especially one that
seems to be in a downward spiral in terms of organizational performance, will help obtain
sufficient information. (Gustafsson, 2017). The research time will be fully dedicated there and
will not have to keep on jumping from organization to another, carrying out research that may
end up not being thorough enough. A single case study will yield a high-quality theory regarding
the proposed topic of military leaders' failure to adjust their strategies to reflect the external
world environment as I will get to explore this topic deeply.
METHODOLOGY 6
SUMMARY
I have explored our research paradigm; Constructivism, where I have defined this as the
reality as determined by an individual. This paradigm focuses on people's past experiences and
encounters projected as thoughts yielding new knowledge. It is more of a subjective paradigm
that is based on an individual's view. The research intends to majorly focus on the leaders' past
experiences in running the organization concerning our topic. I also explored the methodology of
choice, where I have chosen to use a flexible research design using qualitative methods,
specifically a single case study. Focusing on a single case study will enable a more in-depth and
rich exploration of the topic rather than having a large data set that may be time-consuming and
cost-inefficient.
METHODOLOGY 7
REFERENCES
Grant, C. B. (2016). Constructivism. The International Encyclopedia of Communication Theory
and Philosophy, 1-9.
Gustafsson, J. (2017). Single case studies vs. multiple case studies: A comparative study.
Harrison, H., Birks, M., Franklin, R., & Mills, J. (2017, January). Case study research:
Foundations and methodological orientations. In Forum Qualitative
Sozialforschung/Forum: Qualitative Social Research (Vol. 18, No. 1).
Kelly, K. (2017). A different type of lighting research–A qualitative methodology. Lighting
Research & Technology, 49(8), 933-942.
Kratochwil, F. (2017). Constructivism. In Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Politics.
Theys, S. (2017). Constructivism. International Relations Theory.
Usher, K., & Jackson, D. (2019). Qualitative methodology: a practical guide.
