3.2 Research Approach
3.2.2 A Qualitative approach
84 that influence system or organisational behaviour, but rather the feedback relationships between them, and between the multitudes of variables influencing the organisation’s sustainability. The issue then becomes not really “who” has the power to move the system in a more desirable direction, but rather which “areas” or particular variables can be manipulated to produce more beneficial system behaviour that will ultimately encourage organisational sustainability. The issue of “who” will then pertain more to who has jurisdiction over those particular areas or variables so as to be able to influence them more readily than other actors within the same system.
85 investigating. This study relied on textual data, as well as the data emanating from lengthy interviews with pivotal members of the Oxfam GB affiliate in SA, in order to generate discoveries about the organisation’s sustainability.
Interpretation is inherent to a qualitative research approach, both on the part of the researcher and the research participants. As Baumard (2001, p. 81) asserts:
“…the qualitative approach allows for both the subjectivity of the researcher and that of the subjects at the same time.”
Thus, each research participant possesses a particular interpretation or perspective of the issue under investigation which the researcher must respect and accommodate in the study. The researcher therefore needs to interpret the subjective meanings which the research participants ascribe to the issue under study. However, the manner in which they do so will depend on their own ways of thinking about the issue being studied and their ways of thinking about social reality in general. This exemplifies the notion of the inherent subjectivity of the researcher which is especially recognised and accommodated in qualitative research approaches.
It is important to point out here that the qualitative nature of the study fits appropriately with the SD approach mentioned earlier. Qualitative research focuses on the research participants’
subjective interpretation of a particular issue. SD (and most systems thinking methodologies) seek to extract such interpretations (what they call “mental models”) in order to get the most accurate understanding of a problem issue as is possible because those embedded in and dealing with the problem issue will have the most accurate perceptions of it.
“It is through the iterative process of making a participant-observer’s perceptions or ‘mental model’ explicit they say, that improved learning, understanding and policy formulation arises.”
(Radzicki & Trees, 1992, p. 549) SD accords such a high degree of importance to the extrication of mental models that it goes as far as proposing that the quality of a SD model is directly and inherently dependent on the
86 quality of the mental models that were made explicit during the process of engaging with stakeholders and/or research participants (Radzicki & Trees, 1992, p. 549).
Creswell’s (2009, pp. 175-176) investigations into the qualities of qualitative inquiry reveal a number of characteristics common to all qualitative research. The table below depicts these characteristics with a brief description of each characteristic and its relevance to this particular study:
Table 3-1:Core characteristics of qualitative research and relevance to this study (Creswell, 2009, p.175-176)
Characteristic of Qualitative Research
Description Relevance to this study
Researcher as key instrument It is the researcher in qualitative
research that takes
responsibility for the collection of data. They may use a particular instrument such as an interview schedule but it is the researcher themselves that must conduct the interviews and gather the information. This differs from quantitative inquiry in which research instruments such as surveys are distributed widely and it is the instrument itself that gathers the data. Also, qualitative researchers tend to construct their own research
The researcher conducted interviews with key role players in the Oxfam GB affiliate in SA.
Interviews were based on the sustainability issues of this NPO.
Therefore, the researcher was responsible for collecting all the data emanating from the interview process. In addition, she consulted archival and textual documents and analysed this for the purpose
of understanding the
organisational processes of the NPO. The interview schedule was developed by the researcher and was not based on an existing
87 instruments, instead of relying
on those constructed by other researchers.
template. In addition, the researcher analysed all the data retrieved from the interviews, and the archival and textual documents.
Multiple sources of data Qualitative inquiry usually relies on data acquired from more than one source such as a combination of interviews and focus groups for instance. This is an attempt to verify the authenticity of the data. All data is examined and common themes that emerge from all the sources form the basis of the research findings.
This study acquired data from the examination of existing documentation pertaining to the NPO Oxfam, as well as interviews with key role-players in the sustainability issues of the organisation. The analysis of both these sources allowed the researcher to recognise commonalities between them which served as the findings of this study.
