909069

research-article2020
GJH0010.1177/2397002220909069German Journal of Human Resource ManagementPrimecz

Article

German Journal of

Positivist, constructivist
Human Resource Management
1­–24
© The Author(s) 2020
and critical approaches to Article reuse guidelines:
sagepub.com/journals-permissions
international human resource DOI: 10.1177/2397002220909069
https://doi.org/10.1177/2397002220909069
journals.sagepub.com/home/gjh
management and some future
directions

Henriett Primecz
Corvinus University of Budapest, Hungary

Abstract
International human resource management has become a mature discipline in the last 30 years.
As a sub-discipline of social sciences, international human resource management is characterised
by paradigmatic divisions. The aim of this review article is to map the presence of three dominant
social science paradigms in the field. Four major journals which publish relevant studies of
international human resource management have been analysed in order to give an overview of
the paradigmatic state of play. After investigating 1649 articles, it is evident that positivist studies
prevail, whereas constructivist works are in a minority. Critical approaches to international
human resource management are largely absent in these journals. This paper presents examples
of each type of research and explains the decisive characteristics of each paradigm. Finally, future
directions are outlined: (1) more paradigm reflexivity is required, (2) non-mainstream (namely,
constructivist and even critical) research is needed, and (3) new paradigmatic directions are
recommended. Newly introduced paradigms or multiparadigm studies should be undertaken.

Keywords
Constructivism, critical management studies, IHRM, multiparadigm research, paradigms,
positivism

Introduction
International human resource management (IHRM), which is a sub-discipline of human
resource management (HRM), was characterised by a practical focus until the 1980s. The
practical issues of managing large multinational corporations (MNCs) provided the

Corresponding author:
Henriett Primecz, Corvinus University of Budapest, Fovam ter 8, Budapest 1093, Hungary.
Email: Henriett.primecz@uni-corvinus.hu
2 German Journal of Human Resource Management 00(0)

impetus to develop some distinctively IHRM-related themes, such as managing expatriates

or, recently, language policies of large multilingual enterprises. IHRM was rather atheoreti-
cal at the beginning, and subsequently, positivism dominated the publications about this
topic (De Cieri et al., 2007). As qualitative research inspired by anthropology gained rec-
ognition in cross-cultural management, one important source of academic stimulus of
IHRM – interpretive and constructivist analysis – became more common in the field of
IHRM. Critical approaches to HRM arrived from organisation studies (OS), for example,
the Foucauldian approach to HRM systems in Towley’s (1994) influential publication and
the critical HRM book by Legge (1995) provided a basis for a more critical form of HRM,
which, in turn, slowly infiltrated IHRM. The critical turn in cross-cultural management
gave further impetus to critical IHRM, especially from postcolonial perspectives.
IHRM is positioned in OS, which is a part of the field of social sciences. Paradigmatic
divisions and paradigm plurality has been extensively discussed in OS since 1979, when
Burrell and Morgan published their influential book on paradigms in OS and in social
sciences. The debate had an indirect impact on HRM, and consequently on IHRM. The
paradigmatic map of IHRM was not widely discussed, although some review papers
were published on this issue, such as the work of De Cieri et al. (2007), Harvey and
Moeller (2009), and Doherty (2013). This article provides a relatively comprehensive
picture of paradigm plurality in the field of IHRM.
In the first part of this article, IHRM is outlined, followed by brief presentation of the
three waves of paradigmatic thinking in organisational studies: (1) emerging debates on
the existence of alternative paradigms, (2) the incommensurability debate, and (3) the
emergence of multiparadigm studies. An overview of the existing paradigm taxonomies
is also provided. The methodology section describes details about the data collection and
analysis. The main contribution of the paper is the presentation of three dominant para-
digms in the field of IHRM. Finally, after the limitations of the research discussed, pos-
sible future directions are outlined, and a conclusion is drawn.

Theoretical foundations of the review

The roots of international human resource management and its
theoretical embeddedness
De Cieri et al. (2007) argue in their review paper that IHRM was atheoretical or mono-
theoretical at the beginning and that IHRM was considered as a simple combination of
cross-cultural management descriptive theories and HRM literature. This strand of
thought can be defined as the first wave of IHRM research. It is in line with Itani’s
(2018) review on HRM literature, that until the 1980s, HRM was rather atheoretical
and lacked strong ideologies. Early publications on IHRM were rather descriptive and
lacked analytical rigour, probably very often limited by accessibility of data, and
research results were characterised by ad hoc design and raw data presentation. It
showed similarities with international business research in these respects. One of the
major themes of IHRM from the beginning was research about expatriation, and this
branch of studies grew independently of and beyond IHRM (Doherty, 2013; Harvey
and Moeller, 2009).
Primecz 3

The second wave of research focused on global coordination (integration) versus

local responsiveness (differentiation), that is, multinational enterprise (MNE) staffing
policy: ethnocentric, polycentric, regiocentric or geocentric (De Cieri et al., 2007: 286).
The second wave is overtly positivist. Itani (2018) analysed six decades of HRM publi-
cations, including IHRM, and he concluded that in the 1980s and 1990s, strong positivist
ideology was present, and the first publications in critical HRM emerged. Towley (1994),
as one of the first critical HRM scholars, introduced a classic Foucauldian analysis of
performance management systems. Legge (1995) published a full book on critical HRM,
which became influential. However, the book does not include any international dimen-
sions. McKinlay (2002), Pasmore (1999), Steyaert and Janssens (1999), and Nkomo and
Ensley (1999) continued the critical branch of HRM, although their work also had no
significant international dimensions.
The third wave of IHRM research includes new themes – postcolonial analysis
(Boussebaa and Morgan, 2014; Mahadevan, 2015) and gender discrimination in foreign
assignments (Adler, 1984, 1987; Altman and Shorthand, 2001; Janssens et al., 2006;
Mayrhofer and Scullion, 2002; Metcalfe, 2006; Tung, 2004) – while the dominance of
positivism is inevitable and can be identified in perhaps the most influential textbook in
the field, that of Dowling et al. (1999). There is a growing number of publications in
cross-cultural management, which intentionally apply critical approaches (Mahadevan
et al., 2020; Primecz et al., 2016; Romani et al., 2018b, 2020), and these studies can
inspire further critical IHRM studies in the future.

The emergence of paradigmatic thinking in organisation studies

IHRM is part of OS and, consequently, paradigms in OS are present in IHRM. Debates
about organisational paradigms date back to the late 1960s, when Weick (1969) pub-
lished The Social Psychology of Organizing, and the early 1970s, when Silverman
(1971) published The Theory of Organizations, according to Clegg and Hardy (1996).
Burrell and Morgan (1979) organised existing theories and approaches into research
paradigms (2x2 matrix), and their taxonomy gave strong drive to the debates about
basic assumptions of theories in the field of OS. The two dimensions of the matrix
answer two important questions: one about science itself and the other about society.
The horizontal dimension defines objective and subjective approaches to science.
Burrell and Morgan (1979) distinguish objective and subjective science, based on ontol-
ogy (the theory of being, namely, if reality is assumed to be subjective or objective).
epistemology (theory of knowing: namely if knowledge creation is based on objective
or subjective assumptions), human nature (meaning that the relationship between
human beings and their environment is voluntarist or determinist), and methodology
(whether it is based on subjectivist, such as ideographic, or objectivist, such as nomo-
thetic assumptions). The vertical dimension is about conflict-order debate in societies,
where the order side stands for societal status quo, and the conflict side stands for radi-
cal (social) change. These two dimensions delineate four research paradigms in organi-
sational studies: functionalist, interpretive, radical humanist, and radical structuralist
(Burrell and Morgan, 1979).
4 German Journal of Human Resource Management 00(0)

Figure 1.  The dominance of the functionalist paradigm in organisation studies.

Source: Based on Burrell-Morgan (1979: 22) and Gioia and Pitre (1990: 586).

The functionalist paradigm builds on objective ontology, epistemology, methodology,

and human nature, and includes only theories which do not question the existing societal
status quo. Rather, they seek to explain it. The interpretive paradigm is at the subjective
end of ontology, epistemology, methodology, and human nature, while it is similar to
functionalist theories in terms of its approach to societal status quo. Radical humanism
is at the subjective part of ontology, epistemology, methodology, and human nature, and
this paradigm questions the existing social status quo, as it wants to change the present
societal order. Radical structuralism is objective in ontology, epistemology, methodol-
ogy, and human nature, while its agenda is also to change the existing social status quo
(Burrell and Morgan, 1979).
The debate about the paradigmatic nature of organisation studies intensified in the
1990s (Chia, 1996; Gioia and Pitre, 1990; Hassard, 1991; Jackson and Carter, 1991,
1993; Pfeffer, 1993; Willmott, 1993). Gioia and Pitre (1990) presented the dominance
of the functionalist studies visually and argued for equal acceptance of alternative para-
digms (see Figure 1). The focus of the debate turned to incommensurability in the late
1990s (Czarniawska, 1998; Donaldson, 1998; Scherer, 1998; Scherer and Steinmann,
1999); after this point, heated debates settled down in OS, and paradigm plurality has
since been taken for granted by the majority of organisational researchers (Hassard and
Cox, 2013; Hassard and Kelemen, 2002; Primecz et al., 2009, 2015; Romani et al.,
2011, 2014; Shepherd and Challenger, 2013; Tsoukas and Knudsen, 2003).

Paradigm taxonomies
While paradigm plurality is not questioned in today’s scholarships, there is no full agree-
ment on paradigm taxonomies. Although the Burrell-Morgan matrix initiated the idea of
the paradigmatic nature of the discipline, several researchers provided alternative tax-
onomies. Deetz (1996) criticised the Burrell-Morgan matrix as a closed system and
Primecz 5

Figure 2.  Four discourses in the Deetz matrix.

Source: Based on Deetz (1996: 198).

offered his open system, which includes four discourses: traditional, modern, late mod-
ern, and postmodern. In his system, the two dimensions deal with similar issues as the
dimensions in the Burrell-Morgan matrix: one about the nature of theories in terms of
whether they emerge or exist a priori, and the other dimension is about whether society
is in consensus or dissensus. The traditional discourses cover interpretive studies, which
are emergent, and their approach to society is consensual. The modern discourse covers
normative studies, which build on existing (a priori) theories, and it does not question
the present social order. Late modern discourses include critical studies, which also build
on a priori theories, while they additionally question the existing social order. Postmodern
discourses are dialogical studies, which apply deconstruction. They are emergent and
they agree that society is in a state of dissensus. Figure 2 provides an overview of the four
discourses.
Although the Deetz matrix has never become as influential as the Burrell-Morgan
matrix, it nonetheless identified the major discourses in the field of organisation studies.
Publications on postmodernism were at their peak in the late 1980s and early 1990s
(Alvesson and Deetz, 1996; Burrell, 1988, 1996; Chia, 1996; Cooper, 1989; Cooper and
Burrell, 1988; Deetz, 1996). Calas and Smircich (1999) closed the debates about post-
modernism with their influential article, ‘Past Postmodernism’, in which they argue that
although the postmodern discourse had a positive impact on the debate in organisation
studies, it is over. This did not, however, stop Tsoukas and Knudsen (2003) from arrang-
ing their handbook on organisation theory around four paradigms: namely, the paradigms
of positivism, interpretivism, critical, and postmodernism.
6 German Journal of Human Resource Management 00(0)

Beyond these taxonomies, Denzin and Lincoln’s (1994, 2000, 2005) qualitative
research handbook is influential for researchers who do not follow mainstream quantita-
tive studies. The first chapter in each edition is about the paradigmatic taxonomies of
social sciences. In the first chapter in the third edition, Guba and Lincoln (2005) define
five paradigms: positivism, postpositivism, critical theories et al., constructivism, and
the participative paradigm. Taking into consideration all influential taxonomies of
research paradigms, I contend that three clearly distinct paradigms can be identified in
organisation studies: positivist, constructivist, and critical, as Gephart (2004) has also
stated. All other paradigms are either so minor (e.g. the participative paradigm) that it is
difficult to designate them as distinct paradigms, or so close to each other because they
have similar or the same basic assumptions (e.g. interpretive and constructivist para-
digms), whereas other paradigms (e.g. postmodern) are ‘officially’ over (cf. Calas and
Smircich, 1999).
Bearing in mind the differences among theories, three paradigms seem to fulfil the
status of paradigm in organisation studies: positivist, constructivist, and critical. They
have clearly distinctive basic assumptions, numerous publications based on the given
paradigms, and there is a critical mass in the research community. These criteria are
based on Kuhn’s (1970) description, even though it is known that Burrell and Morgan
(1979) and most of their followers used Kuhn’s work only as inspiration, not literally.

Three dominant paradigms: positivist, constructivist, and critical

paradigms
A positivist paradigm builds on objective epistemology and ontology, and it does not
question the existing societal order. It has clear overlap with Burrell-Morgan’s function-
alist paradigm. As an example, GLOBE research investigates how culture influences
leadership and management practices in 62 countries (House et al., 2004). Constructivism
applies subjective epistemology and ontology, and it is also at the societal consensus end
of the scale. It is very similar to Burrell-Morgan’s interpretivism, but as Schwandt (2000)
clearly describes, the emphases of the two philosophical approaches differ. Interpretivism’s
major concern is Verstehen and explaining (interpreting), while constructivism’s major
concern is social construction processes. It is anti-essentialist and focuses on human
processes, and, more importantly, it is not about individual sense-making, but rather, the
collective generation of meanings or frames of reference (Romani et al., 2011; Schwandt,
2000). As an example, Cunliffe and Karunanayake (2013) present the findings of 3-month
ethnographic fieldwork in a tea plantation in Sri Lanka, on how macro- and micro-dis-
courses maintain and construct the identity of the workers. Finally, it is necessary of
combining all theories that are essentially concerned with societal change into one criti-
cal paradigm. While it is obvious that there are differences between postmodern and
critical approaches, and Burrell and Morgan (1979) and their followers make a distinc-
tion between radical humanism and radical structuralism, Adler’s (2002) ‘big tent’
approach seems to be widely accepted in Critical Management Studies (CMS), which
might include Marxists, post-Marxists, post-modernists, feminists, ecological thinkers,
irreductionists, critical-realists, postcolonial researchers, and many others who might
Primecz 7

Figure 3.  Dominant paradigms in organisational studies.

Source: Author’s own.

have major criticism of the existing social order. This is why it is logical that different or
even contradictory forms of epistemology, ontology, and methodology might be present
in one paradigm: the critical paradigm. For example, Banerjee (2008) argues that the
contemporary organisations, as the result of colonialism, exercise coercive power over
ex-colonies, and in this way, many people lose their access to health, livelihoods and
communities are destroyed, and eventually vulnerable people die. The overview of three
paradigms is illustrated in Figure 3.

Research methodology
Four major journals which publish IHRM studies have been reviewed since 1990, as the
first IHRM textbook was published at that time (Dowling and Schuler, 1990). Purposive
sample (Mason, 2017) combined with feasibility was the guiding principle in journal
selection. IHRM textbooks (Brewster et al., 2011; Dowling et al., 2017; Harzing and
Pinnington, 2011) and syllabi were the inspirations to choose journals. In line with the
narrative review approach (Hodgkinson and Ford, 2014), I intended to investigate the
selected papers in the journals thoroughly, so I needed to keep the number of journals
low, in order to make it feasible to conduct the analysis, and the same time the quality of
the sample was crucial. This is why one leading journal of international business was
selected (Journal of World Business), one leading journal of Cross-Cultural Management
(CCM) was selected (International Journal of Cross Cultural Management), one top
journal of HRM was selected (International Journal of Human Resources Management
(IJHRM)), and one niche journal specialising in a significant issue of IHRM – namely,
expatriation – was selected (Journal of Global Mobility). All four journals are often
quoted in IHRM publications, and some milestone articles of the field were published in
these journals. Beyond that, critical mass of IHRM articles can be found in each journal,
8 German Journal of Human Resource Management 00(0)

not only sporadically. These journals are not engaged to any social science paradigms
explicitly, and they accept papers with any methodology, which fulfils the criteria of
scientific rigour. For these reasons, these journals seemed to be good choice in order to
have a valid and reliable overview of the paradigmatic state of the field. Alternative
choice of the journals with similar criteria could have resulted in similar outcomes about
the paradigmatic state of IHRM.
The IJHRM is a general HRM journal, which also includes IHRM topics. IHRM can
be defined as ‘a branch of management studies that investigates the design and effects of
organizational human resource practices in cross-cultural contexts’ (Peltonen, 2006) and
Dowling et al. (2017) argues that IHRM has been built on three sources: (1) cross-cul-
tural management literature: international aspects of human behaviour within organisa-
tions, (2) the comparative industrial relations and HRM literature, and (3) HRM systems
in various countries, namely HRM in multinational firms. These definitions inspired the
search process. As an initial step, I analysed the last 3 years (2016–2018) of IJHRM
without any search words. I opened every article and evaluated the content to ascertain
whether it was IHRM-related, or not explicitly IHRM-related, and I categorised each
article based on the paradigm to which it belonged. In the past 3 years (2016–2018), I
scanned through 389 articles, among which 281 articles were not explicitly IHRM-
related, and 108 articles were IHRM-related. This profound investigation of 389 papers
gave the basis to define initial keywords for further research: namely, expatriate issues,
cross-cultural comparisons of HRM practices, MNCs’ HRM practices, and language
issues. During the review process, I refined my decisions by examining more closely
articles dealing with MNCs, because many studies were done on MNCs, but a rather
large part of them did not cover IHRM issues, as they remained in one subsidiary. At the
same time, articles about expatriates, languages, and cross-cultural comparisons proved
to be IHRM-related studies, bearing in mind that some studies referred to CCM models
(such as Hofstede, 1980; the GLOBE model in House et al., 2004, etc.), but remained
within one geographical area. I did not consider these to be IHRM-related articles. I have
never made decisions based on title, abstract, or keyword. I read the introductory section,
I scanned through the body of the article, always paying more attention to the methodol-
ogy sections, and I read the conclusions.
In the second round of research, I conducted a keyword search in the EBSCO data-
base. As I identified the best possible keywords for IHRM articles, I tried several possi-
bilities until I ended up with four keywords: ‘global’, ‘language’, ‘cross-cultural’, and
‘expatriation’. I compared the articles between 2016 and 2018 that I had identified as
IHRM-related and that had an adequate overlap with the results of keyword search. I
found 55 articles, which I identified as IHRM-related which the keyword search did not
include, and there were 25 articles, which were considered to be IHRM-related, and the
keyword search clustered as IHRM. I reconsidered seven articles, which means that 17
articles were mistakenly grouped as IHRM-related. In these cases, ‘cross-cultural’ was
mentioned in the article, but they were actually single-culture studies. I continued the
search, bearing in mind the possible mistakes that might mean that a few studies might
be mistakenly clustered as IHRM, when it is in fact a single-culture study, and bearing in
mind that the keyword search might leave out certain papers.
Primecz 9

Table 1.  Main data about the analysed journals.

IJHRM JWB IJCCM JGM

Starting year 1990 1965 (as Columbia Journal of World Business) 2000 2013
Years 29 21 19 7
(1997–)
Issues 329 100 58 18
Available publications 2723 1192 400 137
Number of IHRM articles 721 511 280 137

IJHRM: The International Journal of Human Resource Management; JWB: Journal of World Business; IJCCM:
International Journal of Cross Cultural Management; JGM: Journal of Global Mobility; IHRM: International Human
Resource Management.
Source: Author’s own.

The Journal of World Business was investigated through its website, where publica-
tions dating back to 1997 are available. With a keyword search (human resource manage-
ment), 577 items were identified, among which 511 were full research papers and 66
were other files, such as calls for papers, author lists, and other items. Consequently, 511
articles were investigated. In the International Journal of Cross Cultural Management, I
again applied ‘human resource management’ as a search word. I identified 245 articles,
which could be recognised as IHRM-related articles. Finally, the Journal of Global
Mobility was examined. I classified all articles as IHRM studies in the Journal of Global
Mobility, as all articles deal with expatriate issues. I identified 137 articles, and I scanned
through them. I reviewed 1649 articles all together. Table 1 gives an overview of the
journals and the number of articles investigated in each journal.
The demarcation line between IHRM and HRM is not always clear-cut, but the pur-
pose of this article is to identify the paradigmatic map of the IHRM research field, and
this is why it was far more important to make unambiguous decisions about the articles
to show the paradigms to which they belong. It was possible to make a clear decision as
to whether the study was positivist, constructivist, or critical in the vast majority of arti-
cles. In some cases, the distinction was not so straight forward, so I kept the ‘positivist/
constructivist’, ‘constructivist/critical’, and ‘positivist/critical’ categories, mainly for
papers applying mixed methods and clearly involving more than one paradigm. I have
not categorised, for example, as ‘positivist/constructivist’ a mixed methods paper apply-
ing large-scale questionnaire and interview methods, when the overall ethos of the study
was positivist. This means that the decision was not mechanical, but rather, it was
reflected upon, especially in the cases of articles where two paradigms emerged. Above
all, I kept a category as ‘undefinable’ for those studies which either applied all three para-
digms, or where the paper was written at an abstraction level, which made it impossible
to ascertain the guiding principle of the author and the paper; many editorials and some
review papers fell into this category. It is worth mentioning that some review papers or
editorial papers were explicitly engaged with one paradigm (e.g. critical or positivist),
and in these cases, I categorised them according to their paradigms, meaning that these
decisions were not mechanical, either.
10 German Journal of Human Resource Management 00(0)

Results: paradigms in international human resource

management
Positivist studies undoubtedly dominate the field, constructivist publications are in the
minority, and critical papers in these journals in the field of IHRM are almost non-exist-
ent. The number of studies combining two paradigms is also informative: constructivist
approaches are relatively frequently combined with positivist research, and even though
pure critical studies are almost absent, in combination with constructivism, we can state
that critical ideas are present in the field of IHRM. At the same time, undefinable papers
are regrettably high in number, which indicates a lack of paradigmatic reflection in the
field. Considering only those studies that could be associated unquestionably with one
paradigm, it is clear that the large majority (around 4/5) is positivist, the minority (almost
1/5) is constructivist, and the tiny minority (around 1/50) is critical. Table 2 summarises
the number of articles in each paradigmatic category, as well as the proportion of papers
which can be associated with pure paradigms (positivist, constructivist, and critical).
Figure 4 shows the visual representation of articles, which could be clearly categorised
into the three major paradigms: positivism, constructivism, and critical.

Positivist paradigm in international human resource management

The main characteristic of positivism is that it takes the natural sciences as its role model
(Donaldson, 2003; Pfeffer, 1993). The decisive characteristics of this type of research is
that there is an assumption that social phenomenon can be measured with variables,
among which there might be mathematical statistical relationships, and the aim of the
investigation is to discover if these relationships exist and, if they do exist, whether they
are strong or weak. In order to apply this logic to social sciences, many researchers intro-
duce hypotheses, and they develop models about the relationships among dependent and
independent variables, such as in Dickmann et al. (2018), García-Cabrera et al. (2018)
and Ho et al. (2016). In some cases, proposals are used for the same purpose, such in
Vasilaki et al. (2016). The existence of hypotheses is not a proof of positivist research,
but it is a strong indicator. I read the hypotheses of the studies, and the hypotheses were
checked to ascertain whether the statements were mirrored as causal relationships
between (or among) variables developed by the researchers. Models are often involved
in positivist studies, and they are frequently visualised by figures with arrows, which
symbolize that one variable affect another, and the degree to which it is effected, and the
relationship between two variables is typically measured by statistical methods, very
often with multivariate statistics building on dependent and independent variables, for
example, correlations, factor analysis, and variate analysis, such as in Li and Lee (2015)
or Presbitero and Toledano (2018).
The aim and scope of these investigations are often concerned about effectivity, pro-
ductivity, or performance in general, or in some cases, competitiveness. A model exam-
ple of these kind of publications is the work of Kornelakis et al. (2017), who developed
six hypotheses about the relationship between productivity: and (1) bargaining, (2) pres-
ence of trade unions, (3) work councils, (4) performance-related pay, (5) teamwork, and
(6) training in post-crisis European workplaces. They analysed data from the European
Company Survey of approximately 27,000 establishments. They built a model with
 Primecz

Table 2.  The overall data on IHRM papers.

Positivist Constructivist Critical Positivist/ Positivist/critical Constructivist/ Undefinable Total

constructivist critical
Total number of articles 1023 233 30 61 1 12 289 1649
Number of articles in 1023 233 30 – – – – 1286
dominant paradigms
Percentage of articles in 79.6% 18.1% 2.3% – – – – 100%
dominant paradigms

IHRM: International Human Resource Management.

Source: Author’s own data collection.
11
12 German Journal of Human Resource Management 00(0)

Figure 4.  Proportion of articles in three main paradigms in IHRM.

Source: Author’s own development based on research data.

dependent and independent variables and applied multivariate statistics, in this case,
regression analysis. They provide strong evidence based on their quantitative analysis
that productivity is higher where the institutional context is built on neoliberal principles.
The study eventually represents a good example of the strong and explicit application of
natural science-like epistemology and supporting the existing societal status quo, namely
neoliberal capitalism. A similarly good example of a positivist publication, the work of
Li and Lee (2015) investigated whether knowledge transfer within MNCs can hurt per-
formance. The authors also developed hypotheses stating clear causal relationships,
which are nicely organised into a model (Li and Lee, 2015: 666, Figure 1). Their sample
was 1000 randomly selected firms from the China Foreign Enterprises Directory; they
developed measures among which hierarchical linear regression analyses were applied,
with the result showing that knowledge transfer from the headquarters to the subsidiaries
does not always improve productivity, especially when the subsidiary is more entrepre-
neurial. A causal relationship was assumed among measures (variables) in the study, and
large-scale quantitative methods were used to prove this relationship, which is why it can
be clearly clustered as a positivist study.
While hypotheses are typically developed for quantitative research, it is possible to
develop hypothesis for qualitative research, although it is very rare. I have not found
any examples of this during this review process. At the same time, the qualitative
research method does not necessarily mean that the study is not positivist. A good exam-
ple is the grounded theory method developed by Corbin and Strauss (1990), which is
often used in a positivist way, while Charmaz (2005) argues that it is possible to apply
it in positivist and constructivist approaches, depending on the researchers’ assumptions
and practical application of the method. I found several examples in the review of the
qualitative method being applied to grounded theory in a positivist way, similarly to
Gephart’s (2004) observation. For example, Perera et al. (2018) collected face-to-face,
Primecz 13

in-depth interviews with expatriates in Malaysia about their perception of and the pro-
cess of responses to psychological contract breach. While the initial phase of the
research was inductive, so the pattern emerged from empirical material, which is in line
with the constructivist approach to science, but the researchers applied a model as a
theoretical map in Perera et al. (2018: 1459) with a positivist logic. Gephart (2004)
notes that data collection and data analysis are equally important, when the characteris-
tics of an article is classified – for example, data collection might be qualitative, but the
data analysis is quantitative, and consequently the result is a positivist study. In the
work of Perera et al. (2018), they identified phenomena (e.g. attitude, cognition, etc.)
among which propositions were drawn up. Eventually, they end up with a model which
connected concepts with causal relationships, even though they did not measure them
with statistical analysis.
A further example of qualitative research which was categorised as positivist
research is the work of McNulty et al. (2009), who investigate the connection between
global staffing practices and the variables which influence it. While the authors build
their study on in-depth interviews, arguing that it is possible to acquire an in-depth
knowledge of complex issues and processes, their overall approach, rhetoric, and
analytic style were overtly positivist. Not only is the knowledge production was based
on objectivist assumptions in an epistemological sense (Burrell and Morgan, 1979;
Guba and Lincoln, 2005; Hassard and Kelemen, 2002), but also, their view of society
and organisation leans towards the consensus (status quo) end of the scale, and con-
sequently, the research can be categorised as functionalist (Burrell and Morgan,
1979), which was manifested in a managerialist overtone. As the objective of the
research was dominated by the endeavour towards effectivity, return on investment
(ROI) was the focus. McNulty et al. (2009) identified environmental, individual and
organisational variables which might influence changes in expatriate ROI, and they
eventually could conclude that a non-linear causal relationship often exists between
strategy, HRM, and firm performance. This kind of basic assumption (objective ontol-
ogy, epistemology, and human nature and status quo in society) is somewhat common
in quantitative research practice. Qualitative methods are often open to alternative
paradigms, but not in this case. In this example, the researchers went further with the
development of positivist research: they introduced variables and, based on their
interviews, calculated their impact on ROI. This step made it inevitable that the
research paradigm of the study was positivist.
The last crucial characteristic of a positivist piece of research is that it aims to reach
generalisability. Positivist research ideally builds on a full sample (extremely rare) or a
representative sample which has identical characteristics to the full sample. While in
social science, such as sociology, this endeavour is often expected, in management and
organisational studies, it is rather rare. Still, the attempt to have research results which
are generalisable for a wider public is often expected and appreciated. The majority of
the positivist studies were quantitative, but the aforementioned qualitative studies and
similar ones fulfilled similar requirements as the quantitative ones: researchers identified
causal relationships between variables, as in natural sciences, and they aimed for gener-
alisable theories, like in Dickmann et al. (2018).
14 German Journal of Human Resource Management 00(0)

Constructivist paradigm in international human resource management

The number of studies conducted in the constructivist paradigm is rather low compared
to positivist works. They build on subjectivist epistemology and ontology. A large part
of IHRM research incorporates studies on culture, which is the home context of inter-
pretive and constructivist research, based on Geertz’s (1973) seminal work, which is the
starting point of all interpretive and constructivist research. Bearing in mind that inter-
pretive and constructivist paradigms overlap, but they are not the same (Schwandt,
2000), I am using ‘constructivist paradigm’ as an umbrella term for interpretivist and
constructivist works. As it is not easy to decide at first sight if a study is constructivist
or not, I had to read those papers which applied qualitative methodology more thor-
oughly. Although qualitative methodology does not indicate a 100% constructivist
approach, quantitative methods could be difficult to apply when the researchers follow
subjectivist epistemology. The most important feature of the constructivist paradigm is
that it investigates and shows the reality construction of the actors, and the investigation
remains context-dependent. Large-scale studies do not adhere to this approach, and
instead of general knowledge, local reality is emphasised in the constructivist paradigm.
The decisive characteristics of the constructivist paradigm are ‘emerging’ themes, such
as in Hopkins et al. (2016).
In a few cases, it was easy to identify whether the research was constructivist, when
the authors made it explicit in the methodology section, abstract, or introduction that
they had built their arguments on the interpretive or constructivist paradigm, quoting
seminal theorists of the paradigm, such as Berger and Luckmann (1966), for example, in
Kirk (2016), or ‘Heidegger’s interpretive phenomenology methodology to uncover lay-
ers of hidden ‘truths’ via the interview medium, as expressed in words and narratives’
(Van Maanen, 2006) in Ang and Tan (2016: 48), and emphasised inductive analysis. The
model quality of constructivist research is published by Uygur et al. (2017), who made it
explicit that their study is ‘informed by social constructivism’, beyond Berger and
Luckmann (1966); they quote the key interpretive concept of Weber’s Verstehen, when
they explain ‘explanation and understanding’ in the light of ‘interpretive understanding
of social action’ (Uygur et al., 2017: 1217–1218). But these rhetorical forms would not
be enough to be categorised as ‘constructivist’, it was rather their actual analysis which
built on ‘five emerging themes’ from interviews. Their presentation of findings con-
nected the actors’ own wording with theoretical concepts, and they remained loyal to
their qualitative data when they developed their results. Their analysis was insightful and
in-depth, and they have not come up with a model which contains variables connected
with causal relationships.
The other obvious sign of constructivist research is ethnography. It is, again, not enough
that the authors state that their work is ethnographic, because it is possible to analyse eth-
nographic data collection positivistically, although it is rather rare; it is also possible to
conduct critical ethnography, which would imply the critical paradigm, not constructivism.
Papers which claimed to be ethnographic were thoroughly scrutinised. For example,
Mahadevan (2012) builds on ethnographic research when she presents the research context
in great detail, and her analysis involved context-rich insights from the actors’ perspectives,
and she eventually draws conclusions from qualitative interpretations of the involved
Primecz 15

persons, without developing models of variables connected with causal relationships.

