Metatheory

The previous chapter discussed the importance of trust in business and outlined a position regarding interpersonal situational trust which construed it to be a subjective a posteriori tacit knowledge whose development during the course of a situation, and across situations by way of its ‘relegation’ to learnt trust, an a priori tacit intuition which forms one of the situational cues affecting the development of situational trust in future situations, is best considered as a process. The previous chapter also noted the general aim of the book as an exploration of the importance and role of trust, and particularly interpersonal trust, in the small business setting. As such, an underlying intention is the attempt to contribute in some way to the understanding of social interaction by theoretical and empirical investigation. A prerequisite of any such attempt is the explicit positioning of the research with regard to its metatheoretical stance. As has been argued elsewhere, this is because even where not explicitly addressed, the taken for granted world of empirical research is riddled with assumed answers to the questions of legitimacy, definition and scope…[Thus, one] cannot engage in methodological enquiry without being aware, either explicitly or implicitly, of epistemology and ontology. (Harrison and Dibben, 1996)