The Philosophy and Practice of Interpretivist Research in Entrepreneurship Quality, Validation, and Trust

Knowledge production in entrepreneurship requires inclusivity as well as diversity and pluralism in research perspectives and approaches. In this article, the authors address concerns about interpretivist research regarding validity, reliability, objectivity, generalizability, and communicability of results that militate against its more widespread acceptance. Following the nonfoundationalist argument that all observation is theory-laden, context specific, and that there are no external criteria against which to assess research design and execution and the data produced, the authors propose that quality must be internalized within the underlying research philosophy rather than something to be tested upon completion. This requires a shift from the notion of validity as an outcome to validation as a process. To elucidate this, they provide a guiding framework and present a case illustration that will assist an interpretivist entrepreneurship researcher to establish and demonstrate the quality of their work.

National identification and anti-immigrant prejudice: Individual and contextual effects of national definitions

In this study, we examined the relationship between national identification and anti-immigrant prejudice in a multilevel analysis of ISSP survey data from 37,030 individuals in 31 countries. We argue that this relationship depends on how national groups are defined by their members. Across the 31 national samples, the correlation between national identification and prejudice ranged from weakly negative (-.06) to moderately positive (.37). The relationship was significantly stronger in countries where people on average endorsed a definition of national belonging based on language, and weaker where people on average defined the nation in terms of citizenship. These effects occurred at a national rather than individual level, supporting an explanation in terms of the construction of nationality that prevails in a given context. Endorsement of the ancestry-based criteria for nationality was positively associated with prejudice, but only at the individual level.

Cultural threat and anti-immigrant prejudice: The case of Protestants in Northern Ireland

Using data from the 2002 and 2009 Northern Ireland Life and Times (NILT) surveys, we examine attitudes towards immigrant and ethnic minority groups in Northern Ireland. We suggest that Protestant and unionist communities experience a higher level of cultural threat than Catholic and nationalist communities on account of the ‘parity of esteem’ principle that has informed changes in the province since the Belfast Agreement of 1998. Our analyses confirm that, while there is evidence for some level of anti-immigrant sentiment across all groups, Protestants and unionists do indeed report relatively more negative attitudes towards a range of immigrant and ethnic target groups compared to Catholic, nationalist, or respondents who do not identify with either religious or political category. The analyses further suggest that their higher level of perceived cultural threat partially accounts for this difference. We suggest that cultural threat can be interpreted as a response to changes in Northern Ireland that have challenged the dominant status enjoyed by Protestants and unionists in the past.

Masterclass presentation: Fostering economic development thrrough entrepreneurship

Presentation by Prof Richard Harrison given at Trickle Out Master Class, held at the British Institute of East Africa in Nairobi, Kenya