Social science research

A study of entrepreneurial skills development through international education falls into the area of social science research as opposed to the area of natural sciences. It is important to place this study in some field of research in order to understand the ontological and epistemological paradigms which provide the philosophical underpinning and which govern the manner in which the research is undertaken. Ontology is concerned with the nature of being or reality: epistemology refers to the nature and scope of knowledge and ways in which it can be acquired (see Bryman and Bell 2007, Symon and Cassell, 2012).

My research cuts across at least two sub-sections within the social sciences, that of education and that of business/management. According to Newton Suter (2006):

“Educational researchers approach their work from many different perspectives using many different methods…It is a misleading oversimplification to pigeon-hole the vast array and complexity of educational research” (p40).

Alongside this, Bryman and Bell (2007) state that…

“…business research does not exist in a vacuum. Not only is it shaped by what is going on in the real world of business and management, it is also shaped by many of the intellectual traditions that shape the social sciences at large” (p4).

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Both areas of research are a) affected by external factors and b) not detached but incorporate other subjects within the social sciences. These factors impact on my research because they imply that there is no one line of research design or methodology that should be followed. If the process of research can be affected by its type (natural science or social science), by its sub-section (whether it is management research, education research or both) or by outside influences (such as who funds the research for example) then it is clearly problematic to lay out predictive and expected processes for undertaking the research. Tranfield and Starkey (1998) stated that in management research no single agreed ontological or epistemological paradigm dominates. This gives a certain amount of freedom when designing this particular research - not freedom from academic rigour but rather freedom from the constraints of ‘accepted’ practices of research.

The two extreme stances within research philosophy are that of positivism and interpretivism. In essence…

“…positivism is based on the assumption that there are universal laws that govern social events, and uncovering these laws enables researchers to describe, predict and control social phenomena” (Wardlow 1989, cited in Kim, 2003 p10).

One further definition of positivism is where the investigator is independent of the research and is not affected by nor does s/he affect the subject of the research (Remenyi et al., 1998, cited in Saunders et al., 2000).

At the other extreme, interpretive research…

“…seeks to understand values, beliefs and meanings of social phenomena, thereby obtaining verstehen (a deep and sympathetic understanding) of human cultural activities and experiences” (Smith & Heshusius, 1986, cited in Kim, 2003 p10).

As its name suggests, interpretivism implies the need for interpretation of the complexities of the social world by the researcher – the researcher is not distanced from the study but is, directly or indirectly, part of the study. Easterby-Smith et al. (2008) state that…

“…the task of the social scientist should not be to gather facts and measure how often certain patterns occur, but to appreciate the different constructions and meanings that people place upon their experience” (p59).

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Both these terms describe philosophical positions and therefore (are supposed to) inform the whole thread of research, from conception through to methodology and methods through to interpreting data and dissemination. In an attempt to explain the various paradigms of research Guba (1990) states that these can be characterized by the way in which their supporters understand three basic questions, which concern firstly ontology (what is the nature of reality?), secondly epistemology (what is the relationship between the researcher and the known/knowable?) and thirdly methodology (how should the researcher undertake finding out about knowledge?). Guba’s argument is that there are other philosophical stances that lie between the two more extreme views of positivism and interpretivism and their attendant ontological and epistemological beliefs.

Guba is not alone in his argument. Other researchers (including, Easterby-Smith et al., 2008; Sale et al., 2002; Silverman,1993) question the apparent lines between these two positions, implying that for much research there can be cross-over of stances. Easterby-Smith et al. (2008) state that it is not possible to find any philosopher who believes in and adheres to all aspects of one particular philosophy. Weber (2004) discusses at length his understanding of how the two positions are not mutually exclusive, how much they have in common and how, ultimately, he no longer wants to be labelled as a positivist or an interpretive researcher. He states further:

“It is time for us to move beyond labels and to see the underlying unity in what we are trying to achieve via our research methods” (p120).

Alongside the view that these two extreme philosophies are not mutually exclusive is that discussed by Tranfield and Starkey (1998), that we should not be forced by such ‘norms’ into particular ways of researching, as this limits our ability as researchers to accept and embrace conflict and limits our ability to think across boundaries. If we are not ‘forced’ into following pre-ordained research methods, then that leaves the way open to choose which method best suits the aims of the research and to match practicality with research viability and reliability. As will be considered in Section 4.4.1 this could mean using a mixed-method approach, i.e. more than one research method, perhaps from different underlying philosophical stances, where these together provide a more complete picture for the research question than following one single method or adhering to one particular research philosophy.

