- [Alex] Let's unpack Burrel and Morgan's
Research Paradigms.
They wrote about this a few decades ago
but you see it still today
in a lot of textbooks
because it remains a useful way
to get a lay of the land
in terms of where to locate
different types of research and theory.
So first we'll give a little overview
of their thinking about the paradigms,
we'll talk about the two primary axes
that form these paradigms
and then we'll dig into the specifics
of each of the four paradigms.
(soft music)
In terms of overview,
both guys were working in
organizational behavior
academic departments at the time
so a lot of their view is influenced
by this study of organizations.
Their book explores how each researcher
has a set of assumptions
that shapes their approach to research.
They say, "All theories of organizations
"are based upon a philosophy of science
"and a theory of society."
They outline four paradigms or
ways of approaching research.
A paradigm simply means a
way of looking at something
that represents an established standard,
a set of related ideas.
They write, "Each set
of research assumptions
"identifies a quite separate
social scientific reality.
"To be located in a particular paradigm
"is to view the world
in a particular way."
Burrell and Morgan's four
paradigms help us more easily
make sense of the type of
research we are reading
and they provide a convenient way
of locating one's own
personal frame of reference.
So in other words, whether
you're reading research
or conducting your own or
trying to figure that out
therefore paradigms are very helpful.
Let's look at the two axes
that form the four paradigms.
The first is the objective
and subjective axis.
On the objective side
researchers see the world
as objective reality just
waiting to be discovered.
On the subjective side
researchers see reality
as something that is
primarily in our heads,
in our subjective experience.
The second axis has regulation on one side
and radical change on the other.
In terms of regulation,
researchers that lean this way
see the world as a fairly
stable place that you can study
as a status quo.
People that lean toward the radical change
end of the spectrum see
the world as a place
that should be changed
for various reasons,
oftentimes issues related
to some notion of equality.
They want to change things
to create more equal social arrangements.
When we cross these two axes
we get the four research
paradigms or four quadrants.
In the bottom right we have the primary
or traditional paradigm
for lots of social scientific research.
Functionalist research and
theory looks at the status quo.
They study things the
way they are currently.
As Burrell and Morgan put it,
"Researchers in this area seek to provide
"essentially rational
explanations for Social Affairs."
Functionalist see the world as a concrete
or objective reality that's out there
just waiting to be discovered
through systematic study.
These researchers want to uncover
or reveal this objective reality
to get a better handle on it.
They also see the world
in terms of regulation.
In other words, they
believe that the world
is relatively stable and
organized like nature.
In the way natural scientists
approach their work
researchers in this
paradigm see human activity
as orderly and cohesive.
In other words it's very regulated.
Taken together these two dimensions
make the functionalist paradigm,
"a problem-oriented approach
concerned to provide
"practical solutions
to practical problems."
In terms of the research and theory
that fits in this as examples,
you see people like Frederick
Taylor and Max Weber
who belong to the classical
management area of research,
fit in neatly in here.
They were trying to make
organizations more effective.
More recently you see
the Lean Six Sigma crowd
trying to improve
organizations in this quadrant.
You see a lot of leadership studies here
where people are trying to identify
the different types of leaders.
This area of research really likes labels
and categories like that.
In terms of the more
interpersonal side of things
you see a lot of personality tests
and ways of categorizing people
and remember they see a very fixed notion
of the social world
so even your personality is seen
as relatively stable and regulated.
In the lower left we have
the interpretive paradigm.
They still see the world as regulated,
in other words it's still stable,
but they have a subjective
view of that social reality.
So they're still studying
social reality as a status quo
as if it is cohesive and orderly.
They still want to understand
human activity as it is
but they want to view it at the level
of the subjective experience
of each individual person
rather than an overall objective reality.
They want to view things and
make sense of our social world
in terms of our individual
realm of consciousness,
as an ongoing process.
So social reality to
them is best understood
from the point of view of each person.
Reality is not out there,
objectively waiting to be discovered.
Reality is in our subjective perceptions
that are collectively
shared to some extent.
So from their standpoint,
social reality is viewed as
a network of individuals,
assumptions and an
intersubjectively shared meaning.
Not surprisingly, research
examples in this area
are trying to get inside our heads.
That's why when you see
researchers looking at,
let's say an organization's culture
or a community's culture,
a lot of times they're
stepping into that culture
as a participant observer.
So they're trying to
experience the culture
of an organization for themselves.
Researchers want to become part of it
so they can think and feel
and act like an insider
to get at that subjective
aspect of their experience.
It's not surprising then
that in terms of methods
you see in-depth interviews
to draw out people's thinking
and people's perception
as well as that participant
aspect of the research
where they step into that social reality.
In the top left we have
the radical humanists.
They still have a
subjective view of reality,
like the interpretive crowd.
They see our individual consciousness
as being of primary interest.
They believe that our thinking
or consciousness is dominated
by the views of the
powerful players in society.
In other words, we take
on the preferred beliefs,
the preferred values and
attitudes of the dominant class
and, in that way, that kind of thinking
subjectively keeps us in
subordinate positions in society.
And from their view, you
can hear the reason why
they prefer change, radical change.
They're concerned with
overthrowing or transcending
the limitations of existing
social arrangement.
These researchers want to
release us from the status quo,
those dominant and dominating ways
of thinking about ourselves and the world.
Their goal is emancipation
from what they see
as an unequal power
arrangement that's perpetuated
by what our thinking is,
what is in our heads.
So essentially they want to
free us by freeing our minds.
A popular research topic in this quadrant
is looking at gender issues,
specifically looking at
things like language use
and how that language represents
what is in our thinking.
So if you can listen
to the way people talk,
you get a notion for how they think.
So a lot of times people in this area
are looking at our language
use and communication habits
that may be reinforcing
unhelpful ways of thinking.
And in the top right we have
the radical structuralist crowd.
They want radical change
like the radical humanists.
They want to free people
from the status quo
which they see as an
unnecessarily dominant
subordinate social arrangement.
They differ from the humanists
because they see this
unequal power arrangement
as one primarily caused by
and potentially solved by
the objective realities
in our social structure.
Our society, from their view,
is organized or structured
in ways that make unequal
power arrangements
much more likely to continue.
In terms of the solutions they seek,
they want to change laws, to
change political policies,
to change economic policies
and those dealing with our
major social institutions,
like education, government
and corporations,
those concrete social institutions.
Examples of research in this area,
and let's just stick
with the issue of gender,
a lot of feminist scholars
want to change policies,
for example, to pursue equal pay
or shape laws about
sexism in the workplace.
Critical organizational
researchers in general
want to move away from top-down
dominating corporations
and move toward more
participation-driven models
of life at work
and because their objective assumptions
are really leaning toward
that concrete side of reality,
they want to change the way
companies are structured.
And those are the four
paradigms or four quadrants
of Burrell and Morgan's schema.
This is not the only way to dice up
the world of theory and research.
There are lots of other
helpful and instructive ways
but Burrell and Morgan's
remains useful to this day
because it's so clear
and so easy to apply to our own research
and the kinds of research
that we may be reading.
