Standing on the Shoulders of Giants

Traditions and Innovations in Research Methodology

Brian Boyd, T. Russell Crook, Jane K. Lê, Anne D. Smith, Brian Boyd, T. Russell Crook, Jane K. Lê, Anne D. Smith

• Publisher: Emerald Publishing Limited
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781787563377
• Topic: Negocios y empresa
• Subtopic: I+D

The latest volume of the Research Methodology in Strategy and Management series uncovers theoretical developments in management and strategy, highlighting how firms succeed today, as well as offering cutting edge thinking on new and evolving research methods to study organizations.
Standing on the Shoulders of Giants: Traditions and Innovations in Research Methodology collates a wide range of perspectives on strategy and management and introduces new approaches to researching organizations. Two retrospective accounts from Kathy Eisenhardt and Denny Gioia provide contextual balance to the subsequent chapters which explore various research methodologies, including: qualitative comparative analysis, videometric methods, modes of process research, visual research methods and qualitative research in strategy. This culminates in a useful how-to guide which builds on insights about teaching aspiring entrepreneurs with a "canvas" and provides researchers with a canvas to design and execute high quality projects.
This is an illuminating guide book for all academics and researchers working in the fields of management, strategy, international business, entrepreneurship and organization theory, interested in starting research projects.

AN INTEGRATIVE REVIEW OF QUALITATIVE STRATEGY RESEARCH: PRESENTING 12 “DESIGNS-IN-USE”

Jane K. Lê and Torsten Schmid

ABSTRACT

While qualitative work has a long tradition in the strategy field and has recently regained popularity, we have not paused to take stock of how such work offers contributions. We address this oversight with a review of qualitative studies of strategy published in five top-tier journals over an extended period of 15 years (2003–2017). In an attempt to organize the field, we develop an empirically grounded organizing framework. We identify 12 designs that are evident in the literature, or “designs-in-use” as we call them. Acknowledging important similarities and differences between the various approaches to qualitative strategy research (QSR), we group these designs into three “families” based on their philosophical orientation. We use these designs and families to identify trends in QSR. We then engage those trends to orient the future development of qualitative methods in the strategy field.

Keywords: Strategic management; qualitative research; review; methodical pluralism; designs-in-use; trends in published work

INTRODUCTION

Qualitative research is an integral part of strategic management and has been since the inception of this field (e.g., Bower, 1970; Chandler, 1962; see also Mir & Watson, 2000). While there are various ways to define qualitative research, we adopt a broad definition, which includes any research endeavor based on non-numerical data (Babbie, 2014) that transforms the data using various analytic techniques without seeking to exclusively count or measure. As such, qualitative research represents a diverse set of approaches that offer the potential for unique contributions in multiple areas of strategy. Qualitative research generates novel, empirically grounded theory on new phenomena, such as global strategic alliances (Doz & Hamel, 1998; Ozcan & Eisenhardt, 2009; Ozcan & Santos, 2015), e-business models (Amit & Zott, 2001), or adaptive organizational forms (Lewin & Volberda, 1999). It provides a fresh perspective on classic topics, such as strategic fit (Fortwengel, 2017; Siggelkow, 2002), strategic decision-making (Carmeli, Tishler, & Edmondson, 2012; Eisenhardt, 1989; Maitland & Sammartino, 2015; Smith, 2014), or the multi-business firm (Kownatzki, Walter, Floyd, & Lechner, 2013; Martin & Eisenhardt, 2010). Longitudinal qualitative work illuminates the socially complex dynamics of corporate and institutional entrepreneurship (Armanios, Eesley, Li, & Eisenhardt, 2017; Burgelman & Grove, 2007; Maguire, Hardy, & Lawrence, 2004), dynamic capability (Bingham, Heimeriks, Schijven, & Gates, 2015; Danneels, 2011; Rahmandad & Repenning, 2016), and strategy practice (Jarzabkowski, 2008; Schakel, van Fenema, & Faraj, 2016). Qualitative scholars introduce entirely new research perspectives, such as interpretive research on strategic change (Balogun, Bartunek, & Do, 2015; Isabella, 1990; Mantere, Schildt, & Silince, 2012) or critical studies on participation in strategy (e.g., Mantere & Vaara, 2008). They produce exemplars that inform strategy theory on current best and worst practices (e.g., Grant, 2003, on oil majors, Bartlett & Ghoshal, 1993, on ABB), re-humanize the field by investigating organizational power and politics (e.g., Denis, Lamothe, & Langley, 2001; Guo, Huy, & Xiao, 2017), managerial cognition (e.g., Balogun & Johnson, 2004; Oliver, Calvard, & Potočnik, 2017), and emotion (e.g., Huy, 2011; Massa, Helms, Voronov, & Wang, 2017; Vuori & Huy, 2016), and produce practically relevant theory through participative or collaborative forms of research (e.g., Lüscher & Lewis, 2008; Nigam, Huising, & Golden, 2016).

