Sandberg howdoWeJustifyKnowledgeProducedWithinInterpretiveApproach 2005

ORGANIZA 10.
1177/1094428104272000 Sandberg / KNOWLEDGE TIONAL RESEARCH PR ODUCED METHODS WITHIN INTERPRETIVE APPR OACHES
How Do We Justify Knowledge Produced Within Interpretive Approaches?

JRGEN SANDBERG
University of Queensland
The use of interpretive approaches within management and organizational sciences has increased substantially. However, appropriate criteria for justifying research results from interpretive approaches have not developed so rapidly alongside their adaptation. This article examines the potential of common criteria for justifying knowledge produced within interpretive approaches. Based on this investigation, appropriate criteria are identified and a strategy for achieving them is proposed. Finally, an interpretive study of competence in organizations is used to demonstrate how the proposed criteria and strategy can be applied to justify knowledge produced within interpretive approaches. Keywords: validity; reliability; truth; interpretive approach; qualitative research
A central focus for researchers within management and organizational sciences is producing knowledge about human action and activities in organizations. Traditionally, knowledge has been produced from quantitative or qualitative approaches within the positivistic research tradition. However, during the past three decades, interest in qualitative approaches based on the interpretive research tradition has steadily increased in management and organizational sciences (Alvesson & Skldberg, 1999; Prasad & Prasad, 2002; Zald, 1996), as well as within social sciences more generally (Atkinson, Coffey, & Delamont, 2003; Denzin & Lincoln, 1994; 2000; Flick, 2002; Lincoln & Denzin, 2003; Schwandt, 1994). The strong growth of interpretive approaches mainly stems from a dissatisfaction with the methods and procedures for producing scientific knowledge within positivistic research. Advocates of interpretive approaches claim that those methodological procedures and claims for objective knowledge have significant theoretical limitations for advancing our understanding of human and organizational phenomena (Alvesson & Skldberg, 1999; Denzin & Lincoln, 1994, 2000; Lincoln & Denzin, 2003; Prasad & Prasad, 2002; Sandberg, 2001a).
Authors Note: I would like to express my gratitude to Gloria DallAlba, Amedeo Giorgi, Ashly Pinnington, Ron Weber, and the anonymous reviewers for their careful reading of, and valuable comments on, an earlier version of this article.
Organizational Research Methods, Vol. 8 No. 1, January 2005 41-68 DOI: 10.1177/1094428104272000 2005 Sage Publications
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ORGANIZATIONAL RESEARCH METHODS
To overcome the shortcomings of positivism, advocates of interpretive approaches have followed ideas from philosophical phenomenology,1 most notably, its emphasis on lived experience as the basis of human action and activities. In an overview, Holstein and Gubrium (1994) found that the analytic paths of qualitative approaches within the interpretive research tradition have been varied and diverge into a rich variety of constructionist, ethnomethodological, conversation-analytic, and interpretive strains (p. 262). Prasad and Prasad (2002) identified a similar pattern in management and organizational research. Interpretive approaches have provided new means of investigating previously unexplored questions, thus enabling management researchers to conduct research that has led to new forms of knowledge about management and organization. Although the increased use of interpretive approaches has produced new knowledge, it has also contributed to methodological and epistemological confusion in management and within the social sciences more generally (Denzin & Lincoln, 1994, 2000; Lincoln & Denzin, 2003; Prasad & Prasad, 2002; Seale, 2003; Smith & Deemer, 2000). One of the most significant confusions accompanied by the interpretive rejection of so-called objective methodological procedures for producing knowledge is how, and to what extent, knowledge produced within interpretive approaches can be justified. In other words, what criteria can be used, if any, to justify interpretive knowledge claims? The aim of this article is to explore the potential of common criteria for justifying knowledge produced within interpretive approaches with a view to proposing appropriate criteria. Criteria from the positivistic research tradition are rejected as inappropriate by propagating a mixed discourse (Giorgi, 1994) of theoretical and methodological principles from different philosophies of science. Not only is it contended that these criteria are unsuitable, but advocates from different intellectual orientations within the interpretive research tradition such as hermeneutics, critical theory, and deconstructionism claim that objective knowledge is unattainable. Nevertheless, even though objective knowledge may be untenable, most advocates of interpretive approaches want to reject going as far as taking a complete relativistic stance. Based on philosophical phenomenology, it will be argued in this article that truth claims are possible using criteria consistent with the basic assumptions underlying a research approach.
Problem of Mixed Discourse Within Interpretive Approaches
As argued previously, there is evidence for a theoretical shift from positivistic to interpretive approaches occurring in the social sciences as well as in the management and organizational sciences. However, overall, this shift has not been accompanied by a corresponding methodological shift. More specifically, appropriate criteria for justifying research results from interpretive approaches have not been well developed. As a consequence, many researchers such as Giorgi (1992, 1994) and Jones (1998) have questioned the extent to which knowledge produced within interpretive approaches has been justified as adequate. For example, Giorgi (1994) criticized the qualitative methods within many of the interpretive approaches, such as those used by Morgan (1983), Van Maanen (1983), Miles and Huberman (1984), and Lincoln and Guba (1985). He argued that these methods combine theoretical and methodological principles from fundamentally different philosophical traditions. For instance, in legitimat-
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ing research approaches as interpretive and qualitative, Giorgi (1994) found that principles and concepts from phenomenological philosophy were often employed. On the other hand, when justifying the results, methodological criteria from the positivistic research tradition were most frequently used. The problem with embracing positivistic criteria when justifying the results of interpretive approaches is that they are not in accordance with the underlying ontology and epistemology. In particular, validity and reliability are the criteria used for justifying knowledge produced within the positivistic tradition. These criteria are based on an objectivist epistemology that refers to an objective, knowable reality beyond the human mind and that stipulates a correspondence criterion of truth (Kvale, 1989; Salner, 1989). As Salner (1989) observed, the correspondence criterion of truth implies that facts are out there to which our ideas and constructs, measuring tools, and theories must correspond (p. 47). Common forms of validity in positivistic research approaches, such as internal and external validity (Kvale, 1989, 1995), are used to measure the extent to which our theories and instruments correspond to objective reality. Similarly, a common criterion for establishing reliability within the positivistic research tradition is whether scientific results can be duplicated under identical conditions (Enerstvedt, 1989). If somewhat different results are achieved, the variation is typically attributed to measurement error, such as influence from the context in which the measurements were taken. In cases in which the results differ significantly from one occasion to the next, they are considered to be unreliable. Reliability is said to be established when repeated measurements of objective reality give similar results. The ontological and epistemological assumptions underlying the interpretive research tradition are distinctive from those of the positivistic tradition. The development of the interpretive research tradition is often traced back to ideas from Weber (1947/1964) that subsequently have been developed further by phenomenological sociologists such as Schutz (1945, 1953), Berger and Luckmann (1966), Giddens (1984, 1993), and Bourdieu (1990). However, the roots of the interpretive research tradition are many, and it is not a single unified approach. The more influential approaches are various forms of social constructionism (Berger & Luckmann, 1966; Bourdieu, 1990; Giddens, 1984, 1993), critical theory (Alvesson & Deetz, 2000; Habermas, 1972), ethnomethodology (Atkinson, 1988; Garfinkel, 1967; Heritage, 1984; Silverman, 1998), interpretive ethnography (Denzin, 1997; Geertz, 1973; Van Maanen, 1995) symbolic interactionism (Blumer, 1969; Mead, 1934; Prasad, 1993), discourse analysis (Alvesson & Krreman, 2000; Foucault, 1972; Potter & Wetherell, 1987), deconstructionism (Derrida, 1972/1981; Kilduff, 1993), gender approaches (Calas & Smircich, 1996; Harding, 1986; Keller, 1985; Martin, 1994), institutional approaches (DiMaggio & Powell, 1983; Meyer & Rowan, 1977; Scott, 1995), and sense-making approaches (Weick, 1995). Despite the great variety of approaches, what unifies them is their phenomenological base, which stipulates that person and world are inextricably related through lived experience of the world (Berger & Luckmann, 1966; Gadamer, 1960/ 1994; Heidegger, 1927/1981; Husserl, 1900-1901/1970; Schutz, 1945, 1953).2 Hence, within interpretive approaches, the human world is never a world in itself; it is always an experienced world, that is, a world that is always related to a conscious subject. Thus, the ontological and epistemological assumptions underlying the interpretive research tradition reject the existence of an objective knowable reality beyond the
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human mind. Instead, they stipulate that knowledge is constituted through lived experience of reality. Therefore, it would be inconsistent to justify knowledge produced within this tradition using criteria based on an objectivist ontology and epistemology.
Interpretive Challenge to Knowledge and Truth
