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1 – 10 of over 4000Elizabeth M. Pope and Stephanie Anne Shelton
Qualitative research is well-established and widely adopted across a range of disciplines; however, there is little discussion of the teaching of qualitative research methods…
Abstract
Purpose
Qualitative research is well-established and widely adopted across a range of disciplines; however, there is little discussion of the teaching of qualitative research methods. What engagements there are primarily focus on methods rather than core concepts that inform ethical and effective use of those approaches. “Subjectivity” and “reflexivity” are pervasive concepts taken up in numerous textbooks, handbooks, and journal guidelines. But, despite being an expected and critical aspect of qualitative methodologies, few scholars consider how researchers might learn to engage with these necessary aspects effectively.
Design/methodology/approach
This is a conceptual paper written from the authors' experiences teaching qualitative research to graduate students at the master's and doctoral levels.
Findings
This conceptual paper offers an andragogical discussion of how novice and student researchers might learn to consider the concepts of reflexivity and subjectivity. Additionally, it considers how the deep and critical reflection inherent in both subjectivity and reflexivity are valuable aspects in extending discussions and applications of qualitative research in various disciplines.
Originality/value
This paper offers a fresh and unique consideration of teaching novice researchers how to practice reflexivity and examine their subjectivities using the work of Alan Peshkin as a model.
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Paul Hibbert, Christine Coupland and Robert MacIntosh
The paper seeks to support a better understanding of the types (or processes) of reflexivity which may be involved in the practice of organizational research, and the implications…
Abstract
Purpose
The paper seeks to support a better understanding of the types (or processes) of reflexivity which may be involved in the practice of organizational research, and the implications of reflexive practice for organizational researchers.
Design/methodology/approach
A characterization of reflexivity as a process is developed from extant research, in four steps. First, the principal dimensions of reflexivity – reflection and recursion – are identified and delineated. Second, recursion is shown to have two modes, active and passive. Third, reflection is shown to have both closed, self‐guided and open, relational modes. Fourth, through integrating the detailed characterizations of each of the dimensions, different types of reflexivity are identified and defined.
Findings
The paper shows how different types of reflexivity may be experienced sequentially, as a progressive process, by organizational researchers. Implications for research practice are derived from a consideration of this process.
Originality/value
The paper develops a novel conceptualization of reflexivity as a process with individual and relational aspects. This conceptualization supports important insights for the conduct and legitimation of reflexive research.
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Caio Coelho and Carlos Eduardo de Lima
The purpose of this paper is to conduct a general review of the ethnographic method. It uses metaphors to read several pieces of ethnographic research and discuss the different…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to conduct a general review of the ethnographic method. It uses metaphors to read several pieces of ethnographic research and discuss the different issues encountered during the research process. The review consisted of new articles but also important books that helped to construct and maintain the field of organizational ethnography.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper aims to discuss the ethnography research process through the metaphor of the Christian Seven Sins. It proposes a reflection on planning and conducting ethnographic research. The seven sins are used as a metaphor that can lead to more reflexive research for educational and explanatory purposes. Ultimately, the authors encourage organizational scholars to conduct ethnographic research.
Findings
The metaphors of the Christian seven sins represent issues that may arise during an ethnographic research. Gluttony is the dive in all topics that may appear; Greed is to lose yourself in the amount of data; Lust is to get too much involved in the field; Wrath is to take the struggles of the subjects as your own; Envy is to judge other's research according to your paradigm; Sloth is to not collect enough ethnographic data and Pride is forgetting to have a critical perspective toward your data. The redemption of these “sins” brings reflexivity to ethnographic research.
Research limitations/implications
The paper opts to treat ethnography as a methodology that can be utilized with different epistemological and ontological approaches which could diminish the degree of reflection. No metaphor would be able to explain all the details of an ethnographic research project, still the seven sins provided a wide range of ideas to be reflected upon when using the methodology.
Practical implications
As a paper on ethnography, researchers and especially PhD students and early careers can get to know the issues that can arise during ethnographic research and put them in contact with good examples of ethnography in Organization and Management Studies.
Originality/value
This paper groups different complexities and discussions around ethnographic research that may entail research reflexivity. These ideas were scattered through various ethnographic publications. With the review their highlights can be read in a single piece. With these discussions, the paper aims to encourage researchers to conduct good quality ethnography.