At the same time, strategic management has been criticized as not fully leveraging the growing and diverse set of qualitative research methods (Eisenhardt, 2019 – this volume; see also Bettis, 1991). These critics suggest that the field’s strong tradition in positivist models derived from natural sciences leads strategy scholars to give preference to particular types of qualitative work, often those that mirror quantitative standards (“quantitative work without numbers”; Bryman, 2004, p. 758) and fail to adopt other novel qualitative approaches. In this chapter, we take up the call to “clarify the different flavors of what we all do in qualitative research […] to pull together the flavors into a more coherent package of guidelines for research” (Eisenhardt, 2019, this volume).

To address this critique and leverage the rich tradition of qualitative research in strategy, we engaged in a systemic review of 338 qualitative studies on strategy phenomena published in five top-tier journals between 2003 and 2017. While there have been reviews of empirical methods in strategic management (e.g., Hitt et al., 1998; Hitt, Boyd, & Li, 2004; Ketchen, Boyd, & Bergh, 2008; Snow & Thomas, 1994), reviews of qualitative management and organization science (e.g., Bluhm, Harman, Lee, & Mitchell, 2011; Reay, Zafar, Monteiro, & Glaser, in press), and focused analyses of select qualitative approaches (e.g., Langley & Abdallah, 2011; also Ray & Smith, 2011a), we still lack a comprehensive review of qualitative research in strategic management. However, such a systematic review of qualitative strategy research (abbreviated “QSR”) is essential to furthering qualitative research within the strategy field and, thereby, advancing strategic management as a generative scholarly field with a methodical toolset capable of investigating strategy phenomena.

The central aim of our chapter is to map out the diverse approaches to qualitative research in strategic management and organize them into a coherent and succinct framework. This effort resulted in 12 core qualitative research designs that we call “designs-in-use.” These designs fall into three families based on their epistemological position (post-positivism, interpretivism, and critical studies), which are consistently identified as core building blocks of qualitative work (e.g., Denzin & Lincoln, 2005; Gephart, 2004; Hammersley, 2007; Orlikowski & Baroudi, 1991). Our label “designs-in-use” highlights our desire to document how qualitative work is actually conducted and presented in practice (Langley & Abdallah, 2011), rather than focusing on ideal types. Thus, the specific methodological approaches we present go beyond well-known generic philosophical orientations or qualitative approaches, such as case study or ethnography. Our intention is to provide more concrete and practical insight into the practice and contribution of qualitative work in strategy by looking at specific applied approaches that feature in leading journals. For each design, we thus summarize the qualitative approach and tools used, identify important methodological foundations, and refer to exemplar papers that illustrate the design. However, as our goal is to provide an overview of qualitative methods and use this to draw out some of the broader trends relating to work conducted in this vein, we necessarily trade off breadth with depth. Therefore, rather than providing rich detail of each of these approaches, we point to sources that provide such detail, while focusing our own writing on the use of these designs, and the overarching implications of these patterns.