Many advocates of interpretive approaches have questioned not only the use of positivistic criteria but also the research goal of achieving objective knowledge and truth. The major challenge comes from rejection of positivists assumptions, namely, the rejection of dualist ontology, objectivist epistemology, and language as an accurate representation of objective reality (language as a mirror). I will first describe the general meaning of these assumptions and then discuss why most advocates within the interpretive research tradition reject them. To assume a dualist ontology is to treat subject and object as two separate, independent entities. A dualist ontology implies a division of research objects into two main entities: a subject in itself and an object in itself (cf. Giorgi, 1994). For example, corporate strategy is typically defined and described by seeing organization and environment as two separate entities. First, the inherent qualities of the organization such as its strengths and weaknesses are described, and then the inherent qualities of the environment such as threats and opportunities that it offers are described (Smircich & Stubbart, 1985). To expound an objectivist epistemology is to stipulate that beyond human consciousness, there is an objective reality. The qualities and the meaning we experience are assumed to be inherent to reality itself. Objective reality is thus seen as given and the ultimate foundation for all knowledge. Through systematic scientific observations and careful monitoring of the extent to which our theories correspond to the particular aspect of objective reality we are investigating, it is assumed that we will come closer to this true picture of reality. The assumption that language is a mirror of objective reality stipulates that language can represent or, as Rorty (1979) argued, mirror reality in an objective fashion. The relationship between language and reality is thus seen as a relationship of correspondence. As it is assumed that language has the capacity to represent reality, it is treated as a representational system available to the researchers in their endeavor to describe reality objectively. Advocates of interpretive approaches reject all three of the above assumptions for several reasons. First, and most important, instead of assuming a dualist ontology that implies a division of subject and object, advocates of interpretive approaches regard subject and object as constituting an inseparable relation. As Giorgi (1992) noted,
There are not two independent entities, object and subjects existing in themselves which later get to relate to each other, but the very meaning of subject implies a relationship to an object and to be an object intrinsically implies being related to subjectivity. (p. 7)
As indicated previously, the problem of separating subject and object was originally pointed out by phenomenologists such as Husserl (1900-1901/1970), Heidegger (1927/1981), Merleau-Ponty (1945/1962), and Gadamer (1960/1994) and then later by a series of other researchers such as Schutz (1945, 1953), Berger and Luckmann
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(1966), Foucault (1972), Derrida (1967/1978), Bourdieu (1990), Giddens (1984, 1993), and Searle (1995). Husserl argued that, as subjects, we are always related to reality through our lived experience of that reality. Heidegger developed Husserls argument further by suggesting that not only is reality mediated through our lived experience, it is also mediated through the specific culture, historical time, and language in which we are situated. Derrida radicalized Husserl and Heideggers arguments even more by claiming that the meaning of reality can never be fixed but is fundamentally indeterminate. A number of other researchers in areas such as critical theory, literature theory, social theory, and gender theories have reached similar conclusions to Heidegger and Derrida on the problematic nature of objectivist conceptualizations of reality. Critical theorists such as Habermas have suggested that our descriptions of reality are often colored by taken-for-granted ideologies. Advocates of literature theory have argued that our descriptions of reality are furnished by established cultural conventions concerning specific genres and speech codes (Bruner, 1996). Gender studies have suggested that the dominating theoretical framework for producing knowledge is molded by and saturated with male imagery (Richardson, 1995). Based on these assumptions and empirical findings, advocates of interpretive approaches claim that it is not possible to produce an objective description of reality. Instead, their basic argument is that our descriptions are always colored by our specific historical, cultural, ideological, gender-based, and linguistic understanding of reality. Thus, instead of assuming an objectivist epistemology for the existence of objective reality, advocates of interpretive approaches typically claim that reality is socially constructed by continuous negotiation between people about the very nature of that reality. Finally, the assumption that reality is socially constructed means language is not seen as a representational system that can be used to classify and name objective reality. Instead, language does not achieve its meaning primarily through a correspondence with objective reality but through the way we socially define and use it in our different social practices. The rejection of a dualist ontology, an objectivist epistemology, and the assumption of language as a mirror of reality have given rise to many promising interpretive research approaches that have opened up new possible spaces of inquiry. However, as Altheide and Johnson (1994) pointed out, it also has led to a crisis among qualitative researchers using interpretive approaches about which criteria, if any, are suitable for justifying the knowledge produced. Denzin (1994) and Lincoln and Denzin (2003) argued in a similar vein. With reference to Guba (1990) and Rosaldo (1989), Denzin (1994) argued that social sciences today face a crisis of interpretation, for previously agreed-upon criteria from the positivist and postpositivist tradition are now being challenged (p. 501). More recently, in an overview, Smith and Deemer (2000) summarized this crisis in the following way:
With the end of the possibility that we could think of ourselves as neutral spectators at the game of knowledge, the central problem that has preoccupied the thought of numerous researchers for the past few decades is that of Now what are we going to do with us. (p. 878)
The dilemma interpretive researchers face can be stated in the following way: At the same time as advocates of interpretive research deny the possibility of producing
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objective knowledge, they want to claim that the knowledge they generate is true in some way or another. But how can they justify their knowledge as true if they deny the idea of objective truth? Does not the rejection of objective truth mean that advocates of interpretive research approaches are forever condemned to produce arbitrary and relativist knowledge? This is unlikely because it does not follow from the rejection of objective truth that we cannot produce valid and reliable knowledge about reality. Despite the rejection of objective truth, as Wachterhouser (2002) proposed, we can still develop, apply, and retest criteria of knowledge that give us enough reliable evidence or rational assurance to claim in multiple cases that we in fact know something and do not just surmise or opine that it is the case (p. 71). Rejecting the idea of objective truth while claiming the possibility of producing valid and reliable knowledge gives rise to two central questions: What criteria could be used for justifying knowledge produced by interpretive approaches and, more fundamentally, on what basis can such criteria be developed? One of the most common responses to the above challenge is what Smith and Deemer (2000) called the quasi-foundationalist response. Advocates of this response such as Hammersley (1990), Manicas and Secord (1983), Maxwell (1992), and Seale (2003) accept the interpretive idea that knowledge claims are dependent on the person who makes them. But to avoid relativism, they adopt a realist ontology, which regards reality as independent. As Hammersley (1990) argued, just because we accept that observation of reality is theory laden, we do not need to abandon the concept of truth as correspondence to an independent reality (p. 62). Accepting a contructionist epistemology and simultaneously adopting a realist ontology give rise to a major challenge. This is so because as Smith and Deemer (2000) argued, any elaboration of criteria must take place within their commitment to ontological realism on the one side and, on the other, their realization that they are obligated to accept a constructivist epistemology (p. 880). In other words, their truth criteria need to take into account that knowledge claims are dependent on the perspective of the person making the claims and that knowledge claims should correspond to objective reality. According to Smith and Deemer, criteria such as plausibility and credibility validity (Hammersely, 1990) and descriptive validity (Maxwell, 1992) are successful in the first instance but fail in the second. They fail to demonstrate how they reach an independent reality that would attain their criteria of validity the kind of force that will allow it to stand over and against or beyond a process of socially and historically constrained judgements (p. 883). As Smith and Deemer (2000) noted, the quasi-foundationalists problem is similar to that of their intellectual precursor, Popper (1959, 1972). Although Popper convincingly argued that observation of reality is theory laden, he retained the idea of an independent reality as against knowledge claims that could be tested through falsification. However, as several researchers have noted, it cannot be possible to carry out such a validity check if observations are theory laden. It is impossible to think of the comparison of a hypothesis with theory-mediated facts as the same as testing a hypothesis against an independently existing reality (Smith & Deemer, 2000, p. 883). The quasi-foundationalistsassumption that observations are theory laden and their assumption of an independent reality create a major inconsistency. This means that they fall into the same problem of mixed discourse, which faces traditional positivism, albeit in a more sophisticated form. It is consistent to justify knowledge produced within interpretive approaches using quasi-foundationalist criteria within the bound-
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aries of their underlying constructionist epistemology, but there is a lingering inconsistency arising from their grounding in realist ontology.
Truth as Relative to Ontological and Epistemological Assumptions
Based on phenomenological philosophy, it is argued here that although objective truth cannot be achieved, truth claims are feasible using criteria consistent with the basic assumptions underlying a research approach. More specifically, when establishing knowledge about an aspect of reality, every research approach also makes specific assumptions about the nature of reality under investigation (ontology) and about the nature of knowledge (epistemology). Seeing knowledge and truth as relative to ontological and epistemological assumptions is one way of overcoming both the problem of mixed discourse and the problem of extreme relativism that can arise from the interpretive rejection of objective truth claims. Although researchers such as Giorgi (1988), Guba and Lincoln (1989), Lincoln and Guba (2003), Altheide and Johnson (1994), and Smith and Deemer (2000) have argued in a similar vein, few studies have sought to identify the criteria that could be used for justifying results produced within interpretive approaches in a systematic way. In particular, what is lacking is an elaboration of a nonfoundationalist platform and theories of truth and their ground for truth claims on which interpretive truth criteria can be developed. As truth is seen as relative to the ontological and epistemological assumptions underlying the interpretive research tradition, these assumptions are elaborated below as a first step in exploring appropriate criteria. Second, theories of truth that accord with these assumptions are elaborated. Third, based on the elaboration of ontological and epistemological assumptions and theories of truth, appropriate criteria are proposed. Finally, a strategy for achieving the proposed criteria is suggested.
Basic Assumptions Underlying the Interpretive Research Tradition

