The theoretical perspective is the philosophical stance that justifies the selection of methodology and methods by providing context for the assumptions we make about research, including the process involved and the basis for grounding its logic and criteria (Crotty 1998: p.3, p.7). Choosing a theoretical perspective is to attempt to make sense of the world in a certain way through knowledge. It is therefore about understanding how we know what we know (Crotty 1998: p.8).
Positivism flows from the objectivist paradigm (Crotty 1998: p.12). It is akin to natural science research and it is predicated on the notion that social reality is made up of objective facts that can be measured using experiments to test causal theories (Neuman 2007: p.42; Easterby-Smith, Thorpe and Lowe 2002: p.34). The positivist position therefore assumes that reality exists independently of consciousness and that the role of the researcher is simply to identify the universal truth or essence of what is being explored (Easterby-Smith, Thorpe and Lowe 2002: p.34; O'Leary 2005: p.5). However, positivism is rejected as the theoretical perspective for this research because of its objectivist nature (Crotty 1998: p.12).
Critical inquiry, feminism and postmodernism have also been considered for this research. Critical inquiry is identified with the Marxist legacy of attempting to reconcile a "dialectical synthesis of philosophy" with a view of society that is established by scientific principles (van Manen 1990: p.176). It draws upon knowledge with an aim to advance political-moral ends (Neuman 2007: p.44) and ultimately, emancipation (van Manen 1990: p.176) e.g. the attainment of social justice, and thus, critical inquiry is not suitable for this research undertaking.
Similarly, feminism is concerned with power imbalances but is orientated towards gender inequality (Babbie 2007: p.38) although it is thought to encompass the advancement of knowledge more generally (Neuman 2007: p.14). While gender inequality forms no part of this research, power imbalances may arise as an important factor, so relevant aspects of this stance will be considered in the research design. Postmodernism, in terms of defining it within context of the social research design framework, represents literary and cultural movements / trends contiguous to the research problem (Milner in Crotty 1998: p.191) in the arts sense and therefore does not embrace the subject matter of this research which has no literary / cultural implications.
Interpretivism is a view that social reality is derived from cultural and historical interpretations of people (Crotty 1998: p.67; O'Leary 2005: p.10) in a societal sense. Not only does it involve engaging in the 'how' and 'why' of reality, it is also centred on how people construct their experiences in a methodical way and how they arrange meaning of 'institutional life' that informs and influences the activities they take that make up their reality (Gubrium and Holstein in Denzin and Lincoln 2003: p.215). This approach complements the 'theoretical frameworks' that underpin the 'management principles' identified in Chapter 4 (see for example, Quinn et al (2007) for the Competing Values Framework; Kasperson et al (1988) for The Social Amplification of Risk Framework; Renn (in Bouder, Slavin and Lofstedt 2009) for The Risk Governance Framework; Kaplan and Norton (1996) for The Balanced Scorecard; and Neely, Adams and Kennerley (2002) for The Performance Prism). These frameworks have been socially constructed through cultural and historical interpretation with an aim to achieving specific ends which people can then apply to their institutional settings to affect change.
Three variants of Interpretivism are acknowledged as part of the theoretical perspective of the social research design framework: hermeneutics, symbolic interactionism and phenomenology. Hermeneutics involves interpreting texts in order to develop our understanding of the social world (Crotty 1998: p.87), where meaning is based upon consensual community validation (Patton 2002: p.114). This research, however, not only involves interpreting literature texts and industry reports to gain an understanding of operational issues relevant to PPP, it also requires speaking with a range of industry professionals to gain their insights into these matters. Therefore, hermeneutics is not selected.
In contrast, symbolic interactionism involves the study of social symbols, most notably, language (Berg 2007: p.10). Thus it is through dialogue that shared meaning can be obtained (van Manen 1990: p.186; Crotty 1998: p.75). Although symbolic interaction does involve interacting with people, it is not considered appropriate from a methodological viewpoint as the researcher cannot completely divorce himself as a subject from the nature of the study (Bonner 1994).
The variant of interpretive methodology that best suits this research is phenomenology. The aim of phenomenology is to gain a profound understanding of the meaning of experiences, acts and their correlates (Husserl 1931: p.42-43; van Manen 1990: p.9) which involves determining their fundamental nature as portrayed by the research participants themselves (Patton 2002: p.106; Creswell 2009: p.13). Put differently, phenomenology seeks to systematically examine, explain and analyse the meaning of lived experience (Marshall and Rossman 2011: p.19; van Manen 1990: p.10) by laying aside what we know about phenomena and then revisiting our immediate experience in order to gain a new / enhanced meaning or to validate the existing meaning (Moustakas 1994: p.58; Crotty 1998: p.78) of the phenomena and to discover what "essentially is" (Sanders 1982). This involves both interacting with people and reviewing literature, where the latter can be useful, for example, in providing context for why the research problem is being asked, providing background for who else has studied the topic as well as discovering who else has attached significance to studying the phenomena (Creswell 2009: p.26).
Phenomenologists acknowledge that 'culture' can act as an enabler that permits researchers to emerge from their immediate environment and reflect upon it. It can also be useful for understanding the past i.e. reflecting on our experiences (van Manen 1990: p.10) as well as planning for the future (Crotty 1998: p.81). Phenomenology involves setting aside existing meanings of phenomena to explore what emerges from their study which may result in new understandings that stand in stark contrast with the former ones (Crotty 1998: p.82). With this said, phenomenology does not offer the possibility of constructing social theories that can be used to describe and / or control the world; instead it presents an opportunity to develop insights that can bring people into "more direct contact with the world" (van Manen 1990: p.9) thus providing new depth and richness to our existing level of understanding (van Manen 1990: p.11).
Phenomenology is therefore not only the chosen theoretical perspective for this research, it is also adopted as the methodology. This is discussed in the methodology section below.