Electronic Journal of Business Research Methods

Towards Delphi Rigor: An Investigation in the Context of Maturity Model Development

2022-07-28T07:30:56+00:00

The maturity model (MM) and Delphi research areas are extensive and diverse, leading to numerous approaches. This study addresses the Delphi method regarding its rigor requirements within the IS literature. To this end, the example of maturity model development is investigated. Hence, Delphi studies for MM development are identified and analyzed regarding their rigorous application and design. The examination focuses on the connections between maturity model aspects and the Delphi methodology. Hence, relevant aspects of maturity model and Delphi literature are elaborated, and criteria for methodological rigor are derived. A key challenge is linking the method to the specific design objective (in this study example, the development of a maturity model). After conducting a literature search to identify studies that use the Delphi method for MM development, these criteria are used as a basis for deductive content analysis. The results indicate a lack of clarity regarding the methodology, as different aspects are reported, although the general demands, starting points, and goals were similar. A need for design guidelines for planning and conducting Delphi studies is emphasized and addressed in this paper. Hence, guidelines for designing Delphi studies are developed and presented, considering relevant aspects for ensuring rigorous implementation. The focus lies on the linkage between study design and intended model elements, as this demonstrates the complexity of the study design and the relevance of the design decisions through an example. The guidelines integrate the different methodological aspects of maturity model development and the Delphi methodology, providing an orientation framework for the design process of such research projects. Therefore, this study contributes to existing research by proposing design guidelines for Delphi studies to foster rigor in the specific context of maturity model development. Although the presented guidelines focus on the maturity model context, the general design approach and decisions are transferable and applicable to other domains. Hence, this research contributes to the Delphi literature by providing insights into how relevant elements should be addressed in the designing process of a Delphi Study. Scholars should investigate how the presented guidelines must be adapted for other domains in future research.

Natural Language Processing and Machine Learning Approach to Teaching and Learning Research Philosophies and Paradigms

2023-01-31T15:42:25+00:00

The paper cogitates on the critical advent of 4th IR focusing on the concept of machine learning (ML) underpinned by natural language processing (NLP) to demonstrate how research philosophies and paradigms can be better taught and learned for students' benefit. A systematic literature review was earmarked for its depth and textual inquiry from scholarly arguments. The main purpose of this paper is to aver a progressive technological approach towards better comprehensive research paradigms and philosophies, which are complex domains with diverse variety in higher education and a cause of discomfort for students at post-graduate levels. Using quantitative algorithm, the natural language processing and machine learning-inspired digital model poses questions that place students in a reflexive mode and draws their articulated responses as inputs that model their worldviews against a host of philosophies in the database. The paper revealed that, discordant with previous scholars who advocated for a single philosophical assumption for a field, subject or researcher, such as the existence of a pure positivist and/ or pure interpretivist, purist philosophical assumptions should be challenged to benefit students and academics. It means that the digital discovery of research philosophies and paradigms extends the work of previous theorists to the technologically inspired discovery of episteme, ontology and axiology. By its nature, the use of NLP becomes an advanced channel on how we know what we know and the nature of the reality and values being displayed. The paper contributes to the evocation of deep learning arising from new philosophies and methods. The inquiry-based teaching approach transforms learning from the generic push-teaching method that assumes universality to the fostering of a reflexive approach that helps resolve the deep ideological approaches that caused the polarisation. The manner in which NLP and ML are able to extract information relevant to knowledge or philosophical discovery paves the way for approaches that can lead to the depolarisation and decolonisation of research philosophies, which can ultimately boost the development of research students.

Q-Sort: A Blended Methodology Applied to a Personality Inventory

2023-03-06T16:39:52+00:00

The instruments that are constituted by inquiries that intend to investigate the opinions, behaviors and attitudes, instead of putting the person to the test, intend to find out how they would act in a given situation. Although there are no right or wrong answers, there is a tendency to respond in a socially acceptable way, even if the answer does not correspond to reality. This problem can be overcome through the Q-sort methodology that combines quantitative and qualitative data and analytical techniques that are not present in other methods. In this way, it consists of presenting the participants with a set of statements on a given topic and asking them to classify them according to their opinion, according to a predefined distribution, which is generally approximately normal. This methodology forces participants to distribute the score among the items on the scale, thus avoiding the constraints associated with social desirability and the tendency to respond in the same way or always through the midpoint to different questions. Another advantage is that it provides linearity and near-normality to the scale, which makes it possible to compare subjects more easily. Nevertheless, its advantages, Q-sort methodology also has negative points because forced-choice measures produce ipsative data that lead to distorted scales and problematic psychometric properties. As the data are obtained by ordering a set of items or by forcefully choosing one item over another, it is impossible to achieve very high or very low values on all scales, which gives rise to a large number of negative values that, in turn, result in an average correlation between the scales, which is also negative. In view of the above, it was considered relevant to apply the Q-sort methodology to a personality inventory, whose data were collected from 175 university students attending the Portuguese higher education institution which specializes in the area of economic and business sciences. The Q-sort methodology plays a crucial role in personality inventories by offering a subjective and personalized approach to assessing personality traits. It enables a more thorough and contextual analysis of individual traits, thereby contributing to a deeper and more comprehensive understanding of the human personality. The results of the empirical study showed that despite the mean values being negative or very close to zero, they allowed the grouping of respondents according to their similarities in terms of their personality traits depending on the course they attend.

Using Mixed Methods to Understand Tax Compliance Behaviour

2023-01-10T16:44:14+00:00

Mixed methods research is not commonly adopted by researchers studying tax compliance behaviour despite the benefits that it can bring to research in this area. This is a method that is generally associated with social sciences however, this emergent methodology is being increasingly applied in disciplines that are traditionally associated with quantitative research, including in tax compliance research. Despite the growing trend in applying mixed methods to tax compliance research, there are no known studies that have summarised this methodological approach for researchers and provide guidance on how mixing research methods can allow for an in-depth view of tax compliance behaviour. The purpose of this article is first, to briefly explain mixed methods research for novice and established researchers unfamiliar with this methodological approach; second, provide an overview of the use of mixed methods in tax compliance research; third, provide an example of using mixed methods in order to illustrate a practical application of mixed methods; fourth, to discuss the value gained in applying mixed methods to examine and understand the effect of reciprocity nudges on tax compliance behaviour as well how challenges in applying mixed methods research can be faced. This article contributes to the business and management methodological literature by summarising the implementation of this approach and how studies aimed at understanding tax compliance behaviour could be enriched by embracing a mixed methods approach.