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The purpose of this paper is to offer a collection of articles that explore some of the many innovative approaches to qualitative inquiry and to challenge HRD scholars and practitioners to consider using innovative approaches in their work. In doing so, qualitative research in HRD can better capture and honour voices, experiences and meaning making of individuals, teams, organizations and communities.

Using Lê and Schmid’s (2022) definition of innovation in qualitative research, the authors selected four innovative approaches to qualitative research that have the potential to enhance HRD research and practice: use of multiple-case study designs in case study research in HRD, a new take on critical incident technique, a narrative approach of testimonio and a visual approach of participant photography.

Innovative approaches to qualitative research in this special issue include a review of case study research in HRD by Tkachenko et al., a new take on the familiar critical incident technique of Watkins et al., a narrative approach to testimonio by Salcedo et al. and a visual approach to participant photography by Hurtienne et al. The last article, by Grenier et al., addresses the implications of these articles to the field of HRD and points to additional directions for innovative qualitative approaches that can help to understand and create more inclusive, democratic and just organizations.

The articles in this special issue are intended to spark a dialogue about the meaning of innovation in qualitative research in HRD. It also can serve as an impetus for considering how innovative approaches to qualitative research can better tackle questions that come from the new normal of the workplace, society and diverse contexts.

This special issue will give HRD scholars and practitioners a realistic, practical view on how innovation in qualitative research can help in exploring specific problems in the workplace. The articles will offer a glimpse into how specific social complex issues can be explored and addressed through innovative approaches, new and tried/modified, to qualitative inquiry.

Four articles introduce new and tried/modified qualitative methods, and their value is in prompting HRD scholars and practitioners to consider some of the innovative approaches in exploring, understanding and transforming the workplace. The final article is a review of more innovative qualitative approaches for HRD scholars and practitioners to understand complex organizational phenomena and promote positive and inclusive change accordingly.

The critical incident technique (CIT) is widely used in many disciplines; however, scholars have acknowledged challenges associated with analyzing qualitative data when using this technique. Therefore, the purpose of this article is to address the data analysis issues that have been raised by introducing some different contemporary ways of analyzing qualitative critical incident data drawn from recent dissertations conducted in the human resource development (HRD) field.

This article describes and illustrates different contemporary qualitative re-storying and cross-incident analysis approaches with examples drawn from previously and recently conducted qualitative HRD dissertations that have used the CIT.

Qualitative CIT analysis comprises two processes: re-storying and cross-incident analysis. The narrative inquiry–based re-storying approaches the authors illustrate include poetic narrative and dramatic emplotting. The analytical approaches we illustrate for cross-incident analysis include thematic assertion, grounded theory, and post-structural analysis/assemblages. The use of the aforementioned approaches offers researchers contemporary tools that can deepen meaning and understanding of qualitative CIT data, which address challenges that have been acknowledged regarding the difficulty of analyzing CIT data.

The different contemporary qualitative approaches that we have introduced and illustrated in this study provide researchers using the CIT with additional tools to address the challenges of analyzing qualitative CIT data, specifically with regard to data reduction of lengthy narrative transcripts through re-storying as well as cross-incident analyses that can substantially deepen meaning, as well as build new theory and problematize the data through existing theory.

A strength of the CIT is its focus on actual events that have occurred from which reasoning, behaviors, and decision-making can be examined to develop more informed practices.

The CIT is a very popular and flexible method for collecting data that is widely used in many disciplines. However, data analysis can be especially difficult given the volume of narrative qualitative data that can result from data collection. This paper describes and illustrates different contemporary approaches analyzing qualitative CIT data, specifically the processes of re-storying and cross-incident analysis, to address these concerns in the literature as well as to enhance and further evolve the use of the CIT method.

This research paper seeks to advance the techniques of “within-paradigm” triangulation and theoretical generalization adopted in qualitative field studies for new theory development in management control.

Using the evidence gleaned from three positivist case studies along with some published interpretivist studies, this paper identifies three triangulation approaches and links them with three forms of theoretical generalization in qualitative field studies.

While the “literal” approach to triangulation has its place in the extant literature, this study finds that two other approaches, labeled “convergent” and “normative” triangulation, which are relevant in many circumstances to link multiple pieces of evidence in order to build credible explanations. In theory development, while the extant forms of theoretical generalization (constructive and contextual) are useful for identifying new solutions for both practical and theoretical concerns, this paper finds that a third form, namely “transposed” logic, is relevant in identifying new control problems that can benefit by adopting the observed unusual solutions.

