Critical Evaluation of the research methodologies

Critical Evaluation of the look for methodologies1. IntroductionIn this report I go for critic t step forward ensembley reviewed the methodologies which ar utilise by Chevrier in her interrogation news report. In this paper I train revealed whether she has utilize the correct methodological analysis for her seek or non, whether her evidence validate her key bring outings or non and I ache menti aced an alternative methods to improve her conclusion.Chevrier paper tendencys at offend line of businessing the dynamics of foreign fox groups and she focuses on how support malarkyers neck the cultural differences to everywherecome and to use national cultures, ethnic diversity efficiently and effectively in the multinational learn group. In her research she has depict trey kinds of cross-cultural practices which were implemented by the meet loss leaders. With these hu flake offgings she has proposed a dodge to enhance the functioning of cross-cultural cyphe rs.I prize the methodology which she has use in this research i.e. shift study is largely fine exclusively non an effective angiotensin converting enzyme instead of this if she had used Grounded theory methodology for this research it would have been often meters more better research.I signal that the three aspect studies which she has elect is not a typical one of in tot in ally the multinational nominate groups.I argue that the Data collection proficiency which she has used in this research i.e. open discussion is not a steady-going proficiency to collect the entropy from participant.I argue that the outline which she has proposed doesnt hold well for all types of cross-cultural vomit up groups. 2. Literature reviewResearch gutter be a tricky, fascinating, awkward, tedious, annoying, hilarious, confusing, disturbing, mechanical, sociable, isolating, surprising, sweaty, messy, systematic, costly, draining, iterative, contradictory, open-ended process (Anthias, 2002)Methodology is identical to a research dumb assemble employed by a researcher in a ill-tempered bulge, including basic knowledge link up to the subject and research methods in drumhead and the frame practise employed in a particular context (Sarantakos, 1998 cited Lather, 199287). Sarantakos (1998) relates the constitution of Methodology to a theoretical and more abstract context, and perceives it in conjuction with distinctive, unidimensional, and inversely exclusive theoretical principles. Methodologies offers the research principles which atomic number 18 related closely to a distinct paradigm translated clearly and accurately, d hold to guidelines on acceptable research practices. Methodology is determined not by the research model precisely rather by principles of research entailed in a paradigm.Case-study research involves studying individual illustrations, often in their natural environs, and for a long arrest of clipping and employs a number of methods of information collection and analysis. (Sarantakos, 1998 cited Kromrey, 1986320)3. Critical compend of her MethodologyIn this research the Methodology which is used by Chevrier is Case study. I remember to do this research survey studies or experimental strategies volition be too complex to implement, this is the main reason for Sylvie to select Case study as the Methodology for this research. Generally case studies be done by a researcher when he/she is interested in the structure, process and outcomes of a wizard unit. (Sarantakos, 1998) Case studies ar done by a researcher when he/she inadequacys to extract information from a single field of study.Here Chevrier has chosen Engineering (i.e. three Project groups) as a field of study in which she has extracted the data and processed into t all(prenominal)ing in which it impart fit into the research discipline. But this research topic demands to do study on all different kinds of field but Sylvie hasnt done it, this is th e main drawback of this research paper. In this research Chevrier focuses on how abide leaders deal with cultural differences to surmount and even benefit from the florilegium of national cultures in their aggroup up. They have studied three cross-cultural practices that the ejection leaders explicitly or implicitly use to manage their international squad and also studied the related outcomes from these practices.I think both(prenominal) methods and techniques which are used by Chevrier in her research paper doesnt holds acceptable to the research topic.I think the samples(case studies) which she has chosen for this research doesnt sounds well because she has chosen solo three international chuck groups to study the cross-cultural practices which are implemented in the squad and moreover all these three upchuck groups has the same circumstance i.e. engineering. I believe save three declare oneself groups of the same background exit not give a good weightage to her r esearch paper. This is mainly because other than these three project groups thither are different types of multinational project groups in which they are directly related to the cross-cultural management which I think she should have discernn into this research paper. This research paper is pointing towards Multinational groups but the project groups which she has chosen has only if battalion who are from European countries and Brasil, it misses out people who are from Asia, Africa and Australia.In this field work data is roll up from Formal interviews, attendance to their impacts as a participant observer and informal discussions. I think the old data obtained from the formal interviews with project leaders and project members get out be profitable to analyse the data in this research and this data is authorized because the members of the project groups are the one who bequeath be following cross-cultural practices and they give be knowing whether these practices are u seable or not .In her research she has used participant observer as a data collection technique. I think it is a good technique for collecting the data in this research. Since her team will be a part of the cross-cultural group so they put forward observe substantially how the team members/managers will behave and whether they are following the cross-cultural practices or not. They have attended even meetings to collect the data I think this is the house where they might have got a good data because this is a place where they stack observe whether the managers and leaders are following cross-cultural practices or are they with child(p) any importance to it or not. Chevrier and her team was also present daily among the project groups particularly for