Methodological Issues

This section covers the philosophical position of the research and how the methodology was developed. It has been presented in this way to bring clarity between the detailed methodological understanding and the practical methods used.

3.2.1 M

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Ontology and epistemology of research methodology stems from two different perspectives on the world. Ontology is either based on objectivism or constructivism, either being based on the facts present before someone or the evidence is based on where the person stands (metaphorically). Epistemologically-speaking objectivism is tied to positivism and constructivism linked to interpretivism; hence the natural divide between natural science (numbers, laws etc) and social sciences (human behaviour, emotion etc). Construction research has traditionally been associated with an objectivist positivist paradigm where the majority of the research is of a quantitative nature (lab tests etc). Having said this

“Construction management is a relatively new field which draws from both the natural and social sciences. As such, many different theories of knowledge or paradigms compete for methodological primacy” (Knight and Ruddock, 2008, Ch.1, pp1, Dainty, A).

Quantitative research “has traditionally been associated to empirical studies that have focused around the natural sciences” (Fellows and Liu, 2003, pp 28) and qualitative studies employ such methods such as participant observation (Bryman, 1988).

Which paradigm to adopt for this research comes from the very nature of sustainability assessment itself. The work of Gasparatos et al (2009) argues the case for methodological

pluralism. Individual metrics related to sustainability assessment (carbon footprint, acidification etc) are quantitative and tied to a more objectivist positivist approach which is perfectly valid, however, when these individual metrics are aggregated in to a sustainability index or assessment score then the interpretation of the result is no longer so quantitative which makes comparisons more subjective and therefore qualitative (and therefore we move towards a constructivist interpretivist paradigm).

Against this methodological backdrop it was clear that a ‘mixed methods’ approach would be well suited to the research. This approach is sometimes termed ‘triangulation’ whereby the strengths of both the quantitative and qualitative approaches are combined to provide a more substantial and relevant research paradigm within in which to work (Fellows and Liu, 2003).

Understanding one’s own methodological bias also helps to acknowledge any potential conflict of interests. The author is rationally objective but also believes in the value and

‘enrichment’ that can be added from an interpretivist perspective. Understanding the paradigm is fundamentally important to be able to identify the best methods for each of the 4 main objectives outlined in Table 3.1 below.

Table 3.1 Objectives aligned with methods and outputs Research Objectives Research Areas

Objective 1 is related to the main literature review (Chapter 2) the undertaking of which gave the research clear focus on the research need for and ultimate use of the assessment framework. The literature review is the cornerstone of most research; identifying the gap in existing research and being able to critique the work of others (and later your own) is important to show mastery of the subject. Alongside the literature review an analytical

assessment of material section scores was conducted in the leading sustainability assessment schemes used in UK construction namely BREEAM and Ceequal; this being a more quantitative exercise. Figure 3.1 is repeated from Chapter 1 to show how the research objectives align to the work packages and the specific research methods.

Figure 3.1 Research Map linking the objectives to EngD outputs

Having established the knowledge base it was then necessary to gather some primary data from industry stakeholders. This was achieved through a series of semi-structured interviews which gave some flexibility to the range of discussion within set discursive limits. The key topics of examination for objective 2 were life cycle assessment and sustainability and how these issues were important when selecting/considering material choices in particular construction projects.

Developing the framework was possible following the completion of objectives 1 and 2. The outputs of these previous work packages fed directly into the development of the framework which was the third objective. The stakeholder assessment of the sustainability issues consisted of a survey which delivered the empirical weightings for the sustainability issues within the framework. The formulation of sustainability issues was very qualitative whereas the empirically derived weightings were a straightforward numerical exercise.

There were three aspects to objective 4 for the testing, validation and review of the framework. The testing took place within 10 UK ready-mixed concrete plants and the validation (in an international context) was to compare the UK performance of the framework against a Canadian ready-mixed concrete operation. Both of these were relatively straight

forward quantitative exercises. The review process took place in a focus group environment where over 25 industry stakeholders gave valuable feedback on the structure and process of the assessment framework.

The ranges of methods adopted are explained in more detail in section 3.3 but it is worth highlighting the key overarching approach in this research.

