Hermeneutic phenomenology as methodological practice: Interpreting lived experience in qualitative research

Abstract

Qualitative research frequently claims to investigate lived experience, yet many studies provide limited methodological articulation of how lived experience is interpreted, situated, and constituted in context. This article advances hermeneutic phenomenology as a rigorous methodological approach for qualitative inquiry, clarifying how lived experience is understood and interpreted within the interpretivist and constructivist research traditions. Drawing exclusively on philosophical and methodological sources commonly employed in qualitative research, including Heidegger’s hermeneutic phenomenology, Gadamer’s philosophical hermeneutics, Schutz’s phenomenological sociology, and van Manen’s phenomenology of practice, the paper develops a conceptual and methodological synthesis. Hermeneutic phenomenology is explicated as a practical methodological framework that informs research design, data generation, and interpretive analysis through principles such as being-in-the-world, lifeworld, temporality, fore-structures of understanding, intersubjectivity, co-constitution, reflexivity, and the hermeneutic circle. The paper demonstrates that hermeneutic phenomenology provides a coherent methodological logic for interpreting lived experiences as meaningfully embedded in everyday practice rather than as decontextualised accounts. By foregrounding interpretation, temporality, and reflexive engagement, the framework clarifies how meaning emerges through iterative movement between pre-understanding and interpretive insight, thereby strengthening the analytical depth and transparency of qualitative research. This article contributes to qualitative research in organisations and management by positioning hermeneutic phenomenology not merely as a philosophical orientation but as an operational methodological practice. In doing so, it addresses ongoing concerns about methodological vagueness in qualitative studies of lived experience. It offers a robust, reflexive framework for researchers seeking to investigate meaning, practice, and lived experience with greater interpretive rigour. In conclusion, the article positions hermeneutic phenomenology as an operational methodological practice capable of enhancing interpretative rigour in qualitative studies of lived experience in organisational and management contexts. It recommends that researchers explicitly articulate their interpretive stance, embed reflexivity throughout the research process, and evaluate rigour through philosophically aligned criteria that prioritise interpretive coherence, transparency, and contextual grounding over procedural validation techniques.