project 1(for 2 project weeks) and project 2(for 2 months), I think daily charge in a project group is important because generally people fashion behave same way in every time/day and also we flip judge their doings on cross-cu ltural practices in a single day. So daily presence in a project group will give a good data for the researcher but interesting point in her data collection is she or her team was not present daily for project team 3 but they were present only in project team 1 2 and that to in project team 1 they were present daily with team for just 2 project weeks, so I dont think within these 2 weeks they have sedate a hygienic data because in just 2 weeks it is slight working to summarize their behaviour. I think the primary data which they have collected in project team 2 will be useful because for 2 months they were daily present with the team so with this time they will be in a better position to judge their behaviour with respect to cross-cultural.I also think that the Informal discussion which she has used in this research is not an effective technique. I agree this technique partially and I also disagree partially. I think this technique should be used depending on the situation in the working environment if the working environment is not so good then there is no use of having discussion with them because the interviewee whitethorn give answers simply just to pass time. I think they should use only when the team members are in a good mood and moreover this discussions will take place mainly during lunch time of the employees, this is the time where most of the employee will relax, spend time with their colleagues and chat with them, if Chevrier and her group starts to discuss with these employees then most of them wont be interested and they will just say several(prenominal)thing or they will give less(prenominal) answers so that the discussion will be over fast. She has analysed the collected data by Cutting of Tran scripted interviews and meeting notes by theme. She has prepared a monograph for each and every theme which I think its a good idea and it will be useful for comparing all the themes. This type of comparison will help to picture out the common a nd uncommon features of all the cases 4. Will her evidence support her determinations?I think the evidence which she has used in Case 1 will support her findings. This is a project group of European family set up to institute RD in the telecommunication industry. The contract which is sign-language(a) by these companies designates one company as a primary asseverator which will appoint a project leader among its engineers. We know that the fresh appointed project leader has no ranked authority over the other partners out-of-pocket to this he/she cannot demand anything from other partners, infact he/she cant expect that other partners will involve totally (100% commitment) in this project and there is also a possibility that this may also lead to lack of institutional management with the other partners. In this project the leader has to take some technical decisions in which sometimes it may not be accepted by the other partners as she found this from blue Europe and esp ecially from Scandinavia that they only speak up when they disagree with what is creation said. These project groups were not totally involved in the project. In this case the project leader has no choice he has to tolerate with these kinds of partners. This is what Chevrier has found that the leader explicitly or implicitly relies on tolerance of team members to surmount knottyies.The project group (RD consortium) has people from different countries definitely all of them will have different opinion on Cross-cultural activity. both(prenominal) may tolerate the diversity and some may not. Chevrier has found out different opinions from the interviewees e.g. In multinational teams some team members tend to entrust the nationality of their colleague to focus on technical issues. Oppositely, the second part of interviewees says that they make their better(p) to struggle against prejudices, stereotypes and ethnocentrism.In the 2nd case of Chevrier it is said that the great difficu lty for the project manager is to make the work required for his own project a priority for team members who are very much in demand. If this is the case most of the manager tries to protect his team members to work in his project because every manager will have some task to complete, so to do this task without skilled workers in his team it will be difficult for him to complete it. If the manager couldnt maintain these workers in his team then there is every chance of showing less interest in the project. This is what happened to Swiss manager as it is told in Chevrier paper that Swiss manager straightforwardly declared he did not want to make any difference and was careful to manage all team members the same way. Chevrier has also backed up this argument by giving the reference of Laurent (1998), we observed that when managers encounter cross-cultural differences, they often do null and consider that it is legitimate not to talk about them.In case 1 the main job of the project le ader is to maintain a strong institutional management with the other partners. Since the leader doesnt have the hierarchical authority over the other partners it will be difficult to manage all the other partners. His main job is to get the task done, since he doesnt has the upper hand over other project members it will be difficult for him to give orders for other groups to complete the job. In chevriers research, for this problem she has founded that underdeveloped personal relationship with one another in a team will set up working arrangements more easily. If they know each other very well, it will help them to become acquainted with one other. This strategy will suit only for RD consortium project group because in this project all its partners doesnt know each other so this strategy may enable effective mutual agreements between all the partners. But it doesnt suit for Electrical engineering project infact it can reinforce negative stereotypes and polarization between cultural groups. This is true because in this project the Swiss manager straightforwardly declared that he did not want to make any difference and was interested to manage all team members the same way, if this strategy (developing personal relationship) is implemented in this project group it may result in other way because due to less involvement by Swiss manger there is a more chance of negative stereotypes and polarization between cultural groups. This may lead in such a way that project may not complete.The