Within triangulation, while the extant literature endorses the role of literal triangulation in obtaining consistent evidence, including how verifying inconsistent responses helps improve the validity of the obtained evidence, this paper advances two new triangulation approaches that can enrich the extant literature. Within theoretical generalization, while the extant literature deems constructive and contextual forms as “rhetoric”, this paper (1) expands their status to “logic” by clarifying their theoretical purpose and (2) introduces one new form, namely “transposed” logic that helps identify a generalizable range of management control problems that can adopt the observed unusual solution.

This article develops a methodological framework to support qualitative analyses of legal texts. Scholars across the social sciences and humanities use qualitative methods to study legal phenomena but often overlook formal legal texts as productive sites for analysis. Moreover, when qualitative researchers do analyze legal texts, they rarely discuss the methodological underpinnings that support their approach. A thorough consideration of the methodological underpinnings of qualitative approaches to legal analysis is therefore warranted.

By bringing critical legal theory into conversation with qualitative methodology, this article outlines a set of key principles to inform qualitative approaches to reading the law.

To construct this methodological framework, this article first distinguishes between qualitative approaches to textual analysis and the doctrinal approaches undertaken in legal practice and formal legal scholarship. It then considers how this qualitative approach might be applied to one particular genre of legal text: namely, judicial opinions, otherwise known as reasons for judgment. In doing so, it argues that robust qualitative analyses of legal texts must consider the unique characteristics of those texts, such as their distinct form, voice, rhetorical structure, and performative capabilities.

The methodological framework outlined here should encourage qualitative researchers to approach legal texts more readily and challenge the hegemony of doctrinal approaches to legal interpretation in social science research.

The purpose of this paper is to conclude this special issue on innovation in qualitative research by addressing the preceding papers in relation to the work of Human Resource Development (HRD) scholars and scholar-practitioners, consider the implications to the field of HRD and point to additional directions for innovative qualitative approaches. The authors use the term “innovative” to mean either an approach (or technique) that is newly conceived or one that is new to HRD (or little used).

The authors reviewed the papers in the special issue, identified other innovative qualitative approaches from the HRD literature and described briefly additional innovative approaches from other fields to suggest future directions for HRD professionals.

In this review, the authors noted the relatively few approaches to qualitative research that have been used regularly in HRD literature and suggested further innovative approaches that could deepen the understanding of organizations, including narrative, visual and indigenous methods, among others.

This paper provides for HRD scholars an overview of a few qualitative research methodologies that are new to HRD and identifies additional approaches and epistemological challenges that could be valuable for future inquiry into complex organizations by HRD scholars and practitioners.

The authors suggest various feasible approaches and tools for HRD professionals to inquire into their practice in organizations to identify needs, evaluate outcomes and inquire into socially complex issues.

This study’s intent is to encourage the use of various innovative qualitative inquiry approaches when appropriate to understand and transform organizations. In particular, this study encourages the approaches that center the voices and experiences of those being studied and emphasizes the ways of listening to voices from the margins that may have been ignored previously.

The purpose of this paper is to support potential users of thematic analysis (as outlined by Virginia Braun and Victoria Clarke). Researchers with the intention of applying thematic analysis are advised to consider the theoretical framework of their work and how differing ontological and epistemological standpoints influences their approach to thematic analysis.

This paper considers aspects of the work that has been done around thematic analysis to guide future potential users. The flexibility, recipe-like use and ease of thematic analysis are discussed, along with guidance being offered to avoid the seemingly common trip hazards of navigating the approach.

Users of thematic analysis seemingly continue to cite Braun and Clarke's thematic analysis whilst repeatedly contradicting the guidance of their work.

Readers of this paper that intend on using thematic analysis will be redirect to further learning, personal reflection and adjustments to the way in which they engage with, utilise and report their qualitative work using Braun and Clarke's approach to thematic analysis.

It is possible that past research that has been reported as using Braun and Clarke's approach to thematic analysis has been misinterpreted, misunderstood and misused. This as a result of researchers potentially having failed to embrace the need to engage in reflexive, epistemological and ontologically clear processes during the use of thematic analysis.

While Braun and Clarke's approach to thematic analysis seems to have developed a significant level of popularity and use, the finer but impactful understanding of the approach has been overlooked. Other work has been done in relation to thematic analysis but there has not been anything to support thinking and learning around the suitable, accurate and knowledgeable use of the approach.

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.

This paper explores the challenges of conducting qualitative research from ELT (English Language Teaching) Ph.D. candidates' perspectives.

The participants of the study consisted of 30 Iranian Ph.D. students majoring in ELT. The semi-structured interview was employed to investigate the heart of experiences, issues and concerns of participants with regard to conducting qualitative research (QLR) challenges. To analyze the collected data, the recorded interviews were transcribed, and then the grounded theory approach was employed (Charmaz, 2006).

The results revealed that the major challenges of the participants consist of the credibility of QLR in ELT contexts, hermeneutic and fuzzy nature of QLR, qualitative data analysis and interpretation, publishing qualitative findings and the system of measuring professors' productivity.

The findings may help professors, mainly EFL ones, in research mentoring and developing research syllabi for graduate students. In addition, it may motivate Ph.D. candidates to employ QLR methods in their research studies. The pedagogical and theoretical implications of the study are discussed at the end of the paper.

Qualitative research suffers from “contestation” and a lack of “boilerplate” problems to assessing and presenting qualitative data, which have hampered its development and the broader acceptance of qualitative research. This paper aims to address this gap by marrying the constructivist methodology and RQDA, a relatively new open-source computer-assisted qualitative data analysis (CAQDAS)-based R extension and demonstrate how the software can increase the rigor, transparency and validity of qualitative research.

This paper highlights the constructivist approach as an important paradigm in qualitative research and demonstrates how it can be operationalized and enhanced using RQDA. It provides a technical and methodological review of RQDA, along with its main strengths and weaknesses, in relation with two popular CAQDAS tools, ATLAS.ti and NVivo. Using samples of customer-generated e-complaints and e-praises in the electronics/computer sector, this paper demonstrates the development of a process model of customer e-complaint rhetoric.

This study offers step-by-step instructions for installing and using RQDA for data coding, aggregation, plotting and theory building. It emphasizes the importance of techniques for sharing coding outputs among researchers and journal gatekeepers to better disseminate and share research findings. It also describes the authors’ use of RQDA in classrooms of undergraduates and graduate students.

This paper addresses the “contestation” and “boilerplate” gaps, offering practical, step-by-step instructions to operationalize and enhance the constructivist approach using the RQDA-based approach. This opens new opportunities for existing R users to “cross over” to analyzing textual data as well as for computer-savvy scholars, analysts and research students in academia and industry who wish to transition to CAQDAS-based qualitative research because RQDA is free and can leverage the strengths of the R computing platform.

This study offers the first published review and demonstration of the RQDA-based constructivist methodology that provide the processes needed to enhance the rigor, transparency and validity of qualitative research. It demonstrates the systematic development of a data structure and a process model of customer e-complaint rhetoric using RQDA.

This paper aims to address the reporting of validation and evaluation criteria in qualitative management accounting studies, which is a topic of critical debate in qualitative social science research. The objective of this study is to investigate the ways researchers have reported the use of evaluation criteria in qualitative management accounting studies and whether they are associated with certain paradigmatic affiliations.

Building on the work of Eriksson and Kovalainen [Eriksson and Kovalainen (2008) Qualitative Methods in Business Research. London, Sage], the following three approaches are examined: the adoption of classic concepts of validity and reliability, the use of alternative concepts and the abandonment of general evaluation criteria. Content analysis of 212 case and field studies published during 2006 to February 2015 was conducted to be able to offer an analysis of the most recent frontiers of knowledge.

The key empirical results of this study provide partial support for the theoretical expectations. They specify and refine Eriksson and Kovalainen’s (2008) classification system, first, by identifying a new approach to evaluation and validation and, second, by showing mixed results on the paradigmatic consistency in the use of evaluation criteria.

This paper is not necessarily exhaustive or representative of all the evaluation criteria developed; the authors focused on the explicit reporting of criteria only and the findings cannot be generalized. Somewhat different results might have been obtained if other journals, other fields of research or a longer period were considered.

The findings of this study enhance the knowledge of alternative approaches and criteria to validation and evaluation. The findings can aid both in the evaluation of management accounting research and in the selection of appropriate evaluation approaches and criteria.

This paper presents a synthesis of the literature (Table I) and new empirical findings that are potentially useful for both academic scholars and practitioners.