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This paper aims to explore the interplay between methods and methodologies in the field of international relations (IR) over the 100 years of its lifetime reflecting on the relationship between the rise of new research methods and the rise of new methodologies.

This paper looks in retrospect into the field’s great debates using a historiography approach. It maps chronologically the interplay of methods and methodology throughout the stages of the development of the study of IR.

This paper argues that inspite of narratives of triumph being common in the field, the coexistence of competing research methods and methodologies is the defining feature of the field. All theories, all methods and all methodologies have undergone a process of criticism, self-criticism and change. New methodologies have not necessarily accompanied the rise of new research methods in the field.

Drawing a map of the field’s methodologies and methods reveals necessarily its dynamism and its plurality. An honest map of the field is one that highlights not only theoretical differences but also ontological, epistemological and methodological differences embedded in the field’s debates.

The study aims to understand digital transformation as a socially constructed process with multiple stakeholders, influenced by internal and external forces. This perspective stresses the importance of context, human interaction and narratives in the digital transformation within public sector.

The author uses a case study at a Swedish university undergoing digital transformation. Through first and secondary data, the author thematically analyzes the interaction between change agents, organizational realities and the digital transformation process.

The study finds that conflicts in pace and scope in the digital transformation drive self-defense mechanisms and the formation of a feedback loop of pending action. Contrary to previous studies, technological and external forces do not make digital transformation inevitable.

Limitations stem from the empirical selection of a Swedish university, affecting the international and intersectoral transferability of the study. The impact of digital transformation differs from previous IT changes, which has implications for the design of the digital transformation process.

Stakeholders should, instead of considering structural and cultural barriers as facts, pay attention to the narratives within the organization as potential excuses to avoid action.

This research contributes to original insights into digital transformation. It uncovers how change agents, despite longing for change, can inadvertently foster inaction in digital transformation. This finding enriches the literature by highlighting the complex dynamics between the desire for change and the social constructs that contribute to stagnation, offering an understanding of barriers to digital transformation.

The study investigates how sustainability reporting constructs a narrative about an organization that provides its members with a reality they can accept, with the consequence of producing organizational stability.

The article reports a research engagement concerning the “backstage” of sustainability reporting in one Spanish savings bank, which the researchers engaged with for more than three years.

The article describes how sustainability reporting operates as a boundary object occupying the space between the organization’s loosely coupled systems and facilitating the cooperation of members with different interpretations of the organization. Different translations of discourses and actions ensure that the sustainability report conveys a ductile narrative that can be tailored to specific interpretations. At the same time, the editing inherent in sustainability reporting ensures that any narrative that may challenge the organization’s dominant perspective is ignored and marginalized. In this way, sustainability reporting produces a discourse that inscribes a narrative of the organization and eventually ensures organizational inertia.

The article highlights the relevance of investigating sustainability reports by exploring the backstage of their production rather than solely the final document.

In contrast to prior research that has been concerned with exploring the extent to which sustainability reporting is associated with organizational change, this study applies different lenses to show how and why sustainability reporting is implicated in the construction of the organization and the maintenance of its stability and inertia.

Following the lead of neighboring fields such as strategy and organization studies, entrepreneurship is gradually joining in the adoption of a practice perspective. Entrepreneurship as practice (EaP) is thus a nascent domain of investigation where the methodological debate is still unsettled and very fluid. In this paper, the authors contribute to this debate with a focus on family entrepreneurship.

The authors develop a conceptual paper to discuss what it entails to look at family entrepreneurship through a practice lens and why it is fruitful. Moreover, the authors propose a research strategy novel to the field through which such investigation can be pursued, namely process tracing, and examine its inferential logic.

Process tracing is a strategy of data analysis underpinned by an ontology of causal mechanisms. The authors argue that it complements other practice methods by inferring social mechanisms from empirical evidence and thereby establishing a connection between praxis, practices and practitioners.

Process tracing helps the articulation of an “integrated model” of practice that relates praxis, practices and practitioners to the outcome they jointly produce. By enabling the assessment of impact, process tracing helps providing prima facie evidentiary grounds for policy action and intervention.

