Choosing an Appropriate Interpretative Methodology

As explained above, interpretive research provides for a wide variety of methodologies and methods that seek to examine the human phenomena, and to understand the individual's experiences, actions and behaviours by engaging with them. The possible methodologies are:

Ethnography: using observations and interviews the researcher studies the shared patterns of behaviours, language and action on an intact cultural group (Creswell, 2014). Ethnography, according to Patton (1990: 67), answers the question “…what is the culture of this group of people?”; from this perspective, the focus, according to Patton (1990), is on the shared and learned meaning of patterns, values, behaviours and language of a cultural group. This approach seeks to reveal meaning by investigating how people produce social reality (Flick, 1998). This is achieved by analysis of structures of meaning to produce evidence as to how reality (i.e. words and gestures) acquire meaning (Mick 1986). This suggests that members of certain cultural groups will act in the same manner based on their shared understanding of reality (Barley, 1983; Brannen, 2004).

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Grounded theory: the researcher derives a general, abstract theory of a process, action or interaction using multiple stages of data collection (Corbin and Strauss, 2007). Grounded theory is a methodology that prescribes a systematic set of procedures to develop concepts and relationships inductively from data (Strauss and Corbin, 1990), and can be used within a range of widely differing research questions and theoretical perspectives (Creswell, 1998). The main inquiry for Grounded Theorists is to determine how social structures and processes influence how things are done through a set of social interactions. Grounded Theory develops an

explanatory theory of basic social processes (Glaser and Strauss, 1967), which is developed by understanding the patterns and relationships between the “six Cs” of social processes (causes, contexts, contingencies, consequences, covariance and conditions) to produce a generalized substantive level of theory, (Glaser and Strauss, 1967; Starks, Brown and Trinidad, 2007).

Case study: the researcher develops an in-depth analysis of a case, activity or process. Cases are bounded by time and activity, collecting data using varied collection procedures over a period of time (Stake, 1995; Yin, 2009, 2012). The case study, it would seem, is not necessarily a methodology of choice, but a choice of object to be studied, and is defined by an interest to learn about a specific phenomenon (Stake, 1994). Here researchers focus on the complexities connecting ordinary practice in natural settings, and the case data is not only interpreted and constructed by the researcher, but its meaning and experience may also be constructed by the reader (Eisenhardt, 1989; Stake, 1994).

Phenomenography: in this research design the researcher describes the experiences of individuals regarding a phenomenon. The description gathers the essence of the experiences of several individuals who have experienced the phenomenon. Its aim is to find and systemize forms of thoughts in respect to people’s interpretations of their reality (Marton, 1981). This design has strong philosophical underpinnings and typically involves conducting interviews (Moustakas, 1994; Giorgi, 2009). Phenomenography ask questions about lived experiences, such that reality is understood through embodied experiences. It contributes to a deeper understanding of lived experiences and of “taken-for-granted” assumptions about the ways of knowing these experiences (Sokolowski, 2000).

Each one of the mentioned methodologies has distinct procedures for data collection,

interpretation and theoretical development. Ethnography is concerned with cultures, reaching a conclusion that members of similar cultural groups act similarly based on their common

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understanding of their reality (Boyle, 1994; Arnould, 1998; Pittigrew, 2000). Grounded Theory insists on theoretical sampling and saturation of data and theory before theory development can be reached; and with data comprising of life histories and introspection which are constructed to form a generalized theory (Glaser and Strauss, 1967; McKinley-Wright, 1995; Corbin, 1998). As for Case Studies, the focus is on the complexities that connect ordinary practice in a natural setting such as events and organizations, with the data being interpreted through critical event or thematic analysis (Eisenhardt, 1989; Stake, 1994). Case study and Grounded Theory seek to find generalized findings in the form of middle range theories that find common themes or events through data interpretation. Meanwhile, phenomenography builds theory based around lived experiences, the lived world is defined as the world in which people experience culture and society, are influenced by their objects, and act on them, introducing variation in individual experiences (Schutz, 1966; Goulding, 2004).

The philosophical approach and theoretical perspective of this study is interpretive; which supports my research stance from its life-world ontology and social constructionist

epistemology. As such, the choice of methodology and methods is informed by, and aligned with this approach. The methodological choice is also directed by my research question: how do entrepreneurs understand and experience their context? Interpretive research not only provides a different lens from which to examine human phenomena, it also presents a variety of

methodologies and methods that focus on the individual’s meaning and understandings, as conveyed by the persons engaged in these activities, in this case, the entrepreneurs.

Are the above methodologies suitable to investigate the research question of how do entrepreneurs understand and experience their context? The answer to the question is yes;

each of these methodologies can be suitable but the aim of this research is to capture the variation in entrepreneurs’ understanding and experiences of context within one community.

Although the above-mentioned interpretive approaches would describe and define how

entrepreneurs understand their context, not all of them are able to capture the variation of their lived experience and the reality of the individual as they tell it. The term phenomenography means the "study or description of phenomena" (Prettit, 1969), it refers to anything that appears or presents itself (Moran, 2000). It is about bringing the "essences" of experiences

(phenomena) to describe their underlying "reason" (Pivcevic, 1970). Phenomenography refers to the "description of things as one experiences them, or of one's experiences of things"

(Hammond et al., 1991: p1). It is therefore the appropriate methodology for this study since the

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aim is to focus on and capture entrepreneurs’ own understandings and experiences of their context. Entrepreneurship research is dominated by objectivist, functionalist approaches, to be able to move beyond this paradigmatic approach, and to be able to develop new perspectives of entrepreneurship a new approach is needed (Cope, 2003), phenomenography provides that alternative.