Reading the past to imagine the future

Author(s):  
Silvia Gherardi

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the ten years of the journal through a personal reflection. Design/methodology/approach – A review of the articles published in the last ten years. Findings – I argue that what has distinguished QROM in these ten years are two distinctive features: reflexivity on practices of qualitative research, and openness to the application of qualitative methods to unusual research topics. Originality/value – The main limit of the paper resides in the subjectivity of the person who has read the articles. Other readers may have different opinions and may have chosen different criteria.

Author(s):  
Albert J. Mills

Purpose – A focus on the socio-politics of qualitative research and, given the space available, to raise more questions than answers. In other words, the author wants to be more speculative then definitive. The paper aims to discuss this issue. Design/methodology/approach – The paper is grounded in a sociology of knowledge approach known as ANTi-History. Findings – The development of qualitative methods is grounded in the socio-politics of knowledge production. Research limitations/implications – The focus chosen – ANTi-History – is selected in exclusion to other potential approaches. Practical implications – To encourage researchers to include socio-politics in understanding the production of qualitative research methods. Social implications – Identification of the socio-politics that underlie qualitative approaches. Originality/value – The paper is rooted in a developing approach to the socio-politics of knowledge of the past.


2020 ◽  
Vