ASSUMPTIONS, SCOPE + ETHICS

This section contextualises the methodology used by looking at assumptions made in the research, scope of the study, and ethical considerations.

4.5.1 Methodological assumptions The key assumptions in my methodology are:

• The natural world has an external reality as well as being a human construct, and it has intrinsic value independent from any instrumental value to humans

• Pro-environmental values, goals and identities are meaningful psychological constructs

• Metaphor use is not arbitrary and something can be inferred about how the speaker conceptualises their world by their use of particular terms

• People may not be consciously aware of all the processes involved in their behaviour and experience

4.5.2 Scope of research The study is concerned with:

• Enquiring into the lived experience of influencing pro-environmental responses in organisational contexts

• Identifying and making visible psychosocial processes involved in such experience that affect enactment of pro-environmental values through behaviour

• Drawing conclusions about the implications of these processes for influencing pro- environmental responses in organisational contexts

The study is not investigating:

• Organisational culture, policies or practices independently of the participant’s perception of them (see 4.5.3)

• Organisational activity and the impact of this activity on the natural world

• How effective participants are in influencing their organisation with regard to particular desired outcomes

• The green behaviours of the participants at work (e.g. recycling, conserving resources, purchasing eco-products)

• All possible factors influencing enactment of values and identity

• How pro-environmental values and identities are developed or can be strengthened

• How mindfulness can be cultivated and whether this cultivation has an effect on response to ecological crisis

Other limitations of the study:

• Not cross-cultural study: it was limited geographically to UK and Canada

• Does not include private sector organisations

• Investigation of participants in their work settings: it is specific to this context and not

• Not longitudinal study - captured views at a particular moment in time though it did include a final debrief a year after the interviews

• Frame and metaphor analysis of English language only

• Small sample size due to detail of micro-discourse analysis

4.5.3 Strengths and limitations of methodology used

The transdisciplinary nature of the theory underpinning the research embraces a complex view of human consciousness, together with the technique of micro-discourse (frame and metaphor) analysis, this enables a more comprehensive and nuanced understanding of lived experience to be developed. The methods used also give some possibility for looking at the phenomenon under enquiry from perspectives other than the participant through studying organisational documents and indirect observation of meetings, although in my study these

The methodology constructed allows the researcher to draw on intersubjective, intuitive, experiential and professional knowledge, which to me felt very satisfying and wholesome because it supported an integrated sense of self. However, the absence of detailed and standardised guidance about how to conduct micro-discourse analysis means the researcher has to be extra careful in checking their own biases when drawing inferences from the data. There is higher potential for idiosyncratic interpretations so conducting credibility checks is very useful (Firestone & Dawson 1982).

IPA has an idiographic focus (see 3.2.3) and I do not make any claims about the generalisability of my research findings for a wider population, in other organisational sectors, in non-English speaking cultures, or in other social contexts or domains of life. The study is situated i.e. it is investigating the participants’ lived experience in their work setting.

It was a conscious analytic choice to use particular theories and concepts to inform the data analysis and interpretation, such as Self-Determination Theory, environmental philosophy and ecopsychology perspectives on human-nature relationship and mind-body connection. Other theories would necessarily lead to other findings and interpretations.

IPA grounds the analysis in an understanding of the participants’ phenomenological experience and the meanings they make (Smith, Flowers & Larkin 2009). The study is not attempting to objectively assess the organisational context by examining organisational policies and practices and culture, as this is at odds with the epistemology of IPA and

embodied realism of cognitive linguistics (see 3.2.1), and is not especially relevant for a study focussing on the perceptions and understandings that the participant makes, regardless of whether these may be deemed by the researcher to be accurate or inaccurate.

Scholars interested in examining power relations in society or dominant social discourses through critical discourse analysis may find my methodological approach of frame and metaphor analysis to be a limitation because it does not share that focus. Frame and

metaphor analysis from an ecolinguistics perspective is concerned with critiquing discourses for ecologically beneficial or destructive dimensions. Combined with a cognitive linguistics perspective, it is concerned with cognitive structures (activated by frames and metaphors) and the effect these structures may have on how people think about and respond to ecological crisis.

The limitations of self-report methodologies, such as memory biases and other errors in describing subjective experience have been widely documented (Podsakoff et al 2012; Brown & Cordon 2009). There is an added dilemma in studying underlying drivers of behaviour because they often occur below the level of conscious awareness (Kahneman 2013; Breakwell 1986; Vignoles et al 2011; Lertzman 2015; Maio et al 2011; Thibodeau & Boroditsky 2011; Lakoff & Johnson 1980; Cramer 1998; Rogelberg 2006; Willig & Stainton- Rogers 2010) so they are not as readily accessible and are less easy to articulate directly than opinions (Swim et al 2011). However, it is precisely because people may not be consciously aware of all the processes involved in their behaviour and experience that IPA has a critical- hermeneutic dimension, which allows the researcher to not simply take the self report at face value but to generate an alternative narrative drawing on extant theory and their own professional experience and knowledge. Frame and metaphor analysis is another way of responding to the dilemma of investigating unconscious processes because it allows for conceptualisations to be discerned, that the speaker may or may not be aware that they are making.

4.5.4 Ethical Considerations

I obtained ethical approval for my study prior to the participant recruitment phase. All participants signed consent forms, and also gave agreement by email to the details of their participation in the study (see 4.2). Participants were offered a form to gain consent from their organisations for their participation but only one participant found it necessary to obtain such consent.

The key ethical issues I considered:

• Treatment of confidential or organisationally sensitive information: what type of information can be included and what information needs to be deleted or altered to protect anonymity. I consulted and reached agreement with the participants in the final debrief session about the inclusion of contextual information (see 4.3). I created pseudonyms and removed other identifying information from the extracts used in this thesis, conference presentations and journal papers.

• How to conduct the final debrief with participants: what interpretations to include and exclude, and what approach to use in sharing this information. As Clarke & Hoggett (2009 p46) find the central ethical question in psychosocial research is to what extent research findings are communicated to participants and how, concluding that there are no easy answers. The process used to make decisions about how to conduct the debrief has been described earlier (see 4.2.6).