Positivist and Interpretivist Research Designs - Essay Example

? Positivist and Interpretivist Research Designs Positivist and Interpretivist Research Designs Introduction Addressing the research question is the primary focus of any research. Whether it is a quantitative research or qualitative research, both formats try to address the research query and the research question identified by the researcher. Researches generally imply the approaches of interpretivism and positivism to address their research questions. Interpretivism mostly incorporates in qualitative researches and positivism in quantitative researches for addressing the research query or question. This paper is focusing on applying the positivist and interpretivist research designs in order to address the question “how do zero-hour contracts affect the motivation and performance of employees in the UK domiciliary care sector”? The above research question will be answered by means of applying positivist and interpretivist research designs. A comparison will be made in between both of the research designs, their applications and their essential methodologies. Applying the Positivist Research Design Setting up with the Basic Beliefs Applying the positivist research design the basic beliefs are that the scope of the study lies outside, the researcher is independent of theism and the science is of real matter and concern. Applying this objectivist approach, the researcher will focus concisely on the UK domiciliary care sector by selecting a suitable organization for study (Thorpe, 2008). The variables that will be of significant concern to the researcher-the objectivist are employee motivation and employee performance. The influence of zero-hour contracts on employee performance and motivation will be in mind to the observer who has selected a suitable organization from the UK domiciliary sector in the case study format (Thorpe, 2008). It has been noted that positivists always focus on the objective reality of the research. They only focus on the areas, which describe the origin or the essence of the research (Schrag, 1992). For this reason, in order to understand the situation of the UK domiciliary sector in terms of employee motivation and performance, only one suitable organization is selected in this positivist design. It is a case study format but still an effective format to lead out to the research objective and to the objective reality of the research (Shanks, 2002). The Methodology In order to address the question, there are two research approaches that are applicable in a positive research design – the descriptive research approach and the experimental research approach. The descriptive research approach will lead to the empirical studies, surveys, correlation studies, and relevant case studies about the employee motivation and performance in the UK domiciliary care sector (Poinasamy, 2009). This collected empirical evidence will become the source of guide for the researcher to carry out effective experimentation and observation. In order to understand the significance of relationship between zero hours contract and employee motivation, and zero-hours contract and employee performance, this accumulated empirical evidence will come out as an effective resource. Such collected empirical evidence will become a source of experimentation in the research (Belk, 2007, p.198). The Experimentation In the highly controlled conditions, the observations will be taken from the selected organization of the UK domiciliary sector (Poinasamy, 2009, p.3). These observations will become the primary source of data to understand the correlations between the zero hour contract and employee motivation and zero-hour contract and employee performance. It is actually the comprehension of the variables that will bring deliberate understanding for the positivist researcher. Keeping zero-hour contract as a constant variable, the effect of this variable will be found on employee motivation and performance, which are two dependent variables. By applying such significant experimentation, the researcher will address the research question comprehensively and with effective findings on the research (Bishop, 2007). Applying the Interpretivist Research Design Setting up the Basic Beliefs The interpretivist approach will adopt a subjective style to address the research question that how zero hour contracts effect employee motivation and performance in the UK domiciliary sector (Andrade, 2009). The basic beliefs in the interpretivist research design are that the scope of the research is broad, and that the researcher is an interpretivist who will carry out research in explorative and descriptive manner (Andrade, 2009). In this interpretivist research, there are no specific areas to focus, like the whole UK domiciliary sector needs to be explored in order to understand the situation of employees in terms of zero-hour contracts, their motivation and performances (Yanow, 2013). The Methodology and the Research Conduct The researcher will take the thematic rout e of analysis in order to explore the situation of UK domiciliary care sector. In order address the research question, different themes will be introspected by the research like themes of employee performance, employee motivation and zero-hour contract (Rowlands, 2005). The interpretation based on the subjective thematic analysis of the themes will become the secondary source of research. By exploring all the themes, all areas of research and by identifying the relationships between zero-hour contracts and employee motivation and performance will lead to the main findings of the study (Rowlands, 2005). These findings will further lead to the hypothesis aiming at predicting whether a relationship between variables exist or not and its significance (Elliott & Timulak, 2005). Conclusion The contemporary literature of research indicates that there are two approaches that are significantly applied to address research questions- positivism and interpretivism. The positivist research follows through the objective research design to address and answer the research inquires. The interpretivist research goes through with the subjectivist research design, which is based on introspection and exploration. This is how both of the research designs are significantly applicable to researches and empirical studies. This report has applied both the positivist and the interpretivist research design to address a derived research question. The differences in terms of methodologies, beliefs and the research conducts are highlighted between both positivism and interpretivism. The difference indicates that positivist approach applies the scientific models for analysis, while the interpretivist approach applies personal rationale, and introspection to conduct research. In this way, the positivist approach sets the mathematical and scientific ground of research while the interpretivist design base the research on contemporary and past empirical evidences. Both approaches effectively address the research question but have a different route and methodology to conduct research. List of References Andrade, A.D., 2009. Interpretive Research Aiming at Theory Building: Adopting and Adapting the Case Study Design. The Qualitative Report, 14(1), pp.42-60. Belk, R.W., 2007. Handbook of Qualitative Research Methods in Marketing. Northampton: Edward Elgar Publishing. Bishop, R.C., 2007. The Philosophy of the Social Sciences: An Introduction. New York: Bloomsbury Academic. Elliott, R. & Timulak, L., 2005. Descriptive and interpretive to qualitative research. In A Handbook of Research Methods for Clinical and Health Psychology. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp.147-60. Poinasamy, K., 2009. Who Cares? How best to protect UK care workers employed through agencies and gangmasters from exploitation. Oxford: Kalayaan. Rowlands, B.H., 2005. Grounded in Practice: Using Interpretive Research to Build Theory. Electronic Journal of Business Research Methods, 3(1), pp.81-92. Schrag, F., 1992. In Defense of Positivist Research Paradigms. Educational Researcher, 21(5), pp.5-8. Shanks, G., 2002. Guidelines for Conducting Positivist Case Study Research in Information Systems. Australasian Journal of Information Systems, 10(1), pp.1326-2238. Thorpe, R., 2008. Management Research. London: SAGE. Yanow, D., 2013. Interpretive Research Design: Concepts and Processes. London: Routledge. Read More