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Consuelo Vásquez, Boris H.J.M. Brummans and Carole Groleau
Shadowing is becoming an increasingly popular method in management and organization studies. While several scholars have reflected on this technique, comparatively few researchers…
Abstract
Purpose
Shadowing is becoming an increasingly popular method in management and organization studies. While several scholars have reflected on this technique, comparatively few researchers have explicated the specific practices that constitute this method and discussed their implications for research on processes of organizing. The purpose of this article is to address these issues by offering a conceptual toolbox that defines shadowing in terms of a set of framing practices and provides in‐depth insight into the methodological choices and challenges that organizational shadowers may encounter.
Design/methodology/approach
In this article, the authors explicate the specific framing practices in which researchers engage when taking an intersubjective approach to organizational shadowing. To demonstrate the value of viewing shadowing as framing, the paper grounds the theoretical discussion in actual fieldwork experiences, taken from three different ethnographic studies.
Findings
Based on a systematic and critical analysis of fieldwork experiences, the paper argues that organizational shadowing is constituted by three interrelated framing practices: delineating the object of study; punctuating the process/flow of a given organizing process; and reflecting on the relationship between researcher and the object(s) or person(s) being observed. These analytical constructs highlight specific activities with which shadowers are confronted in the field, namely foregrounding and backgrounding particular aspects in defining a given object of study, trying to keep this object in focus as the fieldwork unfolds, and making decisions about the degree to which the relationship with shadowees should be taken into account in understanding this object.
Originality/value
This article provides an in‐depth reflection on the subtle practices that constitute organizational shadowing. It offers a useful conceptual toolbox for researchers who want to use this method and demonstrates its operational value to help them understand how knowledge construction is the outcome of a coconstructive process that depends on a series of decisions negotiated in ongoing interactions with the actors under study.
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Paul F. Donnelly, Yiannis Gabriel and Banu Özkazanç‐Pan
The Guest Editors’ intent with this special issue is to tell tales of the field and beyond, but all with the serious end of rendering visible the largely invisible. This paper…
Abstract
Purpose
The Guest Editors’ intent with this special issue is to tell tales of the field and beyond, but all with the serious end of rendering visible the largely invisible. This paper aims to introduce the articles forming the special issue, as well as reviewing extant work that foregrounds the hidden stories and uncertainties of doing qualitative research.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors advance their arguments through a literature review approach, reflecting on the “state of the field” with regard to doing research and offering new directions on reflexivity as an ethical consideration for conducting qualitative research.
Findings
Far from consigning the mess entailed in doing qualitative research to the margins, there is much to be learned from, and considerable value in, a more thoughtful engagement with the dilemmas we face in the field and beyond, one that shows the worth of what we are highlighting to both enrich research practice itself and contribute to improving the quality of what we produce.
Originality/value
This paper turns the spotlight onto the messiness and storywork aspects of conducting research, which are all too often hidden from view, to promote the kinds of dialogues necessary for scholars to share their fieldwork stories as research, rather than means to a publication end.
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Katrina Pritchard and Rebecca Whiting
The purpose of this paper is to examine an oft‐neglected aspect of qualitative research practice – conducting a pilot – using the innovative approach of “e‐research” to generate…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine an oft‐neglected aspect of qualitative research practice – conducting a pilot – using the innovative approach of “e‐research” to generate both practical and methodological insights.
Design/methodology/approach
Using the authors’ “e‐research” pilot as a reflexive case study, key methodological issues are critically reviewed. This review is set in a broader context of the qualitative methods literature in which piloting appears largely as an implicit practice. Using a new and emerging approach (“e‐research”) provides a prompt to review “autopilot” tendencies and offers a new lens for analysing research practice.
Findings
The authors find that despite an initial focus on “practical” aspects of data collection within their “e‐research”, the pilot opened up a range of areas for further consideration. The authors review research ethics, collaborative research practices and data management issues specifically for e‐research but also reflect more broadly on potential implications for piloting within other research designs.
Practical implications
The authors aim to offer both practical and methodological insights for qualitative researchers, whatever their methodological orientation, so that they might develop approaches for piloting that are appropriate to their own research endeavours. More specifically, the authors offer tentative guidance to those venturing into the emerging area of “e‐research”.
Originality/value
This paper offers insight into an oft‐ignored aspect of qualitative research, whilst also engaging in an emerging area of methodological interest.
