Qualitative management research: key debates and current challenges

1. Qualitative management research: key debates and current challenges Professor Catherine Cassell Presentation to NARTI, Keele, 9th June 2014

2. Aims of the presentation • To consider some of the ongoing debates around the use of qualitative management research • To assess the future challenges - and the opportunities available – to qualitative management researchers

3. Images of qualitative research

4. Interesting times ….. • Rise of the internet and other technological developments • Increasingly globalised context of management research • Increased calls for methodological diversity in management research (e.g.: Greenberg, 2007; Thorpe and Ellwood, 2010) • Slow progress of methodological innovation: “Changes take place very slowly and usually do not happen in less than two to three decades (Aguinis et. al., 2009:75) • Thirty years since the special issue of ASQ edited by John van Maanen.

5. Ongoing debates • Value and application of qualitative management research • Publication of qualitative management research • The end of the qualitative / quantitative divide and the move towards mixed methods • Criteriology

6. 1. Value and application • Recognition that QR makes an interesting and valuable contribution (e.g.: Bartunek et. al., 2006) • Now used in all the major areas of management research • Considerable recent methodological innovation: • Stories and narrative analysis • Discourse and rhetoric • Visual methods • Increased interest in reflexive research and practice.

7. 2. Publication • Podsakoff and Dalton (1987): all articles in 1985 in AMJ, ASQ,JAP, JofM, OBHDF. “Qualitative or interpretive research is rarely seen” • Larssen and Lowendahl (1996): all articles between 1984 and 1994 in AMJ, ASQ, OSci, AMR. “only 12 articles published could be considered as qualitative” • Smith and Plowman (2011): all articles between 1986 and 2008 in ASQ, AMJ, OSci, and JMS. Found the following qualitative: ASQ 21%, AMJ 8%, OSci 29%, JMS 10% • Üsdicken (2014): All articles in 10 journals over 40 years. 1960-70, 5.3%; 1980-90, 9.8%; 2000’s, 19.6%.

8. Why? • Editors of AMJ regularly ask for qualitative submissions (Lee, 2001; Gephart, 2004; Pratt, 2008) • Qualitative researchers view such journals as ‘hostile’ • Editors’ role as ‘epistemological gatekeepers’ (Symon and Cassell, 1999) • Formulaic studies? (See Cornellissen et. al. 2012).

9. 3. The move to mixed methods? • Debate dying down because “the arguments have run dry and partly because they are nowhere near as popular as they used to be” (Alvesson and Sköldberg, 2009) • Bryman (2006:113) “peace can be regarded as broken out” • Mixed methods has risen like a “phoenix from the flames” (Cameron, 2007) • De-coupling of the relationship between epistemology and method has implications for qualitative researchers • Endurance of the privileging of quantitative research through mixed methods designs?

10. 4. Criteriology • “It is widely assumed that whereas quality criteria for quantitative research are widely known and widely agreed, this is not the case for qualitative research” (Bryman et. al., 2008) • Some forms and traditions of qualitative management research have clearer quality criteria than others • Criteria should link in with philosophical approach (e.g Johnson et al 2006) • Still the issue of positivist criteria being applied inappropriately.

11. Criteriology

12. Challenges / opportunities • Standardisation • New technologies and methods • Globalisation and internationalisation • Diverse epistemologies

13. 1. Standardisation • Increased significance of ethical regulation (Bryman and Bell, 2007) • Pressure from performative measures such as journal quality lists • Move towards evidence-based practice has been critiqued by qualitative researchers (e.g. Denzin, 2009; Cassell, 2011).

14. 2. New technologies and methods • Traditional forms of management and organisation are changing hence the need for methods to adapt e.g. multi-site ethnography • Development of the internet has led to a new range of on-line contexts for the researcher to study e.g.: netnography (Kozinets, 2002) • Investigations about how to use traditional methods online e.g.: electronic interviews (Morgan and Symon, 2004) • New developments have particular implications for reflexivity and ethics.

15. 3. Globalisation and internationalisation • Assumptions about English as a shared language (Tietze, 2008) • Other language use in interviewing (e.g. Horton et. al., 2004) • Translation issues • Variety in ‘epistemic cultures’ of qualitative research (Knoblauch et. al., 2002) • Need for a ‘glocalized’ methodology (Gobo, 2011) • Operationalization of glocalized approach through the ‘kaleidoscope’ metaphor (Lee and Cassell, 2014).

17. 4. Epistemological diversity • Post-colonialism (Prasad, 2005) • Indigenous scholarship (e.g.: Smith, 1999; Stablein and Panaho, 2011) • Queer theory • Ongoing mapping of the philosophical terrain of qualitative research is required.

18. Reflection • Are we in the ‘fractured future’ that Denzin and Lincoln outline? • What are the implications of characterising qualitative research in this way? • Never forget how wonderful qualitative research is

19. Conclusions • Some ongoing concerns • Publication in ‘top’ journals • Standardisation • The future is bright: • Far more resources available to the qualitative researcher • Exciting methodological developments and new epistemological approaches in an increasingly globalised research world.

20. Thank you Any questions?