As argued above, the primary research object within the interpretive research tradition is individuals and groups lived experience of their reality. The notion of lived experience as the primary research object can be traced back to the phenomenological idea of life-world. It was first developed by Husserl (1936/1970) but has been further developed by other phenomenologists, such as Merleau-Ponty (1945/1962), Schutz (1967), Heidegger (1927/1981), and Gadamer (1960/1994, 1977). The idea of lifeworld expresses that person and world are inextricably related through the persons lived experience of the world. As Bengtsson (1989) argued,
Even if the life-world is objective both in the sense that it is a shared world and in the sense that it transcends (exceeds) the subject, that is, its qualities are not qualities within the subject, it is likewise inseparable from a subject, namely, the subject who experiences it, lives and acts in it. The world is always there in the first person from the perspective of my space and time here and now. (p. 72)
As Bengtsson points out, the life-world is the subjects experience of reality, at the same time as it is objective in the sense that it is an intersubjective world. We share it with other subjects through our experience of it, and we are constantly involved in negotiations with other subjects about reality in terms of our intersubjective sense making of it. Consequently, the agreed meaning constitutes the objective, intersubjective
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reality. Furthermore, the life-world is objective in the sense that it transcends the subject. This is because its qualities are not solely tied to the subjects lived experience of it. At the same time, however, it is inseparable from the subjects through their experience of it. For example, most European countries have agreed to have daylight saving and move the clock 1 hour ahead for the period from March to October. Daylight saving thus becomes an objective fact through this intersubjective agreement. Even if some of us try to ignore the agreed daylight saving time, we encounter difficulty in doing so because its consequences extend beyond our subjective experience of clock time. The phenomenological notion of consciousness as intentional (Husserl, 19001901/1970) provides further specification of life-world as the basis of human action and activities. At the same time, it has fundamental epistemological implications for the interpretive research tradition. Epistemologythe theory of knowledgerefers primarily to three central questions for the researcher. First, how can individuals achieve meaning and thereby knowledge about the reality in which they live? Second, how is this knowledge constituted? Third, under what conditions can the knowledge achieved be claimed as true? (For further elaboration see, for instance, Chisholm, 1977.) In general, intentionality means that individuals consciousness is not closed but open and always directed toward something other than itself. More precisely, Husserl (1900-1901/1970) argued that individuals various modes of consciousness such as perceiving or imagining are always related to something, which is not consciousness itself but intentionally constituted in a particular act of consciousness.3 For example, in perception something is perceived, in imagination something is imagined, in a statement something is stated, in love something is loved, in hate something is hated, in desire something is desired etc (Husserl, 1900-1901/1970, p. 554). Figure 1 portrays the intentional character of consciousness in more detail. What appears when we experience the object in Figure 1? The object may present itself as an umbrella. However, if we look at the object a little longer, the picture may become something else. Perhaps a three-dimensional cube appears from the same object as the umbrella. As foreshadowed in the discussion about Figure 1, it is not the object itself, which is the content of the experience, but the meaning, which results from the way we experience the object. The meaning, such as umbrella or cube, is thus inseparable from both the object and we who experience it. In our daily reality, we often ascribe the entire meaning of an experienced object to the object itself; the object and the meaning, umbrella or cube, become the same object. However, if all of the meaning relating to an object is placed outside ourselves, we overlook the role of the subject in the process of constituting meaning. Achieving meaning about the world demands that a subject be involved such that without an experiencing subject, the meaning umbrella or cube would not appear from the object. On the other hand, the meaning cannot be ascribed solely to the subject. As the example in Figure 1 demonstrates, the qualities of the object transcend the subject, as the meaning changes from umbrella to cube when a subject experiences the object. Although the object transcends the subject, its appearance is dependent on a subject; that is, it is intentionally constituted in a perceiving act as an umbrella or a cube. Thus, the intentional character of consciousness has a constitutive power. It constitutes the meaning of reality, that is, the meaning of reality that appears to us in our experience. If intentionality is seen as the basic epistemological assumption underlying the interpre-
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Figure 1: The Experienced Object
tive research tradition, what appropriate criteria could be used for justifying the knowledge produced as true? Before addressing this question, possible theories of truth that stipulate what truth is and when it is achieved within the interpretive research tradition need to be explored.
Theories of Truth
The purpose of this section is not to discuss theories of truth in general (for such a discussion, see, for instance, Allen, 1995). Instead, the aim is to explore theories of truth that accord with the phenomenological assumptions of life-world and intentionality. As pointed out in the introduction, the positivistic research tradition makes use of the correspondence theory of truth. This theory is based on a dualist ontology and objectivist epistemology treating reality as objective and knowable beyond the human mind. Given a dualist ontology and an objectivist epistemology, the correspondence theory of truth refers to the extent to which a statement made by a researcher corresponds with the specific aspect of objective reality under investigation. Truth is achieved if the statement is a representation of objective reality. Based on the assumption of life-world and the epistemological assumption of intentionality, both Husserl (1931/1962) and Heidegger (1927/1981) rejected the idea of truth as a relationship between the researchers statement and an objective reality. This is because it overlooks the phenomenological insight about intentionality, that is, the researchers intentional relation to the research object. Moreover, as the researcher is intentionally related to the research object, the truth claim does not refer to an objective reality as such but to the specific meaning of the research object as it appears to the researcher. Within the interpretive research tradition, therefore, truth can only be defined, as Lyotard (1991) claimed, as lived experience of truththis is evidence (p. 61). But if
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truth is confined to the researchers lived experience of truth, how can the researcher claim that the knowledge produced is true? One possible way to attain or rather achieve truth is in terms of intentional fulfillment. Intentional fulfillment is established when there is an agreement between the researchers initial interpretation of the object being studied and the meaning given in lived experience. The following example from Heidegger (1992) can be used to illustrate truth as intentional fulfillment:
I can in an empty way now think of my desk at home simply in order to talk about it. I can fulfil this empty intention in a way by envisaging it to myself, and finally by going home and seeing it itself in an authentic and final experience. In such a demonstrative fulfillment the emptily intended and the originally intuited come into coincidence. This bringing-into-coincidencethe intended being experienced in the intuited as itself and selfsameis an act of identification. The intended identifies itself in the intuited; selfsameness is experienced. (p. 49)
Following the idea of truth as intentional fulfillment, the general principle of truth in the interpretive research tradition could be stated in the following way: Is the initial interpretation of an object fulfilled in experience of it; that is, does the initial interpretation demonstrate itself to be based on the way the meaning of an object under investigation presents itself to consciousness? If this fulfillment is experienced, then truth is achieved. For instance, assume that the research object is socialization. Individuals participating in a study may have been interviewed about their lived experience of being socialized into the organizations in which they work. As Heidegger (1927/1981) showed, to be able to interpret lived experience at all, the researcher must have some understanding of what socialization means. This understanding is the researchers initial interpretation of what socialization means to the individuals interviewed. While reading through the transcripts, the researcher may experience a discrepancy between his or her initial interpretation and the way socialization shows itself to consciousness. In such a case, truth is not evident. Based on the first reading, the researcher formulates a new interpretation and reads the transcripts a second time. This iterative process continues until the researcher experiences an agreement between his or her presumed interpretation of socialization and the way the individuals lived experience of socialization shows itself to consciousness. Only then can truth be said to be achieved. Truth as intentional fulfillment may appear to be identical to the correspondence theory of truth through the analogous process of matching between the initial interpretation of an object and the meaning given in experience of it. However, a fundamental difference exists between these theories of truth. Within the correspondence theory, the matching process takes place between two separate entities, that is, between the researchers statements and an independent research object. By contrast, within truth understood as intentional fulfillment, there is no separation between the initial interpretation and the meaning given in lived experience, for this matching process does not take place separate from the researcher. Instead, the matching process takes place within the researchers lived experience of the research object. Although Husserl and Heidegger agree on the general principle of truth as intentional fulfillment, their views differ concerning when truth is achieved. In Husserls view, it is achieved through perceived fulfillment, and in Heideggers view, through fulfillment in practice (Lbcke, 1987). These different views can be illustrated by Heideggers (1927/1981) example of investigating what a hammer is. From a Husserlian perspective, the researcher would observe the hammer, for example, in all
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its various modes, ranging from perceiving it on a table to perceiving somebody hammering with it and to asking people about their lived experience of hammers and hammering. If the researcher studies the hammer and allows it to appear on its own conditions, then truth is achieved through perceived fulfillment. Following Heidegger, the researcher would not only observe the hammer but also actively use it, hammering with it in practice. Hence, from a Heideggerian perspective, it is first in the researchers lived experience of using the hammer in practice that he or she can achieve true knowledge of what a hammer is. In other words, truth is achieved through fulfillment in practice. A third form of truth that complements but at the same time challenges Husserls idea of truth and also Heideggers to some extent is the idea of truth within deconstruction developed by Derrida. Deconstruction can be described as a radicalization of philosophical phenomenology (Moran, 2000). Derrida questions that the meaning of reality, what he calls text,4 can be experienced or interpreted in a coherent and nonambiguous way. As Bernstein (2002) argued, Derrida has through his numerous deconstructive studies successfully demonstrated that the meaning of reality is not primarily coherent and unambiguous but, rather, is fundamentally indeterminate and irresolvable. Derrida is thus deeply skeptical toward the idea that we can reconcile the internal conflicts and contradictions in texts and turn them into a coherent meaning system, which to a large extent is presumed within many interpretive approaches (Derrida, 1989). Given the focus on and a belief in irresolvable contradictions and tensions in texts, deconstruction can be seen to express a theory of truth as indeterminate fulfillment. This requires that the researcher deconstructing a text must experience an indeterminate fulfillment of its meaning; otherwise, it will not have been properly deconstructed. As Derrida (1984) explained, To deconstruct a text is to disclose how it functions as desire, as a search for presence and fulfillment which is indeterminably deferred (p. 126). Taken together, Husserls, Heideggers, and Derridas theories of truth can be seen as complementing each other as a truth constellation within the interpretive research tradition. How each theory of truth can complement each other will be further elaborated when discussing possible truth criteria for justifying interpretive knowledge claims.
Perspectival Nature of Interpretive Truth Claims
A central implication of truth as intentional fulfillment is that truth claims are dependent on the researchers understanding of the research object. This does not mean that truth becomes purely subjective. As argued earlier, everyone is situated in a specific historical, cultural, and linguistic understanding of reality, which is internalized through upbringing, education, and work. The internalized understanding becomes to a large extent our framework for making sense of reality. The basis for understanding reality for researchers is often the disciplinary field, such as sociological, psychological, educational, organizational, and anthropological perspectives. This perspective itself is evolving, for instance, Giorgi (1992) argued that in taking a psychological perspective on a research object, the presupposition here is that psychological reality is not ready madebut rather must be constituted (p. 69). Every research approach also contains a specific methodological perspective on
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the phenomenon under examination. For instance, an ethnomethodological perspective may give rise to a different interpretation of an event than an ethnographic perspective (Silverman, 2001). This means that from the point of view of an interpretive approach, it is only meaningful to talk about truth with reference to the perspective taken by the researcher. The perspectival nature of truth gives rise to the question of relativism. However, as Schrag (1992) argued, the problem with perspectival truth claims is not relativism but rather that there appears to be an unmanageable surplus of truths (p. 75). Schrag proposed one way of dealing with pluralistic truth claims by assessing one specific truth claim in conjunction with others dealing with the same issue. This strategy, according to Schrag, allows us to speak about justification or correctness of a knowledge claim. Here, correctness does not mean representation of objective reality but rather a process of justification that proceeds by correcting the limitations and misunderstandings of other particular interpretations. Other researchers such as Guba and Lincoln (1989), Polkinghorne (1983), and Smith and Deemer (2000) have argued in a similar vein. The idea of correcting by comparing alternative knowledge claims has been frequently proposed and can be found in Hirschs (1967) claim that the requirement of certainty should be replaced by a probability judgment, Ricoeurs (1971) discussion on validation as an argumentative discipline comparable to the juridical procedures of legal interpretation, Habermass (1990) discussion on achieving trustworthiness and knowledge through communicative action, Houses (1980) discussion of validity in evaluation seen as an argumentative discourse, Karlssons (1993) concept of argumentative reasoning, and Norns (1995) trustworthy knowledge. To summarize this section, assessing truth claims is an iterative process of correcting by comparing alternative knowledge claims within a certain research perspective as well as between specific research perspectives. It can lead to a deeper understanding of the aspect of human activity under investigation, and limitations in specific knowledge claims can be disclosed and replaced by more inclusive knowledge claims. This means that truth achieved within interpretive approaches will never be one final and unambiguous truth but rather is an ongoing and open process of knowledge claims correcting each other.
Criteria for Justifying Knowledge Produced Within Interpretive Approaches

