A multiparadigm approach to job search scholarship

This article examines the job search literature through a multiparadigmatic framework and makes a case for scholars to embrace alternative ways of looking at job search that goes beyond the dominant positivist paradigm. A theoretical approach was used drawing on Burrell and Morgan's multiparadigmatic framework to show the different ways in which job search can be perceived, interpreted, and understood. The article demonstrates how employing alternative paradigm lenses (namely, interpretivism, critical management theory, and postmodernism) located within nonpositivism to analyze job search can complement the dominant positivist approach to yield a more holistic and comprehensive view of the job search phenomenon. The article, therefore, opens up a space for a multiparadigmatic approach to studying job search.