Similarly, Alberti and Danaj (2017) apply ethnography with participant observation and
in-depth interviews. They gain insights from the migrants’ perspective, which they investi-
gate, and they remain faithful to their subjects’ viewpoints when they theorised their find-
ings. They also avoided developing a model with variables connected with causal
relationships. It is also worth mentioning the ethnography of Charleston et al. (2018), who
built their results on emerging themes of their study, which is an important feature of the
constructivist paradigm, where research questions are open, and issues, topics, and phe-
nomena emerge from the unstructured data collected by the researchers.
It is observable that more data do not necessarily lead to a better interpretive and con-
structivist analysis. Kvale (1996) highlights the problem of 1000-page interview tran-
scripts that he uses as an example of mistakes in qualitative interviewing. He argues that
it is the researcher’s task to monitor data saturation, and when new data input (e.g. inter-
view, observation) does not bring further insights, it is necessary to stop data collection,
otherwise a redundant and overly large dataset will be the base of analysis. Kvale (1996)
made it explicit that a qualitative piece of research usually builds on 5–25 interviews,
and this is ideal for in-depth analysis. Some qualitative research in IHRM included more
interviews, and these examples led to positivist analysis, for example, in Horak (2017),
who collected 44 interviews, although he analysed only 23 interviews for the article. The
overall tone and style of analysis remained positivist, the richness of data was not
exploited, and the potential of constructivist analysis was lost. It is difficult to evaluate
whether the researcher approached the field with a positivistic attitude, and this is why
he collected an unnecessarily large number of interviews, or if the large number of inter-
views made it impossible to undertake an interpretive analysis – but we have to bear in
mind that in the case of constructivist analysis, less is more.

Critical paradigm in international human resource management

The number of studies classified as critical was very low compared to constructivist and
positivist works. While critical paradigms might have fallen into the subjectivist or
objectivist epistemology and ontology, the overall tone of the article was critical, not
only in the everyday sense, but it also aimed to criticise existing societies and the world
order generally. Although Willmott (2003), the leading scholar of CMS, has stated
explicitly that Burrell-Morgan’s radical humanism can be considered as the true legacy
of CMS, the term ‘critical paradigm’ is used here in a wider sense, as an umbrella term
in line with Adler (2002), Guba and Lincoln (2005), and Gephart (2004). There is a sci-
entific argument to distinguish postmodern and critical paradigms (Deetz, 1996; Primecz
et al., 2015; Romani et al., 2018a), but the low number of studies in each of the para-
digms and the small differences between them make it reasonable to keep them in one
group. The distinction between the two paradigms is instead based on emphasis, and the
variety among critical arguments is even greater than the actual difference between a
postmodern and an ‘average’ critical study.
The distinctive character of critical IHRM studies is their concern for power inequali-
ties, oppression, exploitation, or injustice. People on the periphery are in the focus, with
the explicit or implicit aim of increasing their situation or easing their hardship. One
16 German Journal of Human Resource Management 00(0)

possible topic is the employment of people with a migration background. This topic,
however, does not determine if the study will be critical. It is possible to discuss the chal-
lenges of migrant integration in the workplace from a merely positivist viewpoint,
describing the enabling and interfering forces as variables and developing a model of
successful migrant integration into the organisation from managerialist point of view, for
example. The same study could be done in a constructivist paradigm, building on the
actors’ view of the situation, and remaining neutral on political issues. In contrast with
the two previous approaches, a critical approach would problematise the inequalities
between powerful and powerless members of the organisation, they would uncover the
oppressive mechanism, and they would illuminate the exploitative tendencies. In order
to reveal critical articles, I had to analyse more thoroughly the possible manuscripts.
Among the examples, I found that postcolonialism was one of the analytic frames
used when critical paradigms were employed. Kamoche et al. (2012), Jackson (2002,
2012), and Jackson et al. (2013) analyse different situations in Africa from postcolonial
perspectives. Critical approaches, and especially postcolonial frames, require the histori-
cal context to be revealed, like in the work of Al Aris (2014). Other critical paradigm
researchers investigate Western hegemony in Russia (Dixon et al., 2014); organisational
control, ethics, and power (James, 1994); or othering (Mahadevan and Kilian-Yasin,
2017), applying critical discourse analysis, which is a method relatively often used by
critical scholars. Review papers have rarely fallen into the critical paradigm, with one
exception being the work of Almond and Menendez (2014), who use ‘critical’ in their
title, but not in an everyday sense – they disclose the ideological nature of comparative
HRM, as many critical studies aim to show the latent ideology in the seemingly neutral
research. In the critical paradigm, it is questioned whether it is possible to conduct any
research without ideological assumptions, and this is why they find it important to show
the ideological component of positivist and constructivist studies.

Research beyond the three dominant paradigms

Some studies could not be unambiguously classified into one paradigm. In many cases,
features of two paradigms were present, most often the positivist and constructivist para-
digms. Frequent examples include the application of large-scale questionnaires and
series of in-depth interviews, and the researchers followed mixed methods approaches.
In line with Burrell and Morgan (1979), there is no research which is ontologically, epis-
temologically, and methodologically equally subjectivist and objectivist. Other research-
ers, for example, Gioia and Pitre (1990), have argued, however, that there are transition
zones between paradigms. During the review process, I found some articles which could
be categorised as being positioned in the transition zones of two paradigms. One exam-
ple of positivist and interpretive analysis, which is not mixed methods, is that of Yao
(2014), who applied exploratory and interpretive approaches in her qualitative studies.
She searched for emerging themes, while using the flagship positivist research of
Hofstede’s dimensions as analytical frames. Although some steps towards quantification
of qualitative data were taken (a positivist feature), the classical interpretive analysis was
conducted in a professional way (a constructivist feature). In other cases, critical and
constructivist research was combined, where, for example, the researchers started their
Primecz 17

