CULTURAL BASES OF RESEARCH: INTEGRATING RESEARCH CULTURES FOR COMPLEX PROBLEMS

Abstract

Multi-level analysis offers a useful approach to examine social and cultural questions, evolutionary biology, and research methods. Attempts to interlock the three streams of analysis can provide a rich, holistic view of past, current, and possible future research. A clarification of the possible importance of evolutionary biology and the research underpinnings of the original chapter on trustscapes and distrustscapes is attempted here.

This paper seeks to expand the value of multidisciplinary research and research methods that were discussed in the original chapter. First, I attempt to clarify the importance of studying and integrating both social and biological disciplines as they relate to organization trust and distrust issues. Second, I expand the discussion of evolutionary biological issues in ways that clarify their importance to an understanding of the social concepts of trust and distrust. Finally, I argue that multi-level analysis is best served by multi-research methodologies: methodologies that explore the researcher’s and research subject’s basic assumptions, their values, and their operating environments. All three issues are framed within the contexts of Denise Rousseau’s and Jone Pearce’s commentaries on “Trustscapes and Distrustscapes: A Multi-Level Approach for Understanding Stability and Change.”

Citation

Reeves-Ellington, R. (2005), "CULTURAL BASES OF RESEARCH: INTEGRATING RESEARCH CULTURES FOR COMPLEX PROBLEMS", Yammarino, F.J. and Dansereau, F. (Ed.) Multi-level Issues in Organizational Behavior and Processes (Research in Multi-Level Issues, Vol. 3), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 167-177. https://doi.org/10.1016/S1475-9144(04)03008-5