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This article describes the use of mixed methods in the context of e‐business enabled organisational transformation in a strategic business unit of a multinational corporation. It includes a theoretical reasoning as to why mixed methods were used and a description of the role of qualitative research in this research agenda. The article begins by examining the research paradigm, leading to the use of mixed methods and the design process of the actual mixed methods. In giving a roadmap in a contextual setting, the article addresses the need for including studies from the initial conceptual development to its application.

Taking stock of extant hospitality and tourism research using social network analysis approaches, this study highlights why using either quantitative or qualitative approaches to examine social networks can be misleading and generate potentially biased findings. Indeed, purely qualitative and purely quantitative studies display limitations. The purpose of this study is to provide methodological insights by suggesting that mixed methods can be suitably used, depending on the specific research questions.

The study consists of an analysis and critical discussion of the methods used in a number of papers leveraging social network approaches to study social networks in tourism and hospitality. The authors describe the benefits and limitations of each method studies considered are examined based on a number of aspects.

More than half of the studies classified as network studies adopt quantitative designs and quantitative methods including statistical analyses and observational data. Mixed methods study is a minority and they are almost never labeled as mixed methods. A relevant portion of qualitative studies increasingly embeds a number of rudimentary statistical analyses. With an example, the authors also discuss that purely quantitative or purely qualitative methods can lead to discrepant results, and thus, the authors encourage scholars to embrace mixed method research designs such as explanatory or exploratory sequential designs. Advanced researchers might attempt in the future to embrace transformative, embedded or multiphase mixed methods.

This study is based on academic papers and research published before 2019. A rich research agenda is designed.

This study contributes to explore the way social networks have been dealt with in tourism and hospitality research so far, by advancing a proposal to adopt mixed methods in the form of explanatory or exploratory sequential designs. To the best of the knowledge, it is the first study addressing methodological pitfalls in extant network-based research within the tourism and hospitality domain.

After the initial life (which coincides with the origins of social research in the 1850s, and lasts until 1940s), mixed methods revive at the beginning of 1970s. However, this second life (or renaissance) receives the deleterious imprinting of quantitative methods. In fact, some of the old positivist assumptions are still reproduced and active in most of mixed methods research. This imprinting is traceable in the ambiguity (and purposive semantic stretching) of the term “qualitative”: from the 1990s, it encompasses almost everything (even approaches considered positivistic in the 1950s!). Whereby the semantical extension of the term “qualitative” has become a sort of Trojan horse for a new legitimation of many quantitative and positivist researchers: a great swindle. Today “qualitative” is nonsense and acts as a bug, which muddies the qualitative-quantitative debate. For this reason, it would be better to remove the bug (i.e. to discharge the term “qualitative” from the language of social research and methodology), reset and start over from the level of specific research methods, considering carefully and balancing their diversity before mixing them. The purpose of this paper is to outline two (complementary) ways of integration of methods (“mixed” and “merged”), arguing that “merged” methods realize a higher integration than “mixed” methods, because the former overcome some weaknesses of the latter.

A semantic and pragmatic analysis of the term “qualitative.”

In social and behavioral sciences, the second life of mixed methods has been heavily affected by old positivist and quantitative assumptions.

The term “qualitative” should be discharged from the language of social research and methodology.

The coveted integration in “mixed” methods, could be better pursed through “merged” methods.

Disentangling the strands of a debate (the qualitative-quantitative one) become muddy.

An alternative framework, to interpret the mixed methods history and their recent developments, has been proposed.

