Interpretivism is proposed as an alternative philosophy to criticize positivism, that is mainly found in the social science, and its opposition to the application of neutral observations, universal laws in natural sciences to social science research (Saunders et al., 2007). Hussy and Hussy (1997) describes interpretivism as a phenomenon that involves understanding human behaviour from the participants' own research frame, and the authors further mentioned that social reality depends on the mind, so research can be influenced by the research process. Interpretivism is used to translate or find the meaning of natural phenomena in the social side (Van Maanen, 1983). Fisher (2004) suggested that interpretivism is researchers …show more content…
This study aims to gain insight into the personal factors of the consumer, situation of the shopping and conformity will affect how extent of impulse buying. So, the researchers followed the philosophical standpoint of the doctrine of both positivism and interpretivism to eliminate the doubts. Positivism was adopted as the main techniques and interpretivism used to obtain more detailed knowledge, and then refine the hypothesis, and finalize the …show more content…
For example, the former is to investigate a specific phenomenon in a meticulous time; the latter is to study over a longer period of changes and development (Saunders et al., 2007). According to Hussey and Hussey (1997), cross-sectional studies are associated with methods of positivism, and are designed to get findings of variables in different contexts but at the same time. The scholars further stated that cross-sectional studies are conducted primarily on the basis of the constraints of both time and resource; while, longitudinal studies involve examining variables or subject groups over time.
Taking into account the availability of the time span and resources of the dissertation, cross-sectional study is more suitable to be used to answer the research question. The time limit is the main reason for choosing this study, with only 3~4 months available, it is impossible to carry out a longitudinal study; followed by changes that have never been the objective of this dissertation, but only the impact of the investigation on an independent variable and dependent variable, that is, exploring the influence of impulsivity traits, purchasing contexts and conformity on impulse buying