Inductive data analysis Qualitative researchers generate knowledge via an inductive approach. They utilise the data they acquire through particular research instruments and/or analysis of textual/audio/visual data to generate theories about the issue or problem they are investigating. This represents a bottom up approach beginning with the dataset and moving up towards the creation of abstract
The data emanating from the interviews, together with examination of the documentation formed the basis of the inductive approach to the issue of NPO sustainability. From an examination of these data sets, major themes were extracted- themes that were common across both sets of data. These themes then formed the basis of the findings and diagramming (to be
88 themes that exemplify the
essence of the data.
explained later) emerging from this study.
Participants’ meanings Emphasis is on the research participants’ perceptions and personal opinions of the problem issue. It becomes the responsibility of the qualitative researcher to extract these perceptions and opinions so as to get the most accurate view of the problem issue.
This study centered specifically on the perceptions held by members of the NPO regarding their sustainability. These perceptions were extracted via lengthy interviews with key members within the organisation. In addition, a SD approach was utilised and a core element of this approach is the explication of the mental models of the stakeholders.
Thus, the effectiveness of SD as a research methodology is predicated to a large extent on the researcher’s efficacy in extracting such mental models.
Emergent design The qualitative research process may follow a plan, but is not confined to adherence to such a plan. Thus, the research design is often emergent and may change if a particular step in the plan warrants it. For example, interview questions may change to foster better understanding, additional interviewees may be targeted, additional research instruments may be used, some
This study was guided by a particular plan which remained amenable to slight changes as the study progressed. For instance, time constraints, limitations in understanding on the part of the research participants and the complexity of the full SD approach prompted the researcher to undertake the research from a qualitative SD approach, rather than engaging in the time
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may be discarded, etc. consuming and complicated quantitative aspects of the SD process.
Theoretical lens Qualitative researchers often view their research through a particular lens or framework which will ultimately influence how they interpret and represent their findings. For this reason, it is good practice to state this theoretical lens at the outset of the research so that the readers or audience can make sense of the findings against the backdrop of the assumptions underlying such a lens or framework.
Systems thinking and the associated SD approach formed the theoretical lens for this study.
Especially relevant to this case, was SD’s core principles of seeing the big picture (holism), interconnectedness (feedbacks and feedback loops), the importance of individual perceptions of the problem issue (mental models) and the recognition of problem issues as arising from the interaction of all the variables comprising a system (emergence).
Interpretive Interpretation is at the core of the qualitative process. The researcher interprets everything they see, hear and read through their own ways of perceiving the world, research participants interpret the problem in their own way and even the reader or audience will interpret the research outcomes from their own point of view. Thus,
The emphasis of the SD approach on mental models underscores the fact that each person will interpret a particular situation or problem from their own point of view, thus being complementary to the idea of the interpretive nature of a qualitative inquiry. Thus, how research participants interpreted the particular issue of their organisation’s sustainability was
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qualitative research
acknowledges the role of interpretation in the inquiry process and recognises that the researcher, participants and audience are all influenced by their particular backgrounds, histories and contexts.
respected and formed the basis of this research. It was also acknowledged that while the diagramming aspect of the SD process was based on the interpretations of the participants, it was constructed by the researcher, and was thus influenced by the researcher’s interpretation of a combination of the situation, organisational documents and the empirical data.
Holistic account Qualitative inquiry always attempts to provide a holistic picture of the issue being investigated. Therefore, this type of research often produces models that encapsulate the essence of what was learnt via the research process. A holistic perspective entails fully representing the perspectives of the participants, revealing all variables involved in the problem issue and adopting a big picture approach to the learning and knowledge that emanates from the research process and empirical work.
As explained earlier, SD is based on holism which encourages researchers to see problem issues as being composed of a number of variables and the interactions or feedbacks between them, instead of studying a single or a few variables in isolation. By basing all discoveries and diagramming on the mental models of participants, this study represented the perspectives of the participants. Engaging with stakeholders and existing documents, enabled the researcher to identify all the variables involved in the problem situation
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at that particular moment in time.
Integrating all the participants’
perspectives and the learning from the organisational documents allowed the researcher to develop a big picture perspective of the problem issue (in the form of the causal loop diagrams, to be explained in the ensuing chapters).
Thus, this study provided a holistic account of the sustainability of the Oxfam GB affiliate.