Quantitative versus qualitative research methods — Two approaches to organisation studies

Recently, due to increasing interest in cross-cultural management, many organisational researchers are confronted with the issue of the adequacy of quantitative research methodology in cross-cultural research. Qualitative research has been advocated by many people in organisational research. The quantitative research method is seen as the conventional method in organisation studies and is considered to be “objective”. The qualitative research method is seen as “subjective” and “descriptive” and its legitimacy often needs to be proven in organisation studies. This paper argues that such a dichotomy is oversimplified. Quantitative and qualitative research are two different approaches, based on different paradigms and different assumptions about ontology and epistemology: two human phenomena rather than two different sets of research techniques. What research discovers and how it is discovered depends on how the researcher engages in the phenomena studied. Both quantitative and qualitative approaches should be equally emphasised in organisational research.