Qualitative Research for Organizational Scholars: Reflections on Current Developments

This book discusses qualitative research in the context of organization studies, in an evidence-based manner. From using innovative research methods to including online spaces in their investigation, organizational researchers are experimenting and exploring the methodological possibilities offered by qualitative approaches. This book deliberates on ongoing trends as well as new qualitative methods which can be adopted by organizational scholars. The first chapter of the book discusses the motivation for the book and introduces the subsequent chapters. In the second chapter, the innovativeness of qualitative research methods in published articles is discussed. This chapter points out several innovative qualitative methods that organizational researchers can utilize– use cases, participatory inquiry research, narrative research, thematic analysis, thematic network analysis, critical interaction technique, Delphi technique, and domain analysis. The third chapter uses a theoretically developed coding scheme to deliberate on the involved research actions and key components in published grounded theory studies. The purpose of the chapter is to discuss which actions/key components are underutilized and under referenced in organization studies. The fourth chapter discusses a categorization of online spaces, focusing mainly on the roles played by these spaces in qualitative data collection. A four-step road map for guiding organizational scholars who are interested in using online spaces in their data collection is also provided thereafter. The fifth chapter concludes the discussion on the trends in qualitative research, discusses the takeaways of the book, and provides some directions for further exploration. This book thus aims to demonstrate the potential of the discussed qualitative methods as well as data collection and analysis techniques, by presenting examples from published research in organization studies and other closely related disciplines where methodological plurality is more prominent.