3.2.2 M

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According to Bell (1993) there are five main research styles; action, ethnographic, surveys, case study and experimental. As explained in the previous section this research will require a mixed methods approach and will sit (metaphorically) in the middle of the continuum between a positivist and an interpretivist paradigm. Such an approach (and indeed the subject of the research) means that research styles such as experimental and ethnographic approaches are immediately excluded from the methodology development.

Action research is related to change (or action) led from the inquiry (or research) (Denzin &

Lincoln, 2000).This approach is an iterative process where ‘plan, act, observe, reflect’ can be part of a cyclical methodology (Holton, 2008). In Chapter 1 it was presented that organisations seek competitive advantage from sustainability (Schroeder & Robinson, 2010) and that this EngD will help to develop that organisation learning and feed into future strategy and so whilst not iterative, action research does have a place in the methodological approach for this research. In order for this to take place the outputs of the EngD would need to be fed back into a similar process of review and planning with a clearer strategic aim. Dunphy et al (2003) suggest a number of pathways to sustainability for organisations; incremental change being one such approach. This research is intended to lead the industrial sponsor to an

‘evolution’ of thinking and approach to product sustainability rather than being something

‘revolutionary’.

Surveys cover a range of methods; these include, the literature review, questionnaires, workshops and interviews. Table 3.1 has shown that a number of these methods will be used in the research however the entire EngD is not a survey research project, the results of implementing these methods will produce the desired research outputs.

Experimental research is traditionally a quantitative process where the inductive nature of the problem lends itself to traditional laboratory based research such as the completed EngD of Jonathan Paul Edwards (2007) which investigated ‘Laboratory characteristics of pavement foundation materials’. There is an element of testing the framework both in the UK and in an international context to check the validity of the approach i.e. does it give sensible answers?

However what is deemed ‘sensible’ is also highly questionable and subjective to the inherent bias of the author and therefore not truly an experimental approach.

The only clear solution to this is a ‘pragmatic’ approach as espoused by Patton (2003) but interestingly not as well referenced in the works of Silverman (2003); Denzin & Lincoln (2000) or Fellows and Liu (2003). Cresswell (2009) describes pragmatism as being aligned to a mixed methods approach which “is not committed to any one system of philosophy” and as

an approach where “researchers have a freedom of choice… researchers are free to choose the methods, techniques and procedures of research that best meet their needs and purposes”.

Therefore this EngD research uses a pragmatic mixed methods approach drawing upon both action research and survey research for the methods adopted.

Another methodological consideration that needs to be addressed here is of the development of the assessment framework itself. Singh et al (2012) present a good overview of the wide range of sustainability assessment methodologies which are collections of individual metrics or an aggregated sustainability index of some description. A range of well established methods exist for assessing products and services; some are more well recognised than others and a number have not stemmed from an environmental aspect (e.g. cost-benefit analysis).

Ness et al (2007) conclude that there appears to be a paradoxical situation where some practitioners are seeking a more detailed assessment while others are asking for a broader, more holistic approach (Jeswani et al, 2010). The use of an empirically derived indicator set (Fernandez-Sanchez & Rodrigiez-Lopez, 2010; Wallbaum et al, 2012) or a cumulative effect approach (Senner, 2011) have also been used in the sustainability assessment context to support decision making.

Some previous research has advocated the use of the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) as the multi-criteria support tool; this has not been identified as a method for this research however it has been applied to similar sustainability assessment systems (Henry & Kato, 2011; Sarkis et al, 2012). The developed assessment framework for this EngD is primarily an internal benchmarking approach for the industrial organisation, it is not intended to be used as part of an external decision making process as is often the intention of such multi-variant approaches (Elghali et al, 2008; Steele et al, 2002).

The underlying methodological context revolves around whether a reductionist approach i.e.

looking at single indicators is better than amalgamating the indicators on some way.

Gasparatos et al (2009) argue “against such a reductionist approach for measuring sustainable development and the need for methodological pluralism”. This position is further supported by Adetunji et al (2003) and Ozdemir et al (2011) go further to say that the indicator set approach does not give any support to trade off indicators against one another. There are however a multitude of research papers on single metric issues (Van den Heede & De Belie, 2012; Goggins et al, 2010; Pulselli et al, 2008).

Therefore a key point of discussion relating to the assessment framework being developed will be the value of the individual metrics against the comparative outputs; i.e. how useful is methodological pluralism in this particular sustainability assessment framework.

3.3 ADOPTED RESEARCH METHODS, TASKS AND OBJECTIVES