If we assume that truth as intentional fulfillment can be achieved when the researchers interpretation allows the research object to appear on its own conditions within the perspective taken, it still prompts the question as to what kind of criteria might be applied in justifying such truth claims. To check researchers interpretations, criteria recommended by several researchers such as Kvale (1989, 1995), Lather (1993, 1995), Richardson (1995), and Sandberg (1995) are proposed in this section. These criteria are elaborated consistent with the assumptions of life-world and intentionality, following the concept of truth as intentional fulfillment. In particular, the criteria are elaborated in line with the proposed truth constellation consisting of truth as perceived fulfillment, fulfillment in practice, and indeterminate fulfillment. A study on human competence at work (Sandberg, 2000) will be used to elaborate and
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illustrate how the proposed criteria can be used to justify knowledge produced within interpretive approaches.
Understanding Human Competence at Work: An Interpretive Approach
In a study of what constitutes competence at work (Sandberg, 2000), an interpretive approach was proposed as an alternative to the prevalent rationalistic approaches. The most central feature of the rationalistic approaches is that they all regard competence as an attribute-based phenomenon. More specifically, competence is described as constituted by a specific set of attributes such as knowledge and skills, which workers use to accomplish their work. This view originates from a dualist ontology and objectivist epistemology such that competence is seen as consisting of two separate entities: a set of attributes possessed by the worker and a separate set of work activities. The view of competence as an attribute-based phenomenon has, however, been subject of increasing criticism. The most basic one comes from a growing body of studies using interpretive approaches to competence. Their main objection is that advocates of rationalistic approaches overlook the ways people experience or interpret their work. From an interpretive standpoint, competence is not seen as consisting of two separate entities. Instead, worker and work form one entity through the lived experience of work. Competence is thus seen as constituted by the meaning the work takes for the worker in his or her experience of it (DallAlba & Sandberg 1996; Sandberg 1994). Hence, a shift in the point of departurefrom worker and work as two separate entities, to the workers lived experience of workgives rise to an alternative way of understanding what constitutes competence at work. Drawing on previous interpretive research on competence, phenomenography was adopted to further our understanding of what constitutes competence at work. Phenomenography is an interpretive approach that was originally developed within education to describe qualitatively different ways in which people understand or make sense of their world (Marton, 1981; Marton & Booth, 1997). More specifically, a phenomenographic approach to competence was adopted during an empirical study of engineers, namely, engine optimizers in the department of engine optimization at the Volvo Car Corporation in Sweden. Their task was to develop engines for new car models. In exploring what constituted competence in engine optimization, the point of departure was the engineers understanding of their work. Interviews and observation were used to identify the ways in which the optimizers understood and made sense of their work. Three different ways of understanding engine optimization emerged from the study: namely, engine optimization as (a) optimizing separate qualities, (b) optimizing interacting qualities, and (c) optimizing from the customers perspective. Within each way of understanding, it was possible to distinguish a number of essential attributes and a specific structure of attributes, which characteristically appear as the optimizers accomplish the optimization. The most central findings were that human competence is not primarily constituted by a specific set of attributes. Instead, workers knowledge, skills, and other attributes used in accomplishing the work are preceded by and based on the workers under-
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standing of their work, which constitutes human competence. It is the workers ways of understanding work that form and organize their knowledge and skills into a distinctive competence in performing the work. But how can these knowledge claims be justified as true within the theoretical and methodological interpretive perspective? In particular, what criteria can be used to justify the knowledge claims as true according to the proposed truth constellation? Below communicative, pragmatic, and transgressive validity together with reliability as interpretative awareness are proposed and elaborated as suitable criteria for justifying knowledge produced within interpretive approaches. First, communicative validity is proposed as a criterion for establishing truth as perceived fulfillment. Second, pragmatic validity is elaborated as the criterion for establishing truth as fulfillment in practice. Finally, transgressive validity is suggested as an appropriate criterion for establishing truth as indeterminate fulfillment.
Truth Constellation of Criteria
Communicative validity. Communicative validity can be seen as one criterion for achieving truth according to the Husserlian notion of perceived fulfillment. The extent to which the researcher has achieved a truth claim can be justified in at least three phases in the research process. In the initial phase of generating empirical material, communicative validity can be achieved by establishing what Apel (1972) called a community of interpretation. According to Apel, the production of valid knowledge claims presupposes an understanding between researcher and research participants about what they are doing. In the Volvo study, a community of interpretation was established by initially arranging a seminar with the optimizers in which I explained that my aim was to understand their lived experience of engine optimization. I also spent about 1 week in their department observing and talking with them about their work and took part in an induction program for new employees. Moreover, at the beginning of each interview, I reminded them that my purpose was to discuss their experience of engine optimization. Such clarification from both sides contributed to establishing a fruitful community of interpretation for the subsequent interviews. The interviews were conducted in the form of a dialogue because generating verbal descriptions of lived experience becomes a one-sided activity when the researcher merely poses questions and the subject answers, and it is unlikely to achieve high communicative validity. Instead, it is preferable that verbal descriptions be generated through a dialogue, which conveys an openness toward the research object. As Gadamer (1960/1994) pointed out, genuine dialogue involves the process of question and answer, with the priority of the question over the answer. We develop our understanding through posing questions: Recognizing that an object is different, and not as we first thought, obviously presupposes a question whether it was this or that (p. 362). In the interviews at Volvo, only two principal open-ended interview questions were used to encourage the optimizers to identify and describe what they themselves understood as central in engine optimization. These questions were elaborated and substantiated with follow-up questions such as What do you mean by that? Can you explain that further? and Can you give an example? Using only two questions in combination with follow-up questions enabled me to constantly focus on their lived experience of engine optimization throughout the interviews and thus achieve high communicative validity. The following discussion between the interviewer (I) and the
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optimizer (O) provides one example of how the interviews in the Volvo study were conducted as a dialogue with the intention of achieving communicative validity. It illustrates how the interviewer, by getting involved in a genuine dialogue with the optimizer, gradually arrives at a clearer understanding of what the optimizer means by tricks and how they are used to avoid extra loops in the optimization process.
I: Yeah, but are you a competent optimizer then? O: Well then you have other knowledge as well. I: Such as what? O: That you have been working here for a long time, you know, those tricks, as I said. As usual its the error you make but shouldnt, so you dont fall into these traps yourself. I: Yeah, well what are you thinking about when you say tricks? O: There are a lot of things you do automatically which someone newly employed misses. I: Can you give an example? O: We know, for instance, that if they [the new employees] optimize Kennfeld [the ignition] in the FP [function testing room]. For example . . . we have an ignition curve here . . . then the curve goes up, something like this, and sure when you drive in FP then you want to continue with this curve but we know that it will landing here depending on the emissions. Such tricks, they save enormously much time for us. We can avoid an extra loop between FP and EP [emission testing room] and FP. I: Yeah, yeah, because the optimum seems to be here, but you mean that it must be here somewhere instead? O: Yes, the optimum seems to be here but we end up down here.
