Bridging paradigmatic divides to theorise in a new context: analysing accounts of trust development among culturally diverse organisational members

This chapter discusses the challenges that we as foreign researchers encountered when analysing our data collected in a South African organisational context. To overcome this challenge, we explore an underused strategy of bridging epistemological paradigms when conceptualising and analysing data in new research contexts. We show how the widely adopted notion of paradigm incommensurability which requires the prioritising of one epistemic paradigm over another can hinder a generative data analysis process in an underexplored research context such as ours. Mapping our research construct through both the functionalist and interpretivist paradigm, we illustrate the limitations we encountered and as a solution, offer the strategy of ‘paradigm interplay’ as a bridge that merges both paradigms. Our proposed approach allows for the simultaneous creation of localised (emic) knowledge as well as the contribution towards broader (etic) theory. Finally, we encourage qualitative researchers analysing their findings to reflect upon the differences that can emerge between their own paradigmatic views as well as the views of their respondents when attempting to contribute to knowledge in an emerging market context.