The methodological discourse of mixed-methods research offers general procedures to combine quantitative and qualitative methods for investigating complex fields of research such as higher education. However, integrating different methods still poses considerable challenges. To move beyond general recommendations for mixed-methods research, this chapter proposes to discuss methodological issues with respect to a particular research domain. Taking current studies on the transition to higher education as an example, the authors first provide an overview of the potentials and limitations of quantitative and qualitative methods in the research domain. Second, they show the need for a conceptual framework grounded in the theory of the research object to guide the integration of different methods and findings. Finally, an example study that investigates transition with regard to the interplay of the individual student and the institutional context serves to illustrate the guiding role of theory. The framework integrates different theoretical perspectives on transition, informs the selection of the research methods, and defines the nexus of the two strands that constitute the mixed-methods design. As the interplay of individual and context is of concern for teaching and learning in general, the example presented may be fruitful for the wider field of higher education research.

Mixed methods research can provide a fruitful line of inquiry for educational leadership, program evaluation, and policy analysis; however, mixed methods research requires a metatheory that allows for mixing what have traditionally been considered incompatible qualitative and quantitative inquiry. The purpose of this paper is to apply Jürgen Habermas’s Theory of Communicative Action as that metatheoretical justification.

After reviewing the traditional quantitative/qualitative divide based on incompatible ontologies, the author argues for a pragmatist stance toward educational leadership inquiry. Such a stance allows for mixing methods because it privileges methodology and epistemology in social inquiry, rather than ontological theories of reality. Using Habermas’s metatheory, the author shows how truth claims are linguistically mediated; how they make reference to objective, subjective, and normative formal worlds; and how they are always fallible and revisable.

The author argues that Habermas’s metatheory allows (and requires) integration of qualitative and quantitative approaches to fully understand social phenomena. Such integration is possible if researchers attempt to make methodological decisions explicit by linking methodology (and thus methodical decisions) to all three formal worlds, and articulating the rationale for doing so. The author also argues that making the entire corpus of claims bound within a line of social inquiry subject to critical examination promotes the validity of inquiry.

This paper contributes to the discussion on mixed methods research by applying a particular strand of pragmatism. This is an advance in the extant literature, which argues for a pragmatist stance on mixed methods research, but has not yet conceptualized a metatheoretical position supporting this stance.

This study demonstrates integration within a mixed-methods case study of construction phenomena, whilst ensuring reliability and validity. This is in view of the established philosophical challenges in theory generation, whereby qualitative and quantitative methods are underpinned by divergent, almost incompatible, paradigmic assumptions.

The study uses a sample case study research on the phenomenon of cost overruns, supported by a coherent flow of well-articulated philosophical arguments to idealise the logic of integration. Issues of reliability and validity were resolved along these lines, by incorporating applicable criteria from both the qualitative and qualitative strands. A detailed outline and rationalisation of the stepwise approach to achieving integration are provided, from the point of design conceptualisation, data collection, analysis and further down to theory generation.

The study generated two level-1 theories by collecting numerical data on cost overruns, geotechnical index parameters and textual data on the geotechnical practices. Another level-1 theory was generated in reflexive adaptation to unanticipated social constructs emerging from the qualitative data. All level-1 theories from the quantitative and qualitative strands were triangulated to yield two “level-2 theories”: A log-regression model and a cognitive map. The approach to integration is thus explanatory sequential, and concurrent (at the second stage of transformation in the generation of level-2 theories).

The study empirically reinforces that ontological flexibility, achievable through the use of thoughtfully designed integrated mixed-methods case studies, permits the investigation of multidimensional construction phenomena in innovative ways, relevant to provide holistic theoretical and practice-based contributions.

The study practically signposts a bespoke stepwise approach to integration, in a mixed-methods case study of construction phenomena, against the contextual backdrop of its relative novelty and lack of studies delving in-depth into the theoretical nitty-gritty.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the research design of several publications on the study of gamification and proposes a mixed-method research design for creating a holistic understanding of the gamification phenomenon. It presents an argument in support of combining both qualitative and quantitative data sources through mixed-method design as being equally important in illuminating all aspects of the research problem.

The paper covers a number of methodological themes relevant to the study of gamification: research design trends in the study of gamification; the importance of mixed-method design in the study of gamification; methodological challenges; conclusion and recommendations.