Second, when analyzing empirical material such as interview transcripts, communicative validity can be achieved by striving for coherent interpretations (e.g., Eisner, 1985; Karlsson, 1993). The principle of coherence is based on the notion of the hermeneutic circle (Palmer, 1972), which stipulates that interpretation is constituted by a circular relation between parts and whole. For example, a text can be understood only in relation to its parts and, conversely, the parts can be understood only in relation to the text as a whole. Hence, striving for coherence means that the parts of a text must fit the whole and the whole must fit the parts. Using this strategy, conflicting interpretations can be judged with respect to how coherent they are with the empirical material. The greater the number of parts of the empirical material that accord with a specific interpretation, the more coherent it is. In the Volvo study, I strived for coherence by making interpretations of the optimizers statements about their work that were consistent with both the immediate context of surrounding statements and the transcript as a whole. When I had analyzed how each optimizer understood engine optimization, I shifted the analysis from single optimizers and compared the different ways of understanding engine optimization across optimizers. First, I grouped the optimizers who had understood engine optimization in a similar way. Second, I compared them both within and between groups. This process enabled me to refine the coherence of my interpretations and thus to achieve high communicative validity. A third way of establishing communicative validity is to discuss our findings with other researchers and professionals in the practice being investigated. Although single researchers may be the main producers of knowledge claims, it is ultimately intersubjective judgment that determines whether the original researchers knowledge
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claim is true. As Gadamer (1960/1994) argued, truth is to a large extent achieved through dialogue between people. Seeing truth as intersubjective can be traced back to the phenomenological idea of life-world. As discussed, the life-world is not only subjectively but also intersubjectively constituted through ongoing negotiations with others about its meaning. Hence, by discussing with different communities of interpreters, knowledge claims can be refined or challenged as limited. For example, the identified ways of understanding engine optimization were presented to the optimizers on two occasions, initially to the 20 study participants and then to all 50 optimizers in the department. On both occasions, the optimizers confirmed that the understandings identified were valid. My research results were also further refined in the communication with the reviewers and the editor during the review process. However, it is important to note that intersubjective judgment can be influenced by factors other than achieving defensible knowledge claims, such as the social control of what is published. As Astely (1985) expressed it,
Producing quality work is not enough; it must be certified as being of high quality by the right people. This privilege falls to the gatekeepers who control the disciplines formal evaluation system. These gatekeepers define what will count as important or unimportant work and, in effect, determine what constitutes valid knowledge. (p. 509)
Thus, according to Astely, even if the gatekeepers realize a certain knowledge claim is of high quality, they may not accept it as true for other reasons. In initial attempts to publish the Volvo study, one of the reviewers claimed that although the findings were interesting and intriguing, they could not be accepted without an interjudge reliability check. Without such a check, the reviewer claimed that the readers of the journal would not accept the knowledge claims as true. Pragmatic validity. Although communicative validity enables us to check the coherence of our interpretation, it does not provide enough attention to possible discrepancies between what people say they do and what they actually do. Research participants usually do not describe their lived experience in an undistorted way. As Alvesson (2003) has indicated, their accounts are mediated via impression management, political action, moral storytelling, social codes, and cultural scripts. Such mediators may produce discrepancies between interview accounts and lived experience. Pragmatic validity can reduce this weakness in communicative validity. Pragmatic validity involves testing knowledge produced in action (Kvale, 1989). It can be an appropriate criterion for judging the extent to which truth has been achieved according to a Heideggerian fulfillment in practice. Using pragmatic validation as part of the research process may increase the likelihood of capturing knowledge in action, which contrasts with what Argyris and Schn (1978) called espoused theories. One way to achieve pragmatic validity when generating descriptions of lived experience is to ask follow-up questions that constantly embed the statements in concrete situations, as outlined previously in the Volvo study. Another way to ascertain whether a statement refers to knowledge in action is to use a form of pragmatic validation indirectly. With reference to Freud (1963), Kvale (1989) argued that a statement could be checked by observing the subjects reaction to a particular interpretation of it. In the Volvo study, I occasionally misrepresented the optimizers statements deliberately as a way to check their pragmatic validity. Most of the time they reacted quite strongly. To make sure I
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had understood them correctly, they went back and elaborated the specific statements I had misinterpreted. The quote below illustrates how pragmatic validity is checked by the interviewer appearing to misunderstand the optimizers statements about tricks, suggesting there may be many more tricks. The optimizer then clarifies that it is also about knowledge as well as tricks, which is consistent with what he said previously in the interview.
O: You have to have those rules of thumb to be able to judge where to make the thrust (direct your efforts) because we are always under time pressure, and its those small tricks [that enable you to see links between the qualities of the engine]. I: But how have you acquired those small tricks? O: You have to listen, and XY [colleague with competence 3] is that type of person, because he is an old hand . . . you discuss with him. I: Does he have more tricks then? O: Yes, he has great many tricks, its obvious, well tricks, he has knowledge, he knows how it works. I: But tricks, does it mean that you know what to do? O: Yes, yes, it isnt really anything strange.
A further way to validate researchers interpretations pragmatically is through participant observation. For instance, in many anthropological studies on foreign cultures, the anthropologists not only carry out interviews and collect various documents but also live and actively participate in the culture. In the Volvo study, I pragmatically validated my interpretations by observing the optimizers optimizing new car engines and compared that with my interpretations of what they had said they did in the interviews. The most extensive way to pragmatically validate our interpretations is to use them in practice. However, this way of validating often requires a separate study in which the findings are recontextualized into the practice investigated. Such a pragmatic validation was to a large extent carried out in relation to my Volvo study. The study resulted in a request from Volvo for a model of competence to be developed based on my findings. To elaborate such a model, another researcher replicated my study using 7 additional optimizers from the group of 50, selected according to the criteria of the original study. The independent research confirmed the three ways of understanding engine optimization reported in my study. Transgressive validity. It has been argued that communicative and pragmatic validity are two appropriate criteria for justifying the extent to which truth has been achieved according to perceived fulfillment and fulfillment in practice. However, those criteria tend to encourage the researcher to search primarily for consistent and unequivocal interpretations of lived experience. For instance, to achieve them, it was argued that the researcher should strive for coherent interpretations. This means that the criteria of communicative and pragmatic validity may encourage the researcher to overlook various forms of ambiguity, complexity, and multiplicity in the lived experience investigated. Truth as indeterminate fulfillment can help the researcher to pay more attention to irresolvable contradictions and tensions. Lathers (1993, 1995) and Richardsons