strategy which is proposed in this paper by Chevrirer (cultural intermediary) suits good for some multinational project groups but for some project groups it doesnt. Since in this strategy cultural mediator has to invite the project members quite regularly to find out the exact problem, this is possible only when all the project members are meeting together quite regularly at some place but this strategy cannot be applied to some multi-national groups where the project members won t meet regularly. However, in a multi national group most of the time the project groups will be from different countries so it is not practicable to implement this strategy because all groups are from different countries and also it will be difficult for all the members to attend the meeting if it is put up by cultural mediator. As we can see in RD consortium group all the team members meet each other only four or five times a year. During these weeks all the project members will be busy with other partners about their plan and objectives in their project. So if this strategy is applied to this group then cultural mediator will not find sufficient time to spend with the team members to talk about their gnarled situations which have encountered. I think this strategy can be applied to the project team in electrical engineering because this team is composed of a project manager, engineers who are all located in a single building but in a different floor. In this team cultural medi ator can easily set up a meeting with the team members and find out the problematic situations which have encountered. Even in the product growing project have subsidiaries which are located in different countries such as Germany, France, Belgium and Italy and co-ordinating the development process is in charge by profound group which is located in the French subsidiary. So even in this project group cultural mediator will find difficult to set up a meeting to talk about their problematic situations which have encountered. I think she has not justified all the problems which will occur in the multinational group. For e.g. Race can be a problem in the group. Merriam et.al. in their research has found that Racism was the particularized dominating factor in cross cultural groups.Color As an issue of concern amongst Blacks, colorism is examined and debated in Black communities in a less than open manner. This intraracial discrimination among Blacks gives preferential treatment to tho se who have lighter skin shades. (Merriam et.al)5. Alternative MethodologyI think Grounded theory analysis will be a better approach for this research because in this research topic we need to analyse more number of case studies, interviews and observation so I think grounded theory will be the best methodology for this research.Another reason for using grounded theory techniques is Grounded theorising is well suit to capturing the interpretive experiences of owner/managers/employees and developing theoretical propositions from them. Rowlands B. (2005 cited from Strauss Corbin 1990) From the above reason we can say that, Since Chevriers research is related to the cross-cultural practices which are followed by Leaders, Managers, and team up members, so this methodology will be very useful in gathering and analysing the data. Similarly, Grounded theory has been effectively used in recent study System research to develop theory of Information System practice. Rowlands B. (2005 cit ed from Urquhart et.al., 1997)In choosing the International project groups Chevrier has chosen the groups in which all groups has the same background i.e. Engineering. Instead of choosing three project groups from a single background she could have chosen three project groups from different fields. Because choosing a sample project group which is typical to that environment is very important and the data collected from this typical one will bee much stronger than the data which she has collected from the three Engineering project groups.I think Ethnographic interview will be useful to get valuable data from the interviewee. The main aim of this type of interview is to study the Culture of the people and to find out how it will impact on the people behaviour. It aims to discover or understand the culture of people in their social environment and of explaining the social vindication of their role and position in that culture.(Sarantakos, 1998). This interview would have helped her in finding the culture of the project members/leaders and based on her understanding on their culture she could have compared with the Cross-cultural practices which were implemented by the management and she could have got a better result.If Chevrier had used all the above methodology in her research, I think this would have improved her research conclusion.6. ConclusionIn this paper I have revealed that the methodology which is used by chevrier for her research is not a good one. I have shown that some of her methodology which she has used is not effective with respect to the research. The three case study which she has chosen in her research is not a typical one because all the case studies had the same background i.e. Engineering, instead of that she could have chosen case studies which are from different background and I also showed that the data collected from participant observation in project group 2 was strong. I showed that the data collected from informal discussion techniq ue was not good. This paper reveals that Ethnographic interview and Grounded theory would have helped her to collect the strong data and to analyse the data which she has collected. I have shown that up to what consummation of her evidence will support her findings. In this paper I have also concluded that her proposed strategy will holds good only if all the project members/groups are in the same company or at least in the same country, it doesnt suit if all the project members/groups are in a different countries. 8. BibliographySarantakos S.,(1998).Social reseach, 2nd edition, Macmillan Education Australia, Chapter 8, pp 33,191,251.Floya Anthias,( 2002) Where do I belong? Narrating collective identity and translocational positionality, Online Accessed from http//etn.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/2/4/491 Accessed on 05/11/07Merriam S., et.al., Power and Positionality Negotiating Insider/Outsider Status in multicultural and Cross-Cultural Research, Online Accessed from http//mer riamsetal1-final.pdf Accessed on 05/11/07Rowlands B., (2005), Grounded in Practice Using interpretative Research to Build Theory, Online Accessed from http//v3-i1-art7-rowlands.pdf Accessed on 03/12/07