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Valentina Cillo, Elena Borin, Asha Thomas, Anurag Chaturvedi and Francesca Faggioni
This paper aims to investigate the intersection between crowdfunding (CF), open innovation (OI) and responsible innovation (RI) and identify the emerging trends and gaps in…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to investigate the intersection between crowdfunding (CF), open innovation (OI) and responsible innovation (RI) and identify the emerging trends and gaps in research and new paths for CF research in the future. In addition, this paper proposes a conceptual framework and propositions.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper is structured in line with the systematic literature review protocol. After reading all the titles, keywords and abstracts, 172 papers focused on OI and RI were selected for this research. Finally, 27 papers that are based on dimensions related to responsible OI were selected for the study.
Findings
Due to CF's multidisciplinary nature, the scientific literature on the role of CF in endorsing responsible OI for shared value co-creation appears fragmented and redundant. Several emerging trends and gaps of research and new paths for CF research in the future arise regarding research methodology and theoretical perspective.
Originality/value
To the best of the authors' knowledge, this is the first study investigating the intersection between CF OI and RI.
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Stephanie Anne Shelton and Maureen A. Flint
Transcription is an integral component to qualitative research, and as such, the ways that researchers discuss transcription in the literature matter. Scholarly discussions on the…
Abstract
Purpose
Transcription is an integral component to qualitative research, and as such, the ways that researchers discuss transcription in the literature matter. Scholarly discussions on the “how” and “why” of transcription not only shape discourse within interview data-based fields; they inform the ways that researchers understand the roles and ramifications of transcribing. This study aims to provide a comprehensive literature review of articles on transcription published in qualitative methods journals over the past 25 years, offering implications for research practice and pedagogy.
Design/methodology/approach
The literature review asked: How do qualitative researchers discuss transcription/transcribing? The authors first reviewed how transcription was discussed in the literature in qualitative studies in the social sciences broadly. Based on the findings, the authors then conducted a comprehensive literature review in 14 qualitative methods journals.
Findings
The authors found that overall, authors discussed transcription either as a technical tool or as a complex, researcher-constructed process. Specifically, utilitarian discussions of transcription emphasized transcription accuracy and efficiency, while theoretical discussions of transcription emphasized a continuously analytic and researcher-constructed process.
Originality/value
This study offers a comprehensive overview of the past 25 years of articles published on transcription. The authors conclude with a discussion of articles that bridge the theoretical and utilitarian discussions, as well as considerations for using transcription as a pedagogical tool for teaching qualitative research methods.
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Nicholas Burton and Peter Galvin
The purpose of this paper is to present a qualitative research method using oral history interview data that may advance new types of methodological inquiry in management and…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to present a qualitative research method using oral history interview data that may advance new types of methodological inquiry in management and organisation history research.
Design/methodology/approach
The method, the authors present, combines matrix and template analysis using oral histories from unstructured interviews with 31 senior managers in the UK individual personal pensions product market to illuminate how the construction of “matrices” and “templates” can then be compared and contrasted across different time periods, and at different units of analysis, to analyse complex temporal data.
Findings
The authors highlight the veracity of a combination of template and matrix analysis for researchers handling management and organisation history data.
Originality/value
Elaborations of new research methodologies suitable for handling historical data remain few and far between. The proposed method offers a new approach for handing temporal textual data.
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Thomas F. Burgess, Paul Grimshaw, Luisa Huaccho Huatuco and Nicola E. Shaw
The purpose of this paper is to address the following research question: how do the interlocking editorial advisory boards (EABs) of operations and supply chain management (OSCM…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to address the following research question: how do the interlocking editorial advisory boards (EABs) of operations and supply chain management (OSCM) journals map out the field’s diverse academic communities and how demographically diverse is the field and its communities?
Design/methodology/approach
The study applies social network analysis (SNA) to web-based EAB data for 38 journals listed under operations management (OM) in the 2010 ABS Academic Journal Quality Guide.
Findings
The members of EABs of the 38 journals are divided into seven distinct communities which are mapped to the field’s knowledge structures and further aggregated into a core and periphery of the network. A burgeoning community of supply chain management academics forms the core along with those with more traditional interests. Male academics affiliated to the US institutions and to business schools predominate in the sample.
Research limitations/implications
A new strand of research is opened up connecting journal governance networks to knowledge structures in the OSCM field. OM is studied separately from its reference and associated disciplines. The use of the ABS list might attract comments that the study has an implicit European perspective – however the authors do not believe this to be the case.
Practical implications
The study addresses the implications of the lack of diversity for the practice of OM as an academic discipline.
Social implications
The confirmation of the dominance of particular characteristics such as male and US-based academics has implications for social diversity of the field.
Originality/value
As the first study of its kind, i.e. SNA of EAB members of OSCM journals, this study marks out a new perspective and acts as a benchmark for the future.
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