Using Social Media to Organize a Marginalized Community

Potential leaders within marginalized communities find it difficult to connect, learn, strategize, and support one another and build a cohesive community capable of effecting social change. This research contributes to filling a gap in empirical research on effective approaches to employing social media tools to organize and engage in social movements. The research builds on earlier studies of marginalized communities and social media to organize and engages in social movements by applying a case study design to assess how the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) military community employed social media to organize and advocate for inclusion and end discrimination within the U.S. armed forces. Seventeen findings were identified that describe key ways the LGBT military community employed these tools to organize, identify leaders and their roles, and how online behavior affected offline advocacy.

Mixed Methods Research Design

This chapter introduces the various design choices researchers need to decide on prior to conducting the study. The chapter starts with a detailed description of what research design is, followed by an explanation of descriptive, explanatory, or exploratory research questions. This determines what type of data will be collected. The major strategic implementation methods for quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods are then discussed. The three strategies for mixed methods research—parallel convergent, sequential, and embedded design—are presented in detail along with the rationale for their use. Finally, in the last section, the strands or sequencing of the data collection phase of the study are explained.

Triangulation Approaches in Accounting Research

Accounting research, like many other social science disciplines, has gradually moved from qualitative to quantitative research with an emphasis on the use of multiple evidence or methods in the conduct of research. This chapter explores the concerns and implications of triangulation in the conduct of research in the social sciences, particularly in the field of accounting. Based on evidence from existing literature, the chapter submits that triangulation is an important strategy for enhancing the quality of accounting research. Accounting researchers, like those from other social science disciplines, often adopt triangulation when investigating a complex phenomenon whereby using a single data source or method may not allow an exhaustive investigation to fully understand it, hence the inability to reach a dependable conclusion. Despite the concerns and implications of use of triangulation in accounting and social science research, the chapter concluded it is a relevant approach especially at a time when adequate evidence and analytical rigor is required to substantiate research findings.

Implications of Mixing Methods

Much like a jigsaw puzzle box top guides one in how to connect the pieces, a research paradigm operates as a conscious or subconscious influence in conducting a research project. The promise—and challenge—of mixed methods research is that it involves the use of two box tops, and this chapter discusses the subsequent implications on the researcher. The first effect is through the need to balance the paradigmatic distinctives, requiring the researcher to identify one of four broad ways to address the paradigm divide at the heart of qualitative and quantitative research. The second effect is through the need to balance the validation distinctives. Making research credible is an essential component of any study, and the issues magnify given the stark differences between qualitative and quantitative validity orientations. Both implications reveal the level of sophistication required for the researcher when conducting a mixed methods project.

Beyond Statistical Power and Significance in Entrepreneurship and Management Research

Findings in most empirical research on entrepreneurship and management focuses on a few things: statistical representativeness of the data, the methodological rigor used for arriving at the results, and the statistical power of the results. However, both results and data are far from being free of criticism. This chapter provides a way forward that uses the mixed-methods approach without falling into the common confusion of multiple methods used in one research. It looks back at the reliance of statistical testing, null-hypothesis, and testing the statistical significance as the criteria. It explores available alternatives that can offer to overcome the problem of non-significance, rather than rejecting it as is usually done. It acknowledges some quantitative solutions like replication, conjoint, and comparative analyses and extends the use of some qualitative methods like exploratory methods, case studies, and theory development studies that offer alternatives to treating the presence or absence of significance. It discusses the concepts used and gives the limitations of the study.

Mitigating the Effects of Social Desirability Bias in Self-Report Surveys

Self-reporting is a frequently used method to measure various constructs in many areas of social science research. Literature holds abundant evidence that social desirability bias (SDB), which is a special kind of response bias, can severely plague the validity and accuracy of the self-report survey measurements. However, in many areas of behavioral research, there is little or no alternative to self-report surveys for collecting data about specific constructs that only the respondents may have the information about. Thus, researchers need to detect or minimize SDB to improve the quality of overall data and their deductions drawn from them. Literature provides a number of techniques for minimizing SDB during survey procedure and statistical measurement methods to detect and minimize the validity-destructive impact of SDB. This study aims to explicate the classical and new techniques for mitigating the SDB and to provide a guideline for the researchers, especially for those who focus on socially sensitive constructs.

Data Speaks

Qualitative research methods provide the researcher with opportunity to share the lived experiences of participants in an authentic manner. These narratives can be enhanced through visual expression, such as use of photos, which provide another way to exercise self-expression. Found poetry has a rich history in participant-based studies, while self-studies utilize poems as an opportunity to address more philosophical or poststructuralist opportunities. These forms of data collection can provide a rich, thick description of those often overlying on the peripherals of society. By offering participants the opportunity to personally select descriptive photographs and articulate expression in their own voice through poetry, the lived experiences can authentically be displayed.

To Whose Benefit? At What Cost?

This chapter takes a conceptual approach to addressing issues of ethics in research with human participants. The author proposes preliminary questions at the onset of a research study that deal with the issue of addressing researcher responsibility. The chapter argues ethical considerations surround epistemology and impact when conducting mixed methods research. Moreover, defining the interaction between researchers and participants is crucial. The author challenges early career practitioners to ask the question ‘To whose benefit is the research?' but more importantly ‘At what cost when conducting research?' Recommendations for engaging in an applied social science methodology include understanding critical epistemological and philosophical perspectives and grappling with the potential impact and outcomes of research. This level of critical awareness enables research to display complex processes that address social, political, and moral ideals that resonate with and value human experience as knowledge.

Using Data, Description, and Graphics to Enrich Your Mixed Methods Study

Systems of organizing, displaying, and presenting data in studies focusing on educational research have traditionally included statistical tables and figures such as charts and graphs. This chapter provides a discussion of utilizing multiple visual methods for displaying data in an educational mixed methods study that goes beyond tables and charts. The chapter does not go into construction of visual methods but offers suggestions and ideas for graphic illustrations such as icons, emojis, or photographs to display results. The chapter calls attention to application opportunities for researchers to reflect upon prior to submitting research proposals and IRB applications.

Developing the Research Study

This chapter serves as a guideline for outlining the core characteristics of qualitative, quantitative, or mixed methods research (MMR) and the various steps researchers undertake in order to conduct a research study. While the focus is on MMR, the steps are similar for any type of research methodology. The purpose is to create a framework assisting the researcher with an outline following the seven steps to conducting research. It is important to note that MMR is not a limiting form of research. Researchers need a mixed method research question and a mixed methods purpose statement for the research project. This chapter will also help explain why MMR is one of the best approaches in answering a research question. Finally, the chapter includes a suggestion to the importance of adding a visual diagram of the mixed methods research project into the research project and into the final report.