A500.6.3.RB – Qualitative Research

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Saldana, J., Leavy, P. and Beretvas N. (2011) defined qualitative research as: 
An umbrella term for a wide variety of approaches to and methods for the study of natural social life.  The information or data collected and analyzed is primarily (but not exclusively) nonquantitative in character, consisting of textual materials such as interview transcripts, fieldnotes, and documents, and/or visual materials such as artifacts, photographs, video recordings, and Internet sites, that document human experiences about others and/or one’s self in social action and reflexive states.
According to Hoepfl, M. (1997), researchers have been for quite sometime debating the comparable value of qualitative and quantitative research.  Qualitative researchers quest for understanding, illumination and extrapolation to same situations while quantitative researchers quest for prediction, causal determination, and generalization of findings. 
Hoepfl, M. (1997), claimed that there were various situations to be taken into account when making decisions in adopting the methodology of qualitative research such as situations wherein a researcher needed to identify first and foremost the variables that might be tested quantitatively in the future, or where a researcher has fully determined that quantitative measures cannot gratifyingly illuminate or describe a situation.  According to Hoepfl, M. (1997), Strauss and Corbin (1990) claimed that qualitative methods can be used to better understand any phenomenon about which little was yet known.  Qualitative methods can also be utilized in order to stimulate a new interpretation on things, about which was already known, or to enhanced in-depth information that may be intricate in communicating quantitatively.
In the article, New Insights into Ethical Leadership: A Qualitative Investigation of the Experiences of Executive Ethical Leaders, Firsch and Huppenbauer (2013), qualitative content analysis was utilized by Firsch and Huppenbauer (2013) as a method for analyzing the interview transcripts because it offers a systematic, rule-guided approach that is intersubjectively comprehensible.  The qualitative approach not only enabled Firsch and Huppenbauer to validate what they had suspected before the study but also, made them aware of new multiple facets of ethical leadership.  Although the qualitative research on the experiences of executive ethical leaders conducted by Firsch and Huppenbauer has its own weaknesses, I can say that the study has opened avenues for future research and can be utilized as a source of hypothesis for a quantitative research on ethical leadership.  The study made me contemplate the necessity of every organization to develop recruitment and assessment tools and training programs for ethical leadership.  Ethical behavior of an organization’s workforce and stakeholders is very dependent on its leaderships’ ethical behavior.
Therefore, I can conclude that a qualitative research generally has the following features: a) it utilizes elemental climate as the excerpt of data; b) the qualitative researcher acts as the data collection’s human determinant; c) qualitative research has an interpretive nature and is intent on discovering the meaningful events of individuals who experienced them; and d) qualitative researchers pay attention to the eccentricities of every study pursuing to find the uniqueness of every study or research.  The specific design of qualitative research leans on the goal of the exploration i.e. credible and meaningful information.  Determination of the relevance and applicability of the information are charged to the qualitative researcher and the reader.

References:
Firsch, Colina and Huppenbauer, Markus (2013). New Insights into Ethical Leadership: A
Qualitative Investigation of the Experiences of Executive Ethical Leaders. Journal of Business Ethics, 123.1: 23-43.  Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com.ezproxy.libproxy.db.erau.edu/docview/1552334786?pq-origsite=summon
Hoepfl, Marie C. (1997). Choosing Qualitative Research: A Primer for Technology Education
Researchers. Journal of Technology Education, Volume 9, Number 1. Retrieved from http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/ejournals/JTE/v9n1/hoepfl.html#strauss
Saldana, Johnny, Leavy, Patricia, and Beretvas, Natasha (2011). Fundamentals of Qualitative
Research. Oxford University Press. Retrieved from http://www.criticalthinking.org/pages/our-  mission/405
Strauss, A., & Corbin, J. (1990). Basics of qualitative research: Grounded theory procedures and

techniques. Newbury Park, CA: Sage Publications, Inc.

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