data collection in a constructivist manner, and they built their findings around their sub-
jects’ sense-making, while the analysis process seemed to be rather critical, for example,
in Alberti and Danaj (2017) or Hadjisolomou et al. (2017). Finally, the transition zone
between the positivist and critical paradigm resulted a study featuring quantitative data
collection with the help of a questionnaire in Portugal and in Mozambique, which ended
up in postcolonial analysis (Dibben et al., 2017), which was a somewhat logical analyti-
cal frame in the given cultural contexts. All these articles were clearly identifiable with
two paradigms, although they were not multi-paradigmatic research (Lewis and Grimes,
1999; Lewis and Kelemen, 2002), because in these cases, the researchers did not keep
the two paradigmatic analyses separate, which is a distinctive feature of multiparadigm
analysis.

Limitations and future directions

The limitation of the current research is connected with the fact that a large number of
articles have been published in IHRM. First of all, it is highly challenging to detect all
possible high-quality IHRM studies, especially when reviewing only four significant
journals, and consequently, some important publications might have been excluded from
the analysis, which were published similar journals (IB, CCM, or HRM) or even differ-
ent kinds of journals (e.g. general management journals). The second limitation is the
inherent difficulty in conducting a valuable analysis of 1649 articles. I consciously
avoided keyword searches among the selected articles, as the essence of a paradigm can-
not be captured by keywords, and instead requires a consideration of the overall ethos of
the given text. Despite the limitations, valuable conclusions can be drawn from these
results.

Future research: where shall we go from here?

The overall picture of paradigm plurality in the field of IHRM points to various future
directions. One important claim is that it is necessary to increase paradigm reflexivity. As
there are rather large proportions of papers which cannot be defined as belonging to one
paradigm – as many researchers might not be aware of paradigms and their assumptions
or they find it too abstract or impractical to deal with paradigms in their research – they
are ‘non-consumers’, to use Hassard and Kelemen’s (2002) term. Some undefinable
papers were not the product of ‘non-consumer’ research activities; rather, they were sim-
ply the combination of more than one paradigms of studies within one review, often
without reflecting on paradigmatic assumptions. I propose that it is desirable to make
basic assumptions explicit when research results are presented, especially when more
than one paradigms are involved. Finally, it is striking that mainstream positivist research
rarely, if ever, deals with abstract questions, such as the philosophy of science and the
philosophy of society. Today’s research practice does not require, especially in main-
stream studies, scholars to reflect upon the paradigmatic assumptions of their research.
The second claim is connected with the fact that positivist research strongly domi-
nates the IHRM field. Consequently, constructivist and critical research is in the minor-
ity. While a large number of papers in positivist research do not bring exciting novelty,
18 German Journal of Human Resource Management 00(0)

and are instead ‘puzzle-solving’, to use Kuhn’s (1970) term, and their contribution is
relatively minor to science, non-mainstream research results might generate new insights
and even breakthroughs, when compared to mainstream positivist research. Constructivist
research is close to actors’ perspectives, and their interpretations and sense-making can
renew social science, including IHRM, because, above all, the actors’ perspectives might
result in more valuable theories for practice. If we go beyond the constructivist para-
digm, we can see that the critical paradigm can bring even more novelty with its unex-
pected perspectives. CMS, including critical IHRM, is always suspicious of the existing
power structures and world order, and such scholars search for more fair organisations
and societies. Consequently, the critical paradigm can contribute valuable insights, com-
prehension, and wisdom to organisational and societal practices. Above all, the critical
paradigm enhances critical self-reflexivity.
Moving beyond producing more paradigm-reflexive research and getting involved in
non-mainstream studies leads us to the third claim. It is worth experimenting with new
paradigmatic directions, such as the participatory paradigm (Denzin and Lincoln, 2005)
or any other undiscovered paradigms. The task of the researcher should be to find new
paths towards knowledge, and new paradigms might bring about unexpected results.
Researchers ought to be encouraged to conduct unconventional studies instead of repli-
cating the same or similar research with a new sample. Besides developing new para-
digms, multiparadigm research (Hassard, 1991; Lewis and Grimes, 1999; Lewis and
Kelemen, 2002) might be a more feasible way to enhance creativity and novelty, even
though it is also challenging at the practical level (Romani and Primecz, 2019). Different
forms of multiparadigm research require a strong commitment to paradigm reflexivity,
as well as a conscious combination of research processes and results of distinct para-
digms (cf. Primecz et al., 2015; Romani et al., 2011; Romani and Primecz, 2019; Schultz
and Hatch, 1996). Multiparadigm research is almost entirely absent from the field of
IHRM, and this would move the discipline forward.

Conclusion
After investigating 1649 research articles in four major journals, it is obvious that the
overall picture of paradigm plurality in the field of IHRM shows a strong dominance of
positivist research, similarly to other management and organisation studies disciplines.
The existing non-mainstream research brings novelty into the field not only methodo-
logically, but also with regard to content. This is why I propose to publish more construc-
tivist and critical studies. It is also important to keep in mind that qualitative methods do
not automatically lead to non-positivist research. Good exemplars of constructivist and
critical studies are available both in the field of IHRM and in management and organi-
sation studies. Paradigm reflexivity, openness towards new paradigmatic and methodo-
logical approaches, and possible multiparadigm studies would lead to more exciting,
relevant, and novel results.

Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this
article.
Primecz 19

ORCID iD
Henriett Primecz https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6064-2759

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