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(1995) transgressive validity could be seen as one appropriate criterion for judging the extent to which truth as indeterminate fulfillment has been achieved. Its primary aim is to help researchers to become aware of their taken-for-granted frameworks. Lather (1993) suggested three main ways to achieve transgressive validity. One way is to use irony to interrupt and disturb our present interpretations in such a way that we become aware of the codes that have guided us in producing them. A second way is to search for differences and contradictions rather than for coherence in lived experience. For example, in the Volvo study, I deliberately searched for differences and contradictions by cross-checking my interpretation of each understanding of engine optimization. I did so by reading through the transcript expressing a particular interpretation and assessing it against the sense of an alternative perspective. I performed this cross-checking until I believed I had found the most truthful interpretation of each optimizers way of understanding engine optimization. This cross-checking also led to clearer and more precise formulations of my interpretations. I eventually reached a point at which, despite further cross-checking, each understanding of engine optimization remained stable. A third way to establish transgressive validity is related to the fact that the scientific framework for producing knowledge within Western culture is often molded by and saturated within a male imaginary. As a consequence, the female imaginary in terms of specific lived experience and ways of being is to a large extent excluded. However, by systematically recognizing not only male but also female lived experience, transgressive validity can be achieved. This form of transgressive validity was not established in the Volvo study because all of the 50 optimizers in the department of engine optimization were men. The inclusion of women may have resulted in some additional ways of understanding engine optimization. However, this result is unlikely to have changed the main knowledge claim, namely, that our understanding of work provides the basis for competence at work, as evident in subsequent studies that included women (DallAlba, 2002; Sandberg, 2001b, Stlsby Lundborg, Wahlstrm, & DallAlba, 1999). To sum up, the proposed criteria of validity can be seen as a specification and elaboration of how each theory of truth within the proposed truth constellation correct each other. The main strength of communicative validity is its focus on meaning coherence, stipulating that interpretations should be coherent with the empirical material investigated. Although communicative validity enables researchers to achieve coherent interpretations, it does not adequately check discrepancies between what the research participants say they do and what they actually do. Pragmatic validity corrects that weakness. A weakness in both communicative and pragmatic validity is that they do not pay enough attention to possible contradictions, but this is corrected by transgressive validity. On the other hand, the strong focus on contradictions, and tensions make transgressive validity ill-suited to check for coherent interpretations: a weakness that is corrected by communicative and pragmatic validity. Reliability as interpretive awareness. The principal question of validity has been how we, as researchers, can justify that our interpretations are truthful to lived experience within the theoretical and methodological perspectives taken. Although the main question of validity relates to the truthfulness of interpretations, the principal question of reliability concerns the procedure for achieving truthful interpretations.
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Given truth as intentional fulfillment, criteria of reliability, such as replicability and interjudge reliability of results relating to objective reality, fall outside the domain of interest in achieving reliability within interpretive approaches (Sandberg, 1995). Instead, the proposed truth constellation implies first and foremost that researchers must demonstrate how they have dealt with their intentional relation to the lived experience studied. That is, researchers must demonstrate how they have controlled and checked their interpretations throughout the research process: from formulating the research question, selecting individuals to be studied, obtaining data from those individuals, analyzing the data obtained, and reporting the results. Because researchers cannot escape their interpretations, one appropriate criterion of reliability in researching lived experience is the researchers interpretive awareness (Sandberg, 1994, 1995). To maintain an interpretive awareness means to acknowledge and explicitly deal with our subjectivity throughout the research process instead of overlooking it. This form of reliability can be discussed in terms of Kvales (1996) notion of biased subjectivity and perspectival subjectivity. Biased subjectivity simply results in unprofessional work. As Kvale argued, biased researchers principally take note of statements that support their own opinions, selectively interpret statements so they can justify their own conclusions, and tend to ignore counterevidence. In contrast, researchers exercising perspectival subjectivity are more aware of how their own interpretations are influenced by the particular disciplinary, theoretical, and methodological perspectives taken in the study. Thus, interpretation then becomes a strength rather than a threat to reliable results. The means by which the researcher can achieve interpretive awareness will be further elaborated in the next section.
Using Phenomenological Epoch as a Strategy for Achieving Validity and Reliability in Interpretive Studies
The communicative, pragmatic, and transgressive validity and reliability as interpretive awareness have been proposed as appropriate criteria for justifying knowledge produced within interpretive approaches. But what research strategy could be used for achieving these criteria? Based on an overview of qualitative literature, Miles and Huberman (1994) confirmed the importance of justifying the production of knowledge throughout the research process. They suggested a strategy consisting of the following tactics: checking for representativeness, checking for researcher effects, triangulation, weighting the evidence, checking the meaning of outliers, using extreme cases, following up surprises, looking for negative evidence, making if-then tests, replicating a finding, and checking out rival explanations. It is important to note that these tactics have been primarily developed within the positivistic research tradition, and as Guba and Lincoln (1989) noticed, even if adjustments are made to fit the assumptions underlying interpretive approaches, there remains a feeling of constraint, a feeling of continuing to play in the friendly confines of the oppositions home court (p. 245). Hence, instead of adjusting the above tactics to interpretive research, there is a need for a customized strategy originating from the assumptions of life-world and intentionality. One available strategy is the phenomenological epoch (Sandberg, 1994), which underlies most forms of phenomenology and also includes more radical phenomenol-
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ogy, such as Derridas deconstruction.5 The aim of epoch is to ensure that the researcher withholds his or her theories and prejudices when interpreting lived experience. The epoch does not mean, however, that the researcher must or can bracket all previous experience (Giorgi, 1990; Ihde, 1977). To reiterate, as researchers, we interpret the research object within particular disciplinary, theoretical, and methodological perspectives. Rather, the point behind the epoch, as Giorgi (1990) expressed it, is to bracket that knowledge which is relevant to the issue at hand (p. 71). That is, researchers should strive to retain themselves from routinely applying their known theories and prejudices to be maximally open to the lived experience under investigation. According to Ihde (1977), phenomenological epoch requires that looking precede judgement and that judgement of what is real or most real should be suspended until all the evidence (or at least sufficient evidence) is in (p. 36). More specifically, epoch consists of steps that can work as concrete guidelines for achieving the proposed truth criteria throughout the research process. As phenomenology has been under continuous development (Spiegelberg, 1976), there are a number of variations of phenomenological epoch (Giorgi, 1990). In my use of the epoch, I will principally follow Ihde (1977). The first step suggests that the researcher should be oriented to how the research object appears throughout the research process. Such an orientation enables the researcher to be attentive and open to possible variations and complexities of lived experience. For instance, in the Volvo interviews, I tried to achieve communicative validity by constantly being oriented toward the ways in which engine optimization appeared to the optimizers. Similarly, I tried to achieve pragmatic validity by asking follow-up questions that encouraged them to elaborate on their experience of engine optimization in practical situations. The second step of epoch suggests that the researcher is oriented toward describing what constitutes the experience under investigation, rather than attempting to explain why it appears as it does. One way to adopt a describing orientation is to ask what and how questions rather than why questions (Gubrium & Holstein, 2000; Sandberg, 1994). Why questions tend to encourage individuals to explain why they experience the research object the way they do. What and how questions, on the other hand, direct the individuals to the research object and what it means to them. In the Volvo interviews, I used this strategy to encourage the optimizers to focus on describing what engine optimization meant for them. A describing orientation also helps the researcher to avoid generating interpretations that surpass the lived experience investigated. As soon as researchers surpass what is given in their experience, they begin to explain and use their arsenal of theories and models, which essentially are outside what is lived experience. In the Volvo analysis, I tried to achieve the truth criteria by focusing on the ways the optimizers understood engine optimization. I tried to maintain focus by holding back my own prior understanding of competence and continually checking if my interpretations were grounded in the optimizers description of their work. Step 3 involves horizontalization, initially treating all aspects of the lived experience under investigation as equally important. Ordering some aspects into being more important than others is likely to distract the researcher away from a truthful interpretation of their experience. Horizontalization is critical in both collection and data analysis. In the Volvo interviews, I initially strived to treat all interview statements as equally important in combination with asking follow-up questions that required
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the optimizers to elaborate on and be more specific about what they meant by their statements. Similarly, in the analysis, I initially treated all statements as equally important, which enabled me to be more truthful to the optimizers understanding of engine optimization. The fourth step implies a search for structural features, or the basic meaning structure, of the experience under investigation. This step is particularly important for achieving communicative validity in analyzing data. Within philosophical phenomenology, this step is carried out through the method of free imaginative variation. In empirical interpretive approaches, free imaginative variation would mean that when a first tentative interpretation of individualslived experience is achieved, the stability of that interpretation must be checked. This is done by adopting different interpretations when subsequently reading through the data. The variation in interpretations of the data continues until the basic meaning structure of the lived experience being studied has been stabilized. This step is also central in achieving transgressive validity in the analysis. In the Volvo study, I searched for structural features of the optimizers understanding of engine optimization by cross-checking my interpretation of each optimizers understanding. As described previously, this cross-checking enabled me to formulate more precise and clear interpretations of the optimizers ways of understanding engine optimization. Step 5, using intentionality as a correlational rule, consists of three separate, but internally related, phases. The first phase involves identifying what the individuals experience as their reality. The second phase is to identify how the individuals experience that reality. Finally, the constitution of the lived experience is fulfilled by integrating the individuals ways of experiencing with what they experience as their reality. Using intentionality as a correlational rule was adopted throughout the analysis in the Volvo study. I initially tried to acquire a general grasp of the optimizersunderstanding of engine optimization by reading each transcript several times. Second, I read all the transcripts again, to systematically search for what each optimizer understood as engine optimization. Third, I analyzed all the transcripts again, but now in terms of how each optimizer understood engine optimization. The primary focus here was how the optimizers delimited and organized what they understood as engine optimization. Finally, I analyzed all the transcripts again, simultaneously focusing on what each optimizer understood as engine optimization in relation to how they understood engine optimization. Taken together, each step in the epoch, from the most overarching principle of holding back known theories and prejudices to the most specific principle of using intentionality as a correlational rule, may increase the researchers chances of achieving the proposed criteria for justifying knowledge produced within interpretive approaches. More specifically, each step in the epoch can be seen as a gradual specification of how communicative, pragmatic, transgressive validity and reliability as interpretive awareness can be achieved. However, even if researchers enter into the phenomenological epoch and experience truth as intentional fulfillment satisfying the proposed criteria, errors may still occur. There is no complete guarantee that the research object will show itself on its own conditions to researchers consciousness. As Giorgi (1988) claimed, there are only checks and balances, and primarily the checks and balances come through the use of demonstrative procedure (p. 173). A thorough demonstrative procedure is,
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however, of crucial importance as a way to defend our knowledge claims in ongoing argumentative discourses such as presenting papers at conferences and seminars and in review processes for scientific journals in which our knowledge claims are justified.
Concluding Remark
The central aim of this article has been to provide a platform from which researchers can develop appropriate and shared criteria for justifying knowledge produced within interpretive approaches. Based on phenomenological philosophy, it is argued that although objective knowledge is untenable, it is still possible to make truth claims consistent with the ontological and epistemological assumptions underlying the approach to interpretative research. More specifically, the principal argument has been that knowledge produced from interpretive approaches can be justified as true in relation to the ontological and epistemological assumptions underlying this research tradition. This was demonstrated first by explicating life-world and intentionality as the basic assumptions underlying the interpretive research tradition. Second, based on those assumptions, truth as intentional fulfillment, consisting of perceived fulfillment, fulfillment in practice, and indeterminate fulfillment, was proposed. Third, based on the proposed truth constellation, communicative, pragmatic, and transgressive validity and reliability as interpretive awareness were presented as the most appropriate criteria for justifying knowledge produced within interpretive approaches. Finally, the phenomenological epoch was suggested as a strategy for achieving these criteria. It should be noted that because truth is always something unfinished within the interpretive tradition, the criteria proposed do not enable researchers to generate absolute truth claims. Instead, they give researchers the opportunity to produce more informed and thorough knowledge claims in relation to their ontological and epistemological assumptions. However, although the criteria proposed are generally applicable for justifying knowledge produced from interpretive approaches, more specific criteria need to be developed for justifying knowledge produced within the diverse range of interpretive approaches. This will have to take into account other aspects of justifying knowledge, such as the perspective taken, the research object, and the researchers purpose in carrying out the research. Finally, the core assumptions of life-world and intentionality together with the proposed truth constellation, it has been argued, provide a coherent philosophical foundation for developing more specific criteria. Notes
1. When referring to philosophical phenomenology, I do not primarily mean Husserls (1931/1962) descriptive phenomenology and his idea about a transcendental subject as the foundation of all knowledge but rather the interpretive phenomenology developed after Husserl. More specifically, if we look at how the various forms of modern phenomenology have been developed since Husserl, not even his closest colleagues accepted a pure and transcendental ego as the foundation of all knowledge (Spiegelberg, 1976). It was primarily through Heideggers (1927/1981) work Being and Time that Husserls transcendental subject was rejected by most advocates of phenomenology. Heideggers work demonstrated above all that (a) a pure transcendental subject standing above reality cannot exist because subjects are always situated in a specific culture, historical time, and language that mediate reality and that (b) it is not possible to
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produce objective descriptions of reality because the descriptions are always constituted by the researchers preunderstanding of the particular aspect of reality under investigation. In other words, researchers descriptions of reality are always based on their interpretation of the reality described. Moreover, because both Gadamer and Derrida are profoundly influenced by Heideggers thinking (Bernstein, 2002, p. 276), it can also be appropriate to see hermeneutics and deconstruction as part of the ongoing development of philosophical phenomenology (Moran, 2000, p. 436). Although Husserls transcendental philosophy has been heavily criticized, modern philosophers such as Mohanty (1989) and social scientists such as Giorgi (1992) have established a descriptive phenomenology closely based on Husserls work. 2. Given the great variety of research approaches related to the interpretive research tradition, there are naturally not only unifying themes but also significant differences and tensions between the different approaches. See, for instance, Sandberg (2001a) and Schwandt (2003). 3. Husserls theory of consciousness may sound as far removed from a social constructionist epistemology underlying most interpretive approaches. This is, however, not the case. As Gubrium and Holstein (2000) argued, Although the term construction came into fashion much later, we might say that consciousness constructs as much as it perceives the world. Husserls project is to investigate the structure of consciousness that make it possible to apprehend an empirical world (p. 488). 4. Derrida does regard not only written material such as books and journal articles as texts but our entire social reality such as social practices and events in the sense that they are socially constructed. 5. For example, Derrida (1999) said, It is true that for me Husserls work and precisely the notion of epoch, has been and still is implied. I would say that I constantly try to practice that whatever I am speaking or writing (p. 81).
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Jrgen Sandberg is a reader in management and director of research at the University of Queensland Business School, Australia. His research interests include competence and learning in organizations, leadership, and qualitative research methods, including their philosophical assumptions. His work has appeared in several journals and books including Academy of Management Journal and Harvard Business Review. He is currently writing a book for Sage about managing understanding in organizations.

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ORGANIZA 10.

How Do We Justify Knowledge Produced Within Interpretive Approaches?

ORGANIZATIONAL RESEARCH METHODS

Sandberg / KNOWLEDGE PRODUCED WITHIN INTERPRETIVE APPROACHES

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Sandberg / KNOWLEDGE PRODUCED WITHIN INTERPRETIVE APPROACHES

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Sandberg / KNOWLEDGE PRODUCED WITHIN INTERPRETIVE APPROACHES

Basic Assumptions Underlying the Interpretive Research Tradition

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Figure 1: The Experienced Object

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Sandberg / KNOWLEDGE PRODUCED WITHIN INTERPRETIVE APPROACHES

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Criteria for Justifying Knowledge Produced Within Interpretive Approaches

Sandberg / KNOWLEDGE PRODUCED WITHIN INTERPRETIVE APPROACHES

ORGANIZATIONAL RESEARCH METHODS

Sandberg / KNOWLEDGE PRODUCED WITHIN INTERPRETIVE APPROACHES

ORGANIZATIONAL RESEARCH METHODS

Sandberg / KNOWLEDGE PRODUCED WITHIN INTERPRETIVE APPROACHES

ORGANIZATIONAL RESEARCH METHODS

Sandberg / KNOWLEDGE PRODUCED WITHIN INTERPRETIVE APPROACHES

ORGANIZATIONAL RESEARCH METHODS

Sandberg / KNOWLEDGE PRODUCED WITHIN INTERPRETIVE APPROACHES

ORGANIZATIONAL RESEARCH METHODS

Sandberg / KNOWLEDGE PRODUCED WITHIN INTERPRETIVE APPROACHES

ORGANIZATIONAL RESEARCH METHODS

Sandberg / KNOWLEDGE PRODUCED WITHIN INTERPRETIVE APPROACHES

ORGANIZATIONAL RESEARCH METHODS

Sandberg / KNOWLEDGE PRODUCED WITHIN INTERPRETIVE APPROACHES

ORGANIZATIONAL RESEARCH METHODS

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