ABSTRACT
This chapter extends the discussion of the potential contribution of postmodern theorizing to the domain of organizational research through a critique and re-presentation of triangulation. The aim is not to dismiss or reject triangulation, but to present a new perspective (or re-view) in an effort to encourage innovative ways of thinking about this increasingly popular research approach in organizational analysis. First, triangulation is defined and discussed through the contrasting lenses of positivism and postpositivism/postmodernism. Then we discuss triangulation as ametaphor and relatively unquestioned principle of ‘good’ organizational research. In so doing, we consider the concept of triangulation in terms of ‘metaphorization’, and notably of movement between researcher and subject positions in the research process. In concert with a shift of thinking ‘from plane geometry’ to ‘crystallization and light theory’ (Richardson, 1994) we argue for rethinking the lines and angles of triangulation inquiry. In particular, we suggest a shift from the ‘triangulation of distance’ to a more reflexive consideration of ‘researcher stance’. This includes movement across three perspectives: the researcher as a follower of nomothetic lines; the researcher as the taker of an ideographic overview; and the researcher as the finder of a particular angle. Each of these perspectives is outlined and consideration given to associated possibilities and impossibilities. We discuss implications of this analysis in terms of methodological issues of perspective, data capture, reflexivity and metatriangulation.
