ABSTRACT

The products of interpretive research, that is, accounts about other people’s practices, are used to add to a body of propositional knowledge about organisations. It is assumed that practitioners will use this information to guide their own practice. People will learn from the accounts of others, and will use this vicarious experience as exemplars. So one person’s practice is seen as a near-approximation to another’s, if not a direct copy. It is anticipated that what worked well in one situation will work in another. This situation is reminiscent of the empirical research paradigm, in which replicability and generalisability are criteria of validity.