Organizations and migrant integration: Towards a multiparadigm narrative approach

Abstract

This paper explores the potential of conducting multiparadigm research within and beyond cross-cultural management, using narratives to examine how organizations shape migrant integration experiences and trajectories. It highlights the strengths of paradigmatic multiplicity in research with examples of three illustrative studies respectively using functionalist, interpretive and critical perspectives, while also considering the boundaries of these individual approaches. The paper proceeds to explore the potential of adopting a multiparadigm approach within a research strategy that places narratives at the centre of enquiry. It identifies the scope and focus of future research for a socially and politically important area of enquiry; it evaluates the application of diverse paradigm-driven methodological perspectives including the challenges involved in using them alone and in combination; and it develops a transferable framework to guide research in cross-cultural management, organization and migration studies that helps to assure procedural and conceptual rigour, and to generate practicable insights that facilitate successful integration outcomes.