Additionally, our review and framework aim to encourage quality in the application and evaluation of QSR. Indeed, a major barrier to the legitimacy of qualitative methods has been the ambiguity around appropriate ways to establish and evaluate the quality of qualitative strategy work (Bansal & Corley, 2011; Pratt, 2008, 2009). Some scholars universally apply established criteria of goodness from post-positivist quantitative research to encourage the transparency, standardization, and rigor of qualitative work (e.g., Gibbert, Ruigrok, & Wicki, 2008). In this vein, scholars focus on identifying specific “best practices” that enhance all forms of qualitative research. For instance, Bluhm et al. (2011) note that qualitative scholars can increase impact by using accuracy checks, employing supportive quantification, conducting longitudinal and multilevel studies, triangulating findings, and documenting methods in a rigorous and transparent manner (for more on transparency, see also Aguinis, Ramani, & Alabduljader, 2018).

However, others believe that the diverse philosophical heritage of qualitative work can only be appreciated by applying distinct and multiple sets of goodness criteria to qualitative work (e.g., Amis & Silk, 2008; Langley & Abdallah, 2011). They emphasize that qualitative research often derives its unique value and impetus from alternative research traditions, such as interpretive or critical research, that imply different criteria and practices for establishing scientific quality. These authors encourage pluralism, arguing that the diversity of qualitative research traditions and practices makes it difficult or even undesirable to move toward standardization (e.g., Bansal & Corley, 2011; Reay et al., in press).

With our framework, we hope that scholars will be able to leverage both the emerging standards of “good” qualitative research and the plurality of research traditions. Thus, our framework incorporates three basic conceptions of quality and criteria of goodness to highlight that post-positivistic, interpretive, and critical perspectives represent different but equally rigorous research paradigms. We also advance the debate of QSR by differentiating between different kinds of post-positivistic, interpretive, and critical designs, and by summarizing core practices scholars use to establish quality within each. Such an overview of criteria and practices of high-quality studies will help inform the conduct and evaluation of qualitative research not just across different types of qualitative studies but also across the strategy field as a whole.

Finally, we use our integrative review to provide a general critique of current QSR in order to chart future directions that may further enhance the practice, contribution, and quality of qualitative research in strategy. While we find a dominance of post-positivist designs, our review documents a surprising variety within this family, ranging from case illustrations (e.g., Johnson, Langley, Melin, & Whittington, 2007) and well-known comparative case study research (e.g., Martin & Eisenhardt, 2010) to more formalized approaches such as qualitative studies using quasi-experimental and causal modeling techniques (e.g., Perlow, Okhuysen, & Repenning, 2002; Szulanski & Jensen, 2006). We also note the growing use of research designs grounded in interpretive and critical perspectives (e.g., Mantere & Vaara, 2008), as well as sophisticated multimethod studies that innovatively combine several qualitative designs (Sonenshein, 2010). We are particularly encouraged by the strong and truly mixed method studies that are appearing in the literature (e.g., Canales, 2014).

The remainder of this chapter is structured as follows. First, we outline our methods for identifying relevant journal papers to include in the review. Second, we present and discuss the designs-in-use organizing framework. Third, we describe and critique the current state-of-the art as a basis for charting future research directions.

METHODS

Our review focuses on qualitative studies published between 2003 and 2017 in five leading strategy and management journals: Academy of Management Journal (AMJ), Administrative Science Quarterly (ASQ), Organization Science (OrSc), the Strategic Management Journal (SMJ), and Strategic Organization (SO!). We selected these journals to impose some quality control, as they are consistently rated top management journals in national and international journal rankings.¹ These journals also frequently feature in other reviews of qualitative methods (e.g., Bluhm et al., 2011; Locke & Golden-Biddle, 1997; Ray & Smith, 2011a; Reay et al. in press; Smith, Madden, & Plowman, 2014). We chose the time period from 2003 until 2017,² as reviews have reported sizable progress in qualitative management research since 2000 (e.g., Bluhm et al., 2011) and as we wanted to include the most recent methods developments (e.g., multimodality, see Zamparini & Lurati, 2017).

Study Selection

We used stringent selection criteria to identify studies for our review. Studies had to meet all of the following criteria: (1) be empirical, i.e., report data, (2) have a significant qualitative element in data for...