Researchers are exposed to multiple interpretive challenges in the journey from field data to theoretical understanding. A common response to these challenges is to turn to the guidance of templates such as the Gioia methodology—currently a preferred template for interpretive management research. Given its popularity, we examine how this methodology approaches the interpretive process of fieldwork. We find that the inductive route to theory that it offers does not address the challenges of interpretation. As an alternative, we propose a return to the epistemological tradition of hermeneutics. We argue that fieldwork informed by a hermeneutic orientation is able to generate credible and novel theory by confronting the challenges of interpretation head on. This process cannot be represented by the orderly steps of a template. We argue that a return to a hermeneutic orientation opens the way to more plausible and insightful theories based on interpretive rather than procedural rigor, and we offer a set of heuristics to guide both researchers and reviewers along this path.
AbbottA. (2004). Methods of discovery: Heuristics for the social sciences. W.W. Norton.
2.
AlvessonM. (2003). Beyond neopositivists, romantics, and localists: A reflexive approach to interviews in organizational research. Academy of Management Review, 28(1), 13–33.
3.
AlvessonM.GabrielY. (2013). Beyond formulaic research: In praise of greater diversity in organizational research and publications. Academy of Management Learning & Education, 12(2), 245–263.
4.
AlvessonM.SköldbergK. (2009). Reflexive methodology: New vistas for qualitative research (2nd ed.). SAGE.
5.
AthensL. (2010). Naturalistic inquiry in theory and practice. Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, 39(1), 87–125.
6.
BrinkmannS. (2018). Philosophies of qualitative research. Oxford University Press.
7.
BryantA. (2017). Grounded theory and grounded theorizing. Oxford University Press.
8.
CornelissenJ.P. (2006). Making sense of theory construction: Metaphor and disciplined imagination. Organization Studies, 27(11), 1579–1597.
9.
CornelissenJ. P. (2017). Preserving theoretical divergence in management research: Why the explanatory potential of qualitative research should be harnessed rather than suppressed. Journal of Management Studies, 54(3), 368–383.
10.
CzarniawskaB. (2016). Reflexivity versus rigor?Management Learning, 47(5), 615–619.
11.
DenzinN. K. (1970). The research act in sociology: A theoretical introduction to sociological methods. Butterworths.
12.
EberleT. S. (2014). Methodological implications of phenomenological life-world analysis. In StaudiglM.BergunoG. (Eds.), Schutzian phenomenology and hermeneutic traditions (pp. 9–32). Springer.
13.
EisenhardtK. M. (1989). Building theories from case study research. Academy of Management Review, 14(4), 532–550.
14.
GadamerH.-G. (1989). Truth and method (2nd Rev. ed.; WeinsheimerJ.MarshallD. G., Trans.). Continuum.
15.
GephartR. P. (2017). Qualitative research as an interpretive social science. In CassellC.CunliffeA.GrandyG. (Eds.), The SAGE handbook of qualitative business and management research methods (pp. 345–358). SAGE.
16.
GillM. J. (2014). The possibilities of phenomenology for organizational research. Organizational Research Methods, 17(2), 118–137.
17.
GioiaD. A. (2017). The long, hard road to legitimacy for qualitative research: A personal–professional journey. In MirR.JainS. (Eds.), The Routledge companion to qualitative research in organization studies (pp. 453–464). Routledge.
18.
GioiaD. A.ChittipeddiK. (1991). Sensemaking and sensegiving in strategic change initiation. Strategic Management Journal, 12(6), 433–448.
19.
GioiaD. A.CorleyK. G.HamiltonA. L. (2013). Seeking qualitative rigor in inductive research: Notes on the Gioia methodology. Organizational Research Methods, 16(1), 15–31.
20.
GioiaD. A.PriceK. N.HamiltonA. L.ThomasJ. B. (2010). Forging an identity: An insider-outsider study of processes involved in the formation of organizational identity. Administrative Science Quarterly, 55(1), 1–46.
21.
GlaserB. G.StraussA. L. (1967). The discovery of grounded theory: Strategies for qualitative research. Aldine.
22.
Godfrey-SmithP. (2003). Theory and reality: An introduction to the philosophy of science. University of Chicago Press.
23.
Golden-BiddleK.LockeK. (2007). Composing qualitative research (2nd ed.). SAGE.
24.
GubaE. G.LincolnY. S. (1982). Epistemological and methodological bases of naturalistic inquiry. Educational Communication and Technology, 30(4), 233–252.
25.
GubriumJ. F.HolsteinJ. A. (1997). The new language of qualitative method. Oxford University Press.
26.
HoltR.SandbergJ. (2011). Phenomenology and organization theory. Research in the Sociology of Organizations, 32, 215–249.
27.
HuffmanT.TracyS. J. (2018). Making claims that matter: Heuristics for theoretical and social impact in qualitative research. Qualitative Inquiry, 24(8), 558–570.
28.
JohnsonP.DuberleyJ. (2000). Understanding management research: An introduction to epistemology. SAGE.
29.
JosselsonR. (2004). The hermeneutics of faith and the hermeneutics of suspicion. Narrative Inquiry, 14(1), 1–28.
KelloggK. C. (2009). Operating room: Relational spaces and microinstitutional change in surgery. American Journal of Sociology, 115(3), 657–711.
32.
KelloggK. C. (2011). Challenging operations: Medical reform and resistance in surgery. University of Chicago Press.
33.
KelloggK. C. (2012). Making the cut: Using status-based countertactics to block social movement implementation and microinstitutional change in surgery. Organization Science, 23(6), 1546–1570.
34.
KetokiviM.MantereS.CornelissenJ. (2017). Reasoning by analogy and the progress of theory. Academy of Management Review, 42(4), 637–658.
35.
KlagM.LangleyA. (2013). Approaching the conceptual leap in qualitative research. International Journal of Management Reviews, 15(2), 149–166.
36.
KornbergerM.MantereS. (2020). Thought experiments and philosophy in organizational research. Organization Theory, 1(3). https://doi.org/10.1177/2631787720942524
37.
LangleyA.AbdallahC. (2011). Templates and turns in qualitative studies of strategy and management. In BerghD.KetchenD. (Eds.), Building methodological bridges: Research methodology in strategy and management (Vol. 6, pp. 201–235). Emerald Group.
38.
LincolnY. S. (1995). Emerging criteria for quality in qualitative and interpretive research. Qualitative Inquiry, 1(3), 275–289.
39.
LincolnY. S.GubaE. G. (1985). Naturalistic inquiry. SAGE.
40.
LockeK.Golden-BiddleK.FeldmanM. S. (2008). Making doubt generative: Rethinking the role of doubt in the research process. Organization Science, 19(6), 907–918.
41.
LoflandJ.LoflandL. H. (1971). Analyzing social settings: A guide to qualitative observation and analysis. Wadsworth.
42.
MorseJ. M.SternP. N.CorbinJ.BowersB.CharmazK.ClarkeA. E. (2009). Developing grounded theory: The second generation. Left Coast Press.
43.
PiekkariR.WelchC. (2018). The case study in management research: Beyond the positivist legacy of Eisenhardt and Yin? In CassellC.CunliffeA.GrandyG. (Eds.), The SAGE handbook of qualitative business and management research methods (pp. 345–358). SAGE.
44.
PrasadA. (2002). The contest over meaning: Hermeneutics as an interpretive methodology for understanding texts. Organizational Research Methods, 5(1), 12–33.
45.
PrasadP. (2005). Crafting qualitative research: Working in the postpositivist traditions. M. E. Sharpe.
46.
ReayT.ZafarA.MonteiroP.GlaserV. (2019). Presenting findings from qualitative research: One size does not fit all! In ZilberT. B.AmisJ. M.MairJ (Eds.), The production of managerial knowledge and organizational theory: New approaches to writing, producing and consuming theory (Vol. 59, pp. 201–216). Emerald.
47.
ReichertzJ. (2013). Induction, deduction. In FlickU. (Ed.), The SAGE handbook of qualitative data analysis (pp. 123–135). SAGE.
48.
SayerA. (1992). Method in social science: A realist approach (2nd ed.). Routledge.
49.
SchaeferS. M.AlvessonM. (2020). Epistemic attitudes and source critique in qualitative research. Journal of Management Inquiry, 29(1), 33–45.
50.
SchützA. (1954). Concept and theory formation in the social sciences. The Journal of Philosophy, 51(9), 257–273.
51.
SchützA. (1960). The social world and the theory of social action. Social Research, 27(4), 203–221.
52.
SchützA. (1964). Collected works (Vol. II, BrodersenA. Ed.). Martinus Nijhoff.
53.
Schwartz-SheaP.YanowD. (2013). Interpretive research design: Concepts and processes. Routledge.
54.
SilvermanD. (1989). Six rules of qualitative research: A post-romantic argument. Symbolic Interaction, 12(2), 215–230.
SilvermanD. (2017). How was it for you? The interview society and the irresistible rise of the (poorly analyzed) interview. Qualitative Research, 17(2), 144–158.
57.
SilvermanD. (2020). Interpreting qualitative data (6th ed.). SAGE.
58.
SmithA. (2002). From process data to publication: A personal sensemaking. Journal of Management Inquiry, 11(4), 383–406.
59.
StraussA.CorbinJ. (1990). Basics of qualitative research. Sage.
60.
TavoryI.TimmermansS. (2014). Abductive analysis: Theorizing qualitative research. University of Chicago Press.
61.
ThatchenkeryT. J. (2001). Mining for meaning: Reading organizations using hermeneutic philosophy. In WestwoodR.LinsteadS. A. (Eds.), The language of organization (pp. 113–131). SAGE.
62.
TomkinsL.EatoughV. (2018). Hermeneutics: Interpretation, understanding and sense-making. In CassellC.CunliffeA. L.GrandyG. (Eds.), The SAGE handbook of qualitative business and management research methods (pp. 185–200). SAGE.
63.
Van MaanenJ. (1979). The fact of fiction in organizational ethnography. Administrative Science Quarterly, 24(4), 539–550.
64.
Van MaanenJ. (2011). Tales of the field: On writing ethnography (2nd ed.). University of Chicago Press.
65.
Van MaanenJ.SørensenJ. B.MitchellT. R. (2007). The interplay between theory and method. Academy of Management Review, 32(4), 1145–1154.
66.
WhitakerE. M.AtkinsonP. (2019). Authenticity and the interview: A positive response to a radical critique. Qualitative Research, 19(6), 619–634.
67.
WillmottH. (2008). Listening, interpreting, commending: A commentary on the future of interpretive accounting research. Critical Perspectives on Accounting, 19(6), 920–925.
68.
ZyphurM. J.PieridesD. C. (2017). Is quantitative research ethical? Tools for ethically practicing, evaluating, and using quantitative research. Journal of Business Ethics, 143(1), 1–16.
Supplementary Material
Please find the following supplemental material available below.
For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.
For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.
