ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the epistemological, methodological, and ethical issues raised by the psycho-social approach to the study of organizational cultures. By doing social research, one is involved in a process of knowledge production and is therefore confronted with the questions concerning the nature of knowledge and its relation to reality as it is experienced by the researcher. The distinction between “primary” and “secondary” facts, which are rendered to interpretations both in making sense of daily experience and in systematic scientific inquiry, presupposes a hierarchy of interpretations. The recognition of the transformative potential of social knowledge brings forward the issue of its validity and reliability. The methodology of psycho-social research elaborated by Hollway and Jefferson is inspired and informed by the hermeneutics of psychoanalysis. Psycho-social research can be defined as triple hermeneutics, since it attempts to interpret the interpretative activity of both the actors in the studied field and the researcher in the context of their interaction.
