Templates in Qualitative Research Methods: Origins,Limitations,and New Directions

Abstract

In this feature topic, we explore the burgeoning trend to employ templates in qualitative research. To understand authors’ motivations to use templates and perceptions regarding template use in the scholarly community, we conducted an interview study with 21 interviewees who had published qualitative research in one of nine premier management journals between 2014 and 2018. Our analysis identified four key tensions in template use: structure versus restriction, convention versus innovativeness, legitimization versus obscuration, and instrumentality versus craft. We discuss these tensions and their implications for the practice and evaluation of qualitative research. We then introduce the eight papers included in this feature topic. Each of them addresses and explores specific aspects of the origins and limitations of template use, whilst providing insights and guidance for future qualitative research. We envisage this feature topic to be a catalyst for discourse amongst scholars, engaging with contemporary trends and tensions to pave new pathways that embrace the diversity and plurality of qualitative approaches.

Keywords

qualitative research methods templates motivations interview study

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Alvesson

Gabriel

(2013). Beyond formulaic research: In praise of greater diversity in organizational research and publications. Academy of Management Learning & Education, 12(2), 245–263. https://doi.org/10.5465/amle.2012.0327

Alvesson

Sandberg

(2011). Generating research questions through problematization. Academy of Management Review, 36(2), 247–271. https://doi.org/10.5465/amr.2009.0188

Balachandran Nair

(2021). To discard or to ado(a)pt? Looking at qualitative research templates through the lens of organizational routines. Qualitative Research in Organizations and Management: An International Journal, 16(2), 409–423.https://doi.org/10.1108/QROM-09-2020-2021

Bansal

Smith

W. K.

Vaara

(2018). New ways of seeing through qualitative research. Academy of Management Journal, 61(4), 1189–1195. https://doi.org/10.5465/amj.2018.4004

Bansal

Corley

(2011). From the editors: The coming of age for qualitative research: Embracing the diversity of qualitative methods. Academy of Management Journal, 54(2), 233–237. https://doi.org/10.5465/amj.2011.60262792

Cassell

(2018). “Pushed beyond my comfort zone:” MBA student experiences of conducting qualitative research. Academy of Management Learning & Education, 17(2), 119–136. https://doi.org/10.5465/amle.2015.0016

Cassell

Bishop

Symon

Johnson

Buehring

(2009). Learning to be a qualitative management researcher. Management Learning, 40(5), 513–533. https://doi.org/10.1177/1350507609340811

*Cilesiz

Greckhamer

(2022). Methodological socialization and identity: A bricolage study of pathways toward qualitative research in doctoral education. Organizational Research Methods, 25(2), 337–370. https://doi.org/10.1177/1094428120980047

Corbin

Strauss

(2014). Basics of qualitative research: Techniques and procedures for developing grounded theory (4th ed.). Sage Publications.

10.

Corley

Bansal

(2021). An editorial perspective on judging the quality of inductive research when the methodological straightjacket is loosened. Strategic Organization, 19(1), 161–175. https://doi.org/10.1177/1476127020968180

11.

Cramton

C. D.

(2001). The mutual knowledge problem and its consequences for dispersed collaboration. Organization Science, 12(3), 346–371. https://doi.org/10.1287/orsc.12.3.346.10098

12.

Denzin

N. K.

Lincoln

Y. S.

(2017). The SAGE handbook of qualitative research (5th ed.). Sage Publications.

13.

Dyrsen

(1878). The sorcerer's apprentice. Retrieved on June 18, 2021, from https://germanstories.vcu.edu/goethe/zauber_e4.html

14.

Eisenhardt

K. M.

(1989). Building theories from case study research. Academy of Management Review, 14(4), 532–550. https://doi.org/10.2307/258557

15.

Gehman

Glaser

V. L.

Eisenhardt

K. M.

Gioia

Langley

Corley

K. G.

(2018). Finding theory–method fit: A comparison of three qualitative approaches to theory building. Journal of Management Inquiry, 27(3), 284–300. https://doi.org/10.1177/1056492617706029

16.

Gephart

R. P.

Jr (2004). Qualitative research and the Academy of Management Journal. Academy of Management Journal, 47(4), 454–462. https://doi.org/10.5465/amj.2004.14438580

17.

Gersick

C. J. G.

(1988). Time and transition in work teams: Toward a new model of group development. Academy of Management Journal, 31(1), 9–41. https://doi.org/10.2307/256496

18.

Gioia

D. A.

Corley

K. G.

Hamilton

A. L.

(2013). Seeking qualitative rigor in inductive research: Notes on the Gioia methodology. Organizational Research Methods, 16(1), 15–31. https://doi.org/10.1177/1094428112452151

19.

Glaser

B. G.

Strauss

A. L.

(1967). The discovery of grounded theory: Strategies for qualitative research. Aldine Transaction.

20.

*Harley

Cornelissen

(2022). Rigor with or without templates? The pursuit of methodological rigor in qualitative research. Organizational Research Methods, 25(2), 239–261. https://doi.org/10.1177/1094428120937786

21.

