Research Philosophy

The research philosophy contains important assumptions about the way in which a particular researcher views the world, and these assumptions will underpin the research strategy and the methods chosen as part of the strategy (Saunders et al., 2007). Here, the main influence of the research philosophy is the researcher’s personal view of what constitutes acceptable knowledge and the process by which this is developed. The researcher’s philosophical stance may be specified by its ontological and epistemological tenets.

Ontology looks at the researcher’s view on the nature of reality (Blaikie, 2000), subjectively or objectively. It has to be identified here whether the study is objective and external to the researcher, or socially constructed (subjective) and only understood by examining the perceptions of the human actors (Collis and Hussey, 2003). Epistemology refers to the “claim about what exists, what it looks like, what units make it up and how these units interact with each other” (Blaikie, 2000). The epistemological assumption is concerned with drawing the relationship between the researcher and his/her research. It is characterised either by a positivist or interpretivist perspective. The positivist view assumes that the the social world exists externally and that its properties should be measured through objectively instead of subjectively (Saunders et al, 2007). The epistemological assumption of the positivist paradigm is that the researcher is independent from what is being researched (Creswell, 2003) and thus the research is conducted in a value-free way. On the other hand, the interpretivist view sees reality as subjective and multiple as seen by participants in a study (Creswell, 2003). The epistemological assumption behind the interpretivist paradigm is that the researcher interacts with what is being researched, and thus are more concerned with the understanding of the research problem that is unique to the context instead of generalisability (Maxwell, 2006). The merits of these two paradigms, positivism and interpretivism, are widely debated in social science, resulting in the emergence of a new paradigm, pragmatism, which utilises a mixed method research inquiry (Johnson et al., 2007). Johnson and Onwuegbuzie (2004) stressed that it is a practical and outcome-oriented method of inquiry that is based on action, and leads, iteratively, to further action and the elimination of doubt. Pragmatism accepts, philosophically, that there are singular and multiple realities that are open to empirical inquiry and orients itself toward solving practical problems in the real world (Creswell and Plano Clark, 2007).

Ontologically this study favours a pragmatic view that combines objectivism and subjectivism. This pragmatic view allows the researcher to choose the methods (or combination of methods) that work best for answering the objectives of this study (Johnson and Onwuegbuzie, 2004). In developing the resilience response framework for this study, the researcher needs to firstly identify the critical vulnerability factors that currently challenge the public sector supply chain operations and assess the main capability factors that they currently employ in handling disruptions during project delivery. This can be achieved through the use of a questionnaire (see Section 3.3) that will allow the respondents to rate the extent of their agreement or disagreement with the statements listed under the vulnerability and capability factors previously compiled by the researcher from the literature review (see factors listed in Tables 2.2 and 2.4). It is worth noting that at this phase, the researcher does not attempt to predict the significant factors affecting the subject under study; instead, the statistical analysis will drive the result of the respondents’ current level of resilience. The researcher will therefore maintain an objective stance and positivist view at this stage, not influencing the respondents, and the results are value free.

However, the researcher acknowledges that the quantitative data from the questionnaire alone does not capture and describe the complex interactions of the operation environment, organisational issues and societal culture (Kiessling and Harvey, 2005). In assessing the public sector supply chain, these factors are important as they could be pathogens (see Section 2.7) that influence the level of vulnerability assessed in the questionnaire. The subjectivist ontology approach and interpretivist view benefit this part of the study as they allow the researcher and respondents to justify the questionnaire results through argument in detail by relating the results to reality, enabling the researcher to obtain rich and complex data in terms of tacit knowledge, perception and human experience which could not be measured in the quantitative approach. This subsequently results in an in-depth study of the root cause of the respondents vulnerability to disruptions. The cascading effects of disruptions to the supply chain and project performance can also be assessed in this manner. This fulfils the fourth research objective, stated in Section 1.4.

In addition to the ontological and epistemological view, it is important to determine the position of the researcher’s values in his/her research. This is also known as axiology, a

ultimately, the researcher’s values affect how the results of the study are interpreted. Although this research adopts a mixed method approach, which combines both quantitative and qualitative data, epistemologically it inclines more towards interpretivism, which acknowledges the difference between the objects of natural science and people within the phenomenon under study through the respondents’ validation of the questionnaire results. Figure 3.2 shows the overall philosophical stance of this research.

Figure 3.2: Philosophical stance of the research (Adapted from Sexton, 2007)

Based on this discussion, the researcher agrees with Tashakkori and Teddlie (1998) that, in practice, at one point one may more easily stand apart from what one is studying and takes the objectivist stance (in assessing the questionnaire), while at another point, the knower and the known must be interactive (through the respondents’ validation of the questionnaire results). Hence, as a pragmatist, the researcher’s goal is to search for useful points of connection between the objectivist and subjectivist stances. This approach also allows the researcher to fulfil the research objectives that cover both exploratory (what) and explanatory (why) questions.