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Entrepreneurship research is still relatively new and emergent (Marques et al., 2012; Busenitz, 2003, cited in Crook et al., 2010) and, as such, researchers are still defining and discussing the boundaries and philosophical underpinning of the field. Research in entrepreneurship tends to focus on the generation of business ideas and opportunity identification, new business creation and growth (Crook et al., 2010; Short et al., 2010), that is the business/management/finance sub-section of the social sciences, whereas research into the entrepreneur is found in many sub-sections, including management, economics, sociology, psychology, anthropology and organizational behaviour. Both entrepreneurship and entrepreneur research are thus interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary. Vecchio (2003) describes these phenomena as ‘entrepreneurial traits’ research (personality dimensions, psychological drive) and ‘entrepreneurial rates’ research (environmental influences on start- ups, growth of a business, etc.) and argues that these differences influence the research methods used and also give rise to a lack of cross-over between the two, i.e. ‘rates’ does not inform or instruct ‘traits’ and vice versa.

According to Short et al. (2010), entrepreneurial research undertaken from the management field perspective is often viewed as practical research, geared more towards, and for the use of, practitioners than for academics. Similarly, Leitch et al. (2010) argue that researchers in entrepreneurship tend to be more concerned with the practical nature of their studies and how to collect data rather than with philosophical assumptions that underpin their studies.

The practical nature of much entrepreneurship research to-date, coupled with the range of fields entrepreneurship envelops, does draw criticism that it…

“…dissipates the focus of entrepreneurship research into a fragmented potpourri….that is constraining both the field’s scholarly development and its credibility as an academic discipline” (various, cited in Leitch et al., 2010 p2).

Similarly, Neergaard and Ulhoi (2007) claim that entrepreneurship is considered by some to be a field lacking in methodological diversity and rigour and Bygrave (2007, cited in Neergaard and Ulhoi, 2007) points out that the entrepreneurship paradigm has not yet developed its own distinctive methods and theories, borrowing these from other sciences. Nevertheless, Leitch et al. (2010) argue that because entrepreneurship is varied and complicated there is a need for researchers to draw on diverse ontological and epistemological positions and to use a range of theoretical and practice traditions from both the social sciences and humanities.

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Criticisms of research in the field of entrepreneurship include a lack of high-calibre qualitative research using a variety of methods as examined by Hindle (2004), who states that there has been an ‘explosion’ of qualitative methods used in other fields within the social sciences in recent years, but not in the field of entrepreneurship. Other criticisms include the use of relatively small (and thus unrepresentative) samples which are often self-selected, lack of the use of control groups, little longitudinal research and a failure to take into account context, in particular in the field of entrepreneurship education and training research (Athayde, 2012; Levie et al., 2009). Many of these criticisms apply to the studies considered in the literature review, in particular the fact that much of the research follows a quantitative path, which does not provide much opportunity for investigating and providing explanations for the results.

The implication of the above arguments is that within the field of entrepreneurship research there is no one paradigm, there is no specified ontological or epistemological stance and no correct or incorrect methodology that must be followed. Indeed, Tranfield and Starkey (1998) argue that management research as a whole has no agreed core theory or accepted paradigm within which every researcher operates. That is not to say that researchers have a free rein to undertake research however they see fit: the accepted requirements for reliability, validity, integrity, ethical codes of practice, etc. apply here just as much as in any other field and manner of research. Certainly when using interpretivist approaches to entrepreneurship research Leitch et al. (2010) stress that it is the researcher’s responsibility to ensure that the reader is provided with enough information on the design of and process of the research so that the integrity and rigour of the process can be assessed.

4.3.2 Research in international education

International education as a research domain is also relatively new and also encompasses many sub-sections within the social sciences, including management, education and sociology. As such, it is comparable to the field of entrepreneurship research reviewed above. Another similarity is that, from the literature reviewed, it is not possible to discern any one clear paradigm of inquiry, definitive ontological or epistemological views or prescribed methodologies. As van Hoof and Verbeeten (2005) point out:

“The study of international education has started to move from a purely theoretical and conceptual approach to a more analytical approach” (p54).

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This implies that the field is in a state of flux. They also talk of the need for more quantitative and qualitative research in the field and for the wealth of anecdotal evidence that indicates the benefits of international education to be supported by hard facts.

The research and studies that comprise the international education literature throw up a number of methods that are used by researchers in the field, from the full spectrum of quantitative and qualitative methods, including questionnaires (Daley, 2007; Dwyer, 2004), semi-structured interviews (Daley, 2007), literature reviews (Kehm and Teichler, 2007) and use of the Delphi technique (Hunter et al., 2006). Once again, this would imply that, as with entrepreneurship research, a researcher must operate within the parameters of accepted practice with respect to validity, reliability, integrity, etc. (Schofield, 2007; Creswell and Miller, 2000) but that the philosophical underpinning for the research and how the research is carried out is not prescribed by a particular stance. As stated above, there is a wide variety of research methods used in the studies discussed in the literature review but one of the criticisms that can be levied at the field as a whole, as with entrepreneurship research, is the lack of the use of more than one method that would produce data sets that enable both positivist findings and interpretivist explanations.