International Federation of Scholarly Associations of Management (2021). IFSAM General Assembly's position statement on management research. Retrieved June 21, 2021, from https://www.ifsam.org/download/ifsam-general-assemblys-position-statement-on-management-research/

22.

Köhler

Smith

Bhakoo

(2019). Feature topic for ORM: Templates in qualitative research methods. Organizational Research Methods, 22(1), 3–5. https://doi.org/10.1177/1094428118805165

23.

Langley

(1999). Strategies for theorizing from process data. Academy of Management Review, 24(4), 691–710. https://doi.org/10.5465/amr.1999.2553248

24.

Langley

Abdallah

(2011). Templates and turns in qualitative studies of strategy and management. In D. D. Bergh and D. J. Ketchen (Eds.), Building Methodological Bridges: Research Methodology in Strategy and Management (Vol. 6, pp. 201–235). Emerald Group Publishing Limited. https://doi.org/10.1108/S1479-8387(2011)0000006007

25.

*Lê

J. K.

Schmid

(2022). The practice of innovating research methods. Organizational Research Methods, 25(2), 308–336. https://doi.org/10.1177/1094428120935498

26.

*Lerman

M. P.

Mmbaga

Smith

(2022). Tracing ideas from Langley (1999): Exemplars, adaptations, considerations, and overlooked. Organizational Research Methods, 25(2), 285–307. https://doi.org/10.1177/1094428120915510

27.

Locke

(2015). Pragmatic reflections on a conversation about grounded theory in management and organization studies. Organizational Research Methods, 18(4), 612–619. https://doi.org/10.1177/1094428115574858

28.

*Locke

Feldman

Golden-Biddle

(2022). Coding practices and iterativity: Beyond templates for analyzing qualitative data. Organizational Research Methods, 25(2), 262–284. https://doi.org/10.1177/1094428120948600

29.

Locke

Golden-Biddle

(1997). Constructing opportunities for contribution: Structuring intertextual coherence and “problematizing” in organizational studies. Academy of Management Journal, 40(5), 1023–1062. https://doi.org/10.5465/256926

30.

Lofland

L. H.

(1995). Analyzing social settings: A guide to qualitative observation and analysis (3^rd ed.). Wadsworth Publishing Company.

31.

*Mees-Buss

Welch

Piekkari

(2022). From templates to heuristics: How and why to move beyond the Gioia methodology. Organizational Research Methods, 25(2), 405–429. https://doi.org/10.1177/1094428120967716

32.

Pratt

M. G.

(2008). Fitting oval pegs into round holes: Tensions in evaluating and publishing qualitative research in top-tier North American journals. Organizational Research Methods, 11(3), 481–509. https://doi.org/10.1177/1094428107303349

33.

Pratt

M. G.

Bonaccio

(2016). Qualitative research in IO psychology: Maps, myths, and moving forward. Industrial and Organizational Psychology, 9(4), 693–715. https://doi.org/10.1017/iop.2016.92

34.

Pratt

M. G.

Kaplan

Whittington

(2020). Editorial essay: The tumult over transparency: Decoupling transparency from replication in establishing trustworthy qualitative research. Administrative Science Quarterly, 65(1), 1–19. https://doi.org/10.1177/0001839219887663

35.

*Pratt

M. G.

Sonenshein

Feldman

M. S.

(2022). Moving beyond templates: A bricolage approach to conducting trustworthy qualitative research. Organizational Research Methods, 25(2), 211–238. https://doi.org/10.1177/1094428120927466

36.

Reay

Zafar

Monteiro

Glaser

(2019). In T. B. Zilber, J. M. Amis, & J. Mair (Eds.), The Production of Managerial Knowledge and Organizational Theory: New Approaches to Writing, Producing and Consuming Theory: Research in the Sociology of Organizations (Vol. 59, pp. 201–216). Emerald Publishing Limited. https://doi.org/10.1108/S0733-558X20190000059011

37.

Rynes

S. L.

Bartunek

J. M.

(2016). Qualitative research: It just keeps getting more interesting!. In Elsbach

K. D.

Kramer

R. M.

(Eds.), Handbook of qualitative organizational research (pp. 9–23). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315849072

38.

Sandberg

Alvesson

(2011). Ways of constructing research questions: Gap-spotting or problematization? Organization, 18(1), 23–44. https://doi.org/10.1177/1350508410372151

39.

Van Maanen

(1979). The fact of fiction in organizational ethnography. Administrative Science Quarterly, 24(4), 539–550. https://doi.org/10.2307/2392360

40.

von Goethe

J. W.

(1798). Der Zauberlehrling. In Schiller

(Ed.), Musen-Almanach für das Jahr 1798 (pp. 32–37). J. G. Cottaische Buchhandlung.

41.

Yin

R. K.

(2017). Case study research and applications: Design and methods. Sage publications.

42.

*Zilber

T. B.

Zanoni

(2022). Templates of ethnographic writing in organization studies: Beyond the hegemony of the detective story. Organizational Research Methods, 25(2), 371–404. https://doi.org/10.1177/1094428120944468

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.

0.00 MB