Mingers’ (1997: 9) methodological pluralism may be considered in three ways. Loose
pluralism suggests that a discipline should support and encourage a variety of
paradigms and a range of methods without prescribing how they should be used and
applied. Complementarism views regarding different paradigms as internally consistent
and therefore more or less appropriate for a particular situation. Strong pluralism
holds that most situations are best dealt with by a blend of methodologies originating
from different paradigms. In a similar vein, Hammersley (1996; cited in Bryman and
Bell, 2003: 482) classifies multi-strategy research into three broad approaches.
‘Triangulation’ refers to the use of qualitative research to corroborate quantitative
research (or vice versa); ‘Facilitation’ is where one research strategy is employed in
order to aid research using another approach; and ‘Complementarity’ is where two
strategies are employed in order to dovetail different aspects of an investigation. In
management science research, Complementarism (cf. Flood and Jackson, 1991)