Realism’s role among scientific paradigms in marketing research

Abstract

This paper addresses the issue of scientific paradigms in marketing research. It begins with an overview of a 'rapprochement' model suggested for network research by Borch and Arthur ( 1995) which attempts to integrate objective and subjective research. We argue that their two-dimensional approach that separates the objective, positivist dimension and the subjective, interpretative dimension could be extended to include the realism paradigm. Characteristics of that paradigm are described and its appropriateness for case study research is established.