Process tracing affinity with the practice perspective has been so far acknowledged only to a limited extent in the social sciences, and it is, in fact, a novel research strategy for the family entrepreneurship field.

This study aims to explore the dialectical interplay between traditional roots and contemporary challenges faced by family businesses, specifically focusing on “Osmice” (in Slovenian; in Italian, “Osmize”), which are family enterprises that embody the cultural and historical heritage at the intersection of Italy and Slovenia. In particular, the purpose of this study is to understand how these businesses, deeply rooted in the communal life of the Karst region, evolve amidst changing social, economic and cultural landscapes.

Building on an alternate template analysis, the research includes the examination of archival data and 34 in-depth narrative interviews. This approach captures details about the historical establishment, persistence and evolution of Osmice, with a particular focus on their ways of facing contemporary challenges while preserving their traditional roots.

The findings reveal that Osmice navigate the tension between past and present through high sensitivity to the cultural identity of the land in which they are embedded. Thus, the study interprets these dynamics through a dialectical lens as the synthesis of preserving traditional roots and adapting to contemporary challenges, articulated through a particular sensitivity to cultural identity.

This investigation contributes to the discourse on how family businesses can maintain their traditional roots while adapting to contemporary challenges. It offers novel insights into the role of cultural identity in balancing tradition and modernity. Through this lens, the study underscores the capacity of family businesses such as Osmice to thrive amidst change, providing implications for both theory and practice in the field of business studies.

This research aims to describe the factors influencing the tax morale of entrepreneurs in the Brazilian telecommunications industry.

The authors surveyed a sample of 167 entrepreneurs from the sector using structured online self-assessment questionnaires analyzed quantitatively through the partial least squares structural equation modeling technique.

The results indicate that risk of detection, severity of punishments and tax justice represent determining factors for the tax morale of entrepreneurs, though their age also contributes to explaining tax behavior, proving to be a significant control variable. These findings presuppose a predominance of institutional pressures from the regulatory and normative pillars on this group, in contrast to evidence from previous studies dealing with tax morale among ordinary citizens.

The theoretical implications are fourfold. The authors address a gap in the study of tax morale at the organizational level, integrate the entrepreneurship literature in specific sectors with tax policies through neo-institutional theory, support changes in the tax legislation of an emerging economy with widespread biases of corruption and add more diversity to the perceived legitimacy of its current tax system. Practical recommendations include the creation of public policies particularly targeted at younger entrepreneurs predominant in this sector to build a regulatory framework that incorporates both tax justice and severity of punishments to foster trust between taxpayers and tax authorities; using the institutional legitimacy mechanism to elicit a more isonomic performance of the tax authorities; and reevaluating the risk of detection strategies.

Digital platforms increase their function and scope by leveraging boundary resources and complementary add-on products from third-party developers to interact with external entities and producers. Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) are essential boundary resources developers use to connect applications, systems and platforms. This notwithstanding, previous API studies tend to focus more on the technical dimensions, with little on the social and cultural contexts underpinning API innovations. This study relies on the new (neo) institutional theory (focusing on regulative, normative and cultural-cognitive pillars) as an analytical lens to understand the institutional forces that affect API integration among digital firms.

The study adopts a qualitative case study methodology and relies on phone calls and a semi-structured in-depth interview approach of a Ghanaian digital music platform to uncover the institutional forces affecting API integration.

The findings reveal that regulative institutions such as excessive tax regimes mostly constrained API development and integration initiatives. However, other regulative institutions like the government digitalization agenda enabled API integration. Normative institutions, such as the growing use of e-payment options, enabled API integration in digital music platforms. Cultural-cognitive institutions like employee ego constrained the API integration process in music digital platforms.

This study primarily contributes to deepening understanding of the relevant literature by exploring the institutional forces that affect API integration among digital firms in a developing economy. The study also uncovered a new form of an institution known as motivational institution as an enabler for API development and integration in digital music platforms.