Majority of the studies on gamification before 2015 are either quantitative or described as mixed method but overly focused on quantitative data sources. However, there is a tendency between 2015 and 2017 to adopt mixed-method design.

The study does not examine all research done on the topic of gamification but relies on 56 empirical studies reviewed by Hamari, Koivisto, Sarsa (2014) and Seaborn and Fels (2015) between 2009 and 2015.

The author believes it to be one of the few studies of its kind on proposing a methodological design for the study of gamification as a pedagogical tool.

While investor relations have become an established corporate function, research into how investor relations officers (IROs) practice measurement and evaluation is limited. The purpose of this paper is to examine which approaches and metrics IROs use to gauge their success.

To address this gap in the literature, this study surveyed (n=384) the corporate membership of the National Investor Relations Institute (NIRI), the world's largest investor relations association, on the topic of measurement and evaluation.

The results indicate that IROs strongly (80 percent) believe that mixed-methods (i.e. both quantitative and qualitative methods) should be used to measure the success of investor relations. Mixed-methods advocates place significantly more importance on measurement than IROs that prefer quantitative- or qualitative-only approaches.

The results of this survey indicate that IROs typically place the most value on metrics that are qualitative, non-financial and relationship-oriented. These findings suggest that IROs believe they should be evaluated in large part on their competency at relationship management.

From a benchmarking perspective, these findings suggest that IROs looking to align with their peers should use a mix of both quantitative and qualitative evaluation measures that are non-financial and relationship management-focused.

These findings contribute to recent efforts to explicate a general theory of investor relations. While investor relations scholarship has grown in recent years, up until this point, little attention had been paid to measurement and evaluation.

This paper aims to discuss research ethics in mixed-methods research (MMR) and MMR development with a focus on ethical challenges that stem from working with technical instruments such as mobile eye-trackers.

The case of an interdisciplinary mixed-methods development study that aimed at researching the impacts of emerging mobile augmented-reality technologies on the perception of public places serves as an example to discuss research-ethical challenges regarding (1) the practical implementation of the study, (2) data processing and management and (3) societal implications of developing instruments to track and understand human practices.

This study reports challenges and experiences in ethical decision-making in the practical implementation of the study regarding the relationship to research subjects, the use of mobile research instruments in public places and the interdisciplinary cooperation among research team members. Further, this paper expounds on ethical challenges and recommendations in data processing and management and with a view to societal implications of method development and the aspirations of transdisciplinarity. This study concludes that institutionalized ethics need to become more flexible, while applied ethics and reflection must make their entry into university curricula across disciplines.

Complex interdisciplinary mobile and mixed-methods projects that involve sensors and instruments such as mobile eye-trackers are on the rise. However, there is a significant lack of engagement with practical research ethical challenges, practices and requirements in both mixed-methods and method-development literature. By taking a context- and process-oriented perspective focusing on doing ethics, the paper contributes a concrete empirical case to these underdeveloped fields.

The purpose of this paper is to report on the decision process that the authors follow in applying mixed methods research to evaluate the benefits and costs of conducting sponsored clinical trials in a publicly funded New Zealand hospital.

A simultaneous parallel mixed method design was adopted. This design builds on a health outcomes study that involves a retrospective cohort study of changes in participants' health status and mortality rates. Although a team of medical researchers conducted that study (i.e. the current authors were not involved), it is one of the three strands of the current research as it forms the platform for the other two strands, namely the multiple stakeholder perception strand and the economic outcomes strand. In the multiple stakeholder perceptions strand, qualitative methods were used to explore the benefits and costs perceived by stakeholders. In the economic outcomes strand, quantitative methods were used to estimate the benefits and costs of clinical trials.

The economic outcomes strand and the multiple stakeholder perceptions strand are complementary. Each strand delivers dimensions to the analysis that are not apparent from the other.

The value of the paper lies in improved understanding of the process of mixed method research through communicating choices and decisions made in response to the challenges faced.