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The basic purpose of this research is to study the influence selection factors have on the effectiveness of evolutionary change methods in civil engineering companies in Slovenia.

A combination of qualitative and quantitative approaches to research work was applied. In the process of quantitative data analysis, the statistical methods of bivariant and multivariant analysis were used.

Based on the results of the research, the authors can conclude that the size of a company has no effect on any of the dimensions in selection factors. On the other hand, in seven of the 16 evolutionary change methods applied by the companies, the research results have confirmed the importance of selection factors.

In the interpretation of research findings, it should be taken into account that, at the time the research was conducted, the civil engineering industry was undergoing a period of crisis and was ranked among the least profitable industries within the Slovene economy. For this reason, a generalisation of the research findings is not appropriate.

The research findings will allow executive managements to make a more efficient selection from the many available change methods, and also to apply them with greater efficiency. As a result, efficiency and effectiveness in companies can be expected to increase, which is of crucial importance when it comes to corporate entities operating in late‐transition or post‐transition environments.

The article represents an original contribution to understanding the change method selection factors related to the size of companies, as well as their influence on the selected method of evolutionary change process.

The central purpose of the research presented in this paper is to synthesize the current state of the field in qualitative methods in international organizational change research and to provide a call to researchers to use this type of methodology more frequently. The intent is to provide readers with an overview of how and when qualitative research methods should be used for investigating important theoretical and empirical questions in management research.

The authors developed several working hypotheses based on their own experiences in using an extensive array of qualitative methods in organizational change research. They coupled this with an extensive literature search to understand how these methodologies have been used to date. The findings from the literature search were analysed to uncover where there are gaps in the work and how organizational change and other management scholars can effectively use qualitative methods to advance their understanding of international change phenomena, given the unique questions and situations confronted in various contexts. The authors include an array of examples to show how qualitative research has been used to successfully test theories, uncover new phenomena, find connections between various situations, and provide a deep understanding of contextual influences on organizational change.

The authors' findings include several examples and ideas of how and when scholars can use qualitative methods to advance understanding of international change phenomena. This provides a much richer, deeper, and more nuanced understanding of many of the phenomena and issues under investigation by employing the more observational and human‐centric techniques available through the use of qualitative methods. Several of the implications of context are only observable through some of the qualitative methods discussed, such as ethnography, case studies, interviews, observations, and their respective analysis methods. Qualitative research can be employed successfully and fruitfully in organization studies' contexts to: help uncover new organizational phenomena; build and test theories of change; and create new methods that researchers can use specifically in international change studies.

The paper is the only one of its kind, bringing a cohesive and focused review of qualitative methods studies in international organizational change research. It provides readers and the field with a menu of ways to effectively use qualitative methods and a description of where and how to bring in these methods to answer questions and uncover new themes that are not effectively dealt with through the use of more commonly employed quantitative methods and analyses.

The chapter will review significant changes in information technology (IT) affecting research over the 30-year history of Communication, Information Technology, and Media Sociology. It compares broad overviews of computers and the social sciences published shortly after the beginning of the section (1989 and 1990) with a contemporary overview of online research methods from 2017. It also draws on my own experiences from 1981 to the present as both an academic and a software entrepreneur. The author will discuss how changes in the section parallel developments in social science computing over this period, identifying some of the significant ways IT has transformed both the methods of research and the substantive foci of research. Finally, the author extrapolates into the future to consider how continuing changes in the Internet, big data, artificial intelligence, and natural language understanding may change how sociological research is conducted in the foreseeable future.

COVID-19 has generated unprecedented circumstances with a tremendous impact on the global community. The academic community has also been affected by the current pandemic, with strategy and management researchers now required to adapt elements of their research process from study design through to data collection and analysis. This chapter makes a contribution to the research methods literature by documenting the process of adapting research in light of rapidly changing circumstances, using vignettes of doctoral students from around the world. In sharing their experience of shifting from the initially proposed methodologies to their modified or completely new methodologies, they demonstrate the critical importance of adaptability in research. In doing so, this chapter draws on core literature of adaptation and conducting research in times of crises, aiming to provide key learnings, methodological tips and a “story of hope” for scholars who may be faced with similar challenges in the future.

This chapter traces the author's journey of change research from positivism to pragmatism and how different types of “engaged scholarship” shape how we know and do change. It takes readers through the ontology, epistemology, and methodology of different types of research and how these were expressed in studies of planned change interventions, mergers and acquisitions (M&A), cynicism and its consequences, “soul work” and community building in business, organizational transformation, and the development of more socially and environmentally conscious people, purposes, and practices. The paper reflects on the author's research as it relates to regulatory versus radical change and whose interests are and might be served by change research.

The purpose of this paper is to develop Delphi methodology toward a holistic method for forecasting market change. Delphi methodology experienced its culmination in marketing research during the 1970s–1980s, but still has much to offer to both marketing scholars and practitioners in contexts where future market changes are associated with ambiguity and uncertainty.

This study revives the Delphi methodology by exemplifying how a recently developed framework on market change can be combined with the Delphi technique for data collection to support forecasting activities and research. The authors demonstrate the benefits of the improved methodology in an empirical study on the impact of the fifth generation of wireless communications technologies (5G) on the Finnish media market.

The developed methodological approach aids marketing scholars in categorizing and analyzing the data collected for capturing market change; and better guiding experts/respondents to provide holistic projections of future market change. The authors show that using a predefined theoretical framework in combination with the Delphi method for data collection and analysis is beneficial for studying future market change.

This paper develops Delphi methodology and contributes with a novel methodological approach to assessing market change.

To review the provision of research methods teaching across UK institutions teaching accredited information and/or library science postgraduate programmes.

Content analysis of institutional web sites was undertaken followed by telephone interviews with research method tutors. Information was obtained on what, how and when research methods are taught, the type of coursework expected, the usage of virtual learning environments and discussion boards, the key texts, electronic sources, other teaching materials recommended to students and the emphasis placed on quantitative versus qualitative methods.

All institutions in the UK teach research methods on LIS‐accredited programmes. Research methods modules have different weighting, are taught in various formats, short and fat, long and thin, and cover a variety of topics. Some tutors place more emphasis on qualitative techniques than qualitative methods, while for others it is the other way around. Most stress the practical side of doing research. The use of virtual learning environments and discussion boards feature prominently in some institutions for the teaching of research methods.

This research will provide impetus for some institutions to modify their research methods teaching provision.

The sharing of knowledge and innovative teaching practices for research methods.

The purpose of this paper is to address the research questions: which methodologies and data gathering methods are employed by researchers publishing in top entrepreneurship journals, and how has this changed over time?

The data gathering methods of research published in five top entrepreneurship journals between 1985 and 2013, a period of nearly three decades, were recorded.

The data demonstrate that entrepreneurship research is dominated by positivist approaches and data gathering methods, but that this picture is changing over time. The data also reveal differences in methods used in research published in North American and European journals.

It is argued that increased discussion of the limitations, benefits and implications of research methods is needed across the field as a whole. It is concluded that although there is some methodological reflexivity in the field of a macro, abstract nature, there is little at the micro level of individual research designs.

There is a number of existing reviews of methods in the field but none over such a long time period that include such a large corpus of papers. Of particular value to scholars engaged in debates about the proportions and merits of different research methods is the identification of long-term trends away from primary data gathering in general and survey approaches in particular. Debates surrounding the existence of different regional “schools” of entrepreneurship will be informed by the differing patterns of methods found in the five outlets included in the study.

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.

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.

The authors highlight the veracity of a combination of template and matrix analysis for researchers handling management and organisation history data.

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.

There is an identified need in higher education research for methods which have the capacity to generate conceptual insights grounded in concrete local practice but with wider applicability in understanding and facilitating research-based change. This chapter outlines an intermediate approach to qualitative data analysis which can support theoretical knowledge advancement from practice-based research, which I call the difference-within-similarity approach. It involves a particular way of conducting dialogues with our data: of interanimating similarities and differences within our qualitative datasets. The approach outlined involves first identifying a similarity, then systematically examining differences within that similarity to generate theoretical explanations. Drawing on sociocultural theorising, particularly dialogic theory and cultural–historical activity theory, the approach is based on the idea that new meanings arise from a comparison of multiple perspectives on the ‘same’ phenomenon. The tensions between such perspectives are seen as a key driver for change in educational practice. Therefore, articulating and examining such tensions in our data gives an opportunity to simulate the possibility of change in our analysis and, hence, develop insights which can inform change beyond local settings. Important here is that the differences examined are bound together by an analytically productive similarity. Through multiple research examples, the chapter identifies and illustrates a range of ways of articulating productive analytical similarities for comparison in our data: through theory/literature, through forward and backwards processing of data itself and through a process termed ‘weaving’.