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This paper uses critical realism to identify mechanisms that activate successful relationships. It draws data from a longitudinal, mixed‐methods study of youth who used multiple services. It examines functionality of four relational mechanisms: power, recognition, responsiveness and mutuality that lead to positive change and explores the implications of these for practice with youth with complex needs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses the alignment of framework analysis with a critical realist philosophy in qualitative analysis. Whilst both are used in social sciences and prioritise meaning making of complex phenomena, the two approaches have not been combined prior to the study outlined in this article. The article describes critical realist ontology and epistemology, the implications of this philosophy for data analysis and the structured processes of framework analysis. Using an example from a study of youth programmes in Aotearoa/New Zealand, the article demonstrates the value of framework analysis for critical realist studies. Emphasis is placed on the capacity of framework analysis to support varied foci on data, theory, and different modes of inferencing which are used in critical realist studies to provide an explanatory account of data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As doctoral students from New Zealand and Australia, advised by supervision teams with a diversity of critical realist experience from limited to none, we came independently to the 2018 Critical Realism conference – primed to seek increased understanding, confidence, motivation, and reassurance. We certainly found these things from the pre-conference, presentations, and individuals within the critical realist community. We also found each other, and a virtual writing group was born. This article is a description of what we did, why, and the outcomes we experienced over the final two years completing our theses. It identifies the structures, contexts, motivations, and mechanisms from which our emotional, critical realist and writing-related outcomes emerged. We outline the roles of serendipitous timing, culture, different disciplinary approaches, administrative structures, and types of interactions on the social learning we developed. We anchor our discussion in recent theoretical literature about the role of writing groups in doctoral education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

INTRODUCTION: Critical realism (CR) has much to offer to social work research because of its recognition of the existence of objective and subjective realities. Bhaskar (1978) classifies these levels of reality as the empirical, the actual and the real. Empirical realities emerge from our experience of the world and include our subjective constructions. The underlying real reality is seen as a productive force, causing the empirical to appear. Researchers using CR methodology can employ an analytic process called retroduction. This approach involves moving back and forth from the empirical to the real to identify causal mechanisms that drive the empirical to manifest. APPROACH: This research brief is the outcome of a research methodology literature review undertaken by two doctoral students who employ CR perspectives. Their research proposals have been used as case studies to demonstrate the usefulness of CR in informing social work research. These findings were presented at the ANZSWWER international symposium held at the University of Auckland in New Zealand. FINDINGS: CR uncovers the epistemic fallacy of reducing ontology to the realm of epistemology. The totalising truth claims of both objectivism and subjectivism are replaced with an alternative conception of stratified forms of reality - the real, actual and empirical. Reality exists both objectively and subjectively. This enables researchers to bridge social constructionism and structural causation. It allows for study that explores the subjective considerations of respondents while examining the objective existence of causal mechanisms such as social structures, systems or processes. CONCLUSION: CR offers an alternative that social work researchers have long been searching for: to engage meaningfully in studies that examine perceived realities at the empirical level and the causal mechanisms that lie behind them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Are today's socially defined limits to function, behaviour and action, historically contested in places where locals and visitors meet and socialize, such as hotels and boarding houses? In this article, critical realism is used to frame an archival search for the antecedents of contested issues of image and identity in the hospitality industry. Findings from the accommodation sector in two spa towns in colonial New Zealand (1880-1920) identify the presence of issues that are still contested today, for example: behaviours such as social display; ambiguous roles for women and indigenous Maori; actions such as the consumption and regulation of alcohol; and the functions of accommodation, food and beverage, entertainment and commercial services. This article fills a gap in the academic literature regarding the use of historical analysis in hospitality and the identification of long running contestations of image and identity in the industry that should be addressed in the contemporary world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Commercialisation of Research, Science and Technology (RS&T) in New Zealand and elsewhere tends to be based on models of technology transfer which are more appropriate for existing economic sectors than for new ones. Scientific entrepreneurship offers another approach to innovation, but research on this phenomenon faces a number of difficulties. Alternative approaches are required. This paper uses a methodology based on the precepts of critical realism, retroductive enquiry and grounded theory to develop a metacompetency model which has the potential to increase the incidence of scientific entrepreneurship. Whether or not this increase actually happens will depend on a number of challenges being overcome, and the paper ends with a discussion of implications for innovation policy and management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]