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This article aims to explain the role of philosophical anchors and research paradigms in business research, and how they can be extrapolated in the transformative era of automation, digitalization, hyperconnectivity, obligations, globalization and sustainability (ADHOGS) in the midst of disruption, volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity (DVUCA).

This article entails a general review based on the 3Es of exposure, expertise and experience, delving into the ontological, epistemological, methodological, axiological and rhetorical aspects of the major research paradigms—i.e. positivism, post-positivism, constructivism, interpretivism and pragmatism—and their interplay with the emergent trends shaping business research.

This article underscores the multifaceted nature of business research in the modern day, with an increasing need for blending, or shifting between, research paradigms to address the complex issues arising from automation, digitalization, hyperconnectivity, obligations, globalization and sustainability (ADHOGS). This article also highlights the nuanced interplay between research paradigms and theoretical perspectives, demonstrating the rich, diverse potential of business research inquiries.

While this article provides a broad overview of the interplay between research paradigms and emerging trends, future research could explore each of these interplays in greater detail, conducting empirical studies or utilizing specific case studies.

Researchers and practitioners should be open to adopting, combining or switching between different paradigms according to the demands of their research questions, context and trends shaping the business landscape, thereby underscoring the need for methodological flexibility and reflexivity in business research.

The shift toward embracing digital transformations and integrating sustainability in business research holds significant implications, driving socially responsible and sustainable business practices at the micro-level, and by extension, industrial revolution and sustainable development at the macro-level.

This article offers a holistic and contextualized view of the philosophy of science and research paradigms for business research, bridging the gap between philosophical foundations and contemporary research trends.

This article aims to summarize Norwegian cleaning‐related research to give an overview of the knowledge held today and to categorize the approaches used.

The research is based on an extensive literature search. Research contributions from 1814 until 2009 were studied, even though the main findings are from 1950. The different disciplines contributing to research are mapped and the contributions are categorized based on different research approaches, namely positivism, interpretivism, realism and idealism.

Norwegian cleaning‐related research experienced a burst in publications from the 1990s. The majority of Norwegian cleaning‐related research has been positivistic, mostly based on realism. The least common approach used was interpretivism‐idealism and interviews were the most frequently used method in interpretivisitc contribution. The article indicates a need for further broadening in research methods.

Through categorizing existing knowledge the article will help when searching for information and thus stimulate more research as limited research exists within the field.

The paper represents a summary of the knowledge status in cleaning with a Norwegian perspective. It is believed that the general picture also has international relevance.

Few researchers have investigated cleaning work from the perspective of cleaning personnel. It should also be noted that there has been little focus on the usability of buildings for cleaning personnel.

This article may be the first historical overview of Norwegian cleaning‐related research.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the philosophical stances and related methodologies used within the last 15 years of project management research using The International Research Network on Organizing by Projects (IRNOP) conference papers.

Utilizing a systematic sampling approach, IRNOP conference papers from 1994, 2000 and 2007 were analyzed for prevalent philosophical streams in project management research.

Results show a dominance of ontological subjectivism and epistemological interpretivism, with a preference for case studies and qualitative methods. Trends indicate a growth of positivist studies and, at the same time, an increase in multi‐case studies.

This paper's contribution to knowledge lies in the identification of predominant research paradigms for research reported at project management conferences using IRNOP as an example. The study shows trends, preferences, and potential differences between published research and conference papers.

Information on the quality, quantity and timely trends of underlying philosophies in project management research are lacking an insightful exploration of the project management research field. This is necessary for a better understanding of the past, present and possible future of research paradigms in project management. The paper's findings can be used to improve the interpretation of the state of knowledge in project management research.

Objectivism is the critical lens used to view organizational communication of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS). The Government Performance Results Modernization Act of 2010 changed requirements for such communication by mandating that agencies like DHS emphasize performance goals and targets to be achieved in the upcoming years in their performance reporting. Interpretivism is the sense-making lens used to view changes in performance reporting. This study focuses on performance target reductions, new performance measures, and retired performance measures documented in a DHS annual report. Nineteen performance measures were selected and discussed from empirical interpretivist and institutional interpretivist lenses. When intepretivism cannot match what is reported with what would appear to be logical, administrative ironies are established.

The purpose of this paper is to make a case for contextual interpretivism in managing diversity in organizational settings, specifically in its bearing on internal communication, going against the dominating functionalistic stance of venerated and ubiquitous approaches.

Qualitative and quantitative methodologies were employed to explore the potential of contextual interpretivism within the mining and construction industries of South Africa, due to the fecund diversity context of its employee population.

This paper points to the enriched understanding that could result from following a contextual interpretivistic approach to internal communication for diversity management, and in so doing discusses the ways in which this could take hold in organizations through the application of germane theoretical assertions of revered internal organizational communication literature, specifically the excellence theory and communication satisfaction.

The main limitation to this research is the restricted generalizability of its empirical research. Further research is required for the exploration of the central premise in other organizational contexts.

The paper provides insights into the ways in which organizations could approach its diversity management so as to speak to more than just the functional aspects thereof, and rather to the importance of nurturing an understanding of employees’ interpretation of the organization’s diversity endeavors.

The implications of applying a new approach to diversity management in organizational settings is discussed and argued, offering an empirical application thereof, which gives way to practical, data-driven recommendations for use in organizational settings.

It is assumed that fieldwork experiential learning on constraints of survey and ethnography research orientations in investigating armed conflict in Africa can contribute to the body of knowledge and help practitioners as well as other researchers working in difficult situations, such as war zones. More importantly, this paper aims to understand significant problems in Southern Africa, further methodological debates and produce new frontiers of knowledge in Southern African research studies. This paper will help other researchers who will be planning to conduct research in ongoing war-torn zones to be flexible with mixed research methodologies and data collection techniques that can ensure not only reliability and validity of the data but also, and more importantly, greater generalizability of this study.

This research in Cabo was initially guided by survey and ethnographic approaches. After facing constraints in their use in investigating the complexity of new wars, the author developed and shifted to interpretivism methodology as an alternative. It is essential that researchers be sensitive to the tensions between survey and ethnography methodologies and how they can be a mismatch to the research purpose.

The fieldwork experiences, using standardised survey and ethnography research orientations in Gabo, show that there is no generally appropriate blueprint of how to conduct research in violent conflicts. The valorised survey and ethnographic research strategies were not closely matched to facilitate understanding of the complexity of hybrid armed actors, indiscriminate and targeted violence which combined to militate against data generation. In the face of these problems, the author developed a new methodology, interpretivism, which embedded the descriptive, explanatory and predictive approaches. In tumultuous contexts, the standardised methodologies prioritize data generation more than critical thinking.

It is essential to study the nature of African armed conflicts by combining creativity and flexibility in the selection of research strategies. The constraints on peace research in war-torn situations in Cabo Delgado, Mozambique, have laid out the weaknesses of peacetime research methodologies, including survey research and ethnographic approaches. Now is the time to reassess fieldwork-based research particularly in violent settings.

The purpose of this short reflection is to allow for an informed use of both phenomenography and phenomenology in information studies and cognate fields.

The paper apprises uses of phenomenography found particularly in accounts of information literacy commonly describing phenomenography as distinct from phenomenology.

Both phenomenography and phenomenology continue to hold much credence in methods applied across scores of academic fields, with information studies being among those in the vanguard. Claims displaying differences of phenomenography from phenomenology are misleading and incomplete descriptions of phenomenology.

The paper presents newer materials on the origins of phenomenography and phenomenology to advocate for tighter relationships between and clearer applications of these methods in information studies and beyond.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss stigma and insensitive communication surrounding mental illness discourse amongst adolescents in the Polokwane Local Municipality against the background of a Foucauldian lens.

The literature reviewed included a discussion of perspectives on stigma and insensitive communication, contextualisation of the dual health–belief system in South Africa and the Foucauldian governmentality theoretical perspective. The methodology was based on a Foucauldian orientation and Geertz’ interpretivism. The methods followed to analyse the discourse were Foucauldian discourse analysis (FDA), coupled with Geertz' “thick description.” The data were collected from six focus group discussions, which consisted of a total of 36 informants.

The findings indicated the dominance of the biomedicine discourse, neoliberal rationalisations for self-care and the policy of deinstitutionalisation.

The implications for practice using an FDA approach combined with an interpretivist stance exposes the actions, institutions, possibilities for action whilst understanding core beliefs in a complex dual health and religious belief setting. The addition of Geertz’s interpretivism adds a cultural flare and insight, which adds to the depth of the analysis.

The complexity of beliefs, experiences and health choices calls for culturally sensitive discourse about mental illness and also highlights how discourse about individual conduct and self-care is embedded in the discourse used by adolescents.

The author argues that the familiar distinction between interpretive and non-interpretive theories of constitutional interpretation obscures another important distinction: that between hermeneutically open and hermeneutically closed theories. Closed theories seek resolution to constitutional conflict by employing methods of interpretation that are intuitively persuasive. Open theories deny that such methods are always available, and seek resolution of conflict through a combination of legal, political, and social means. The author argues that closed theories have failed to live up to their implicit promise of self-justification, and examines the practice of constitutional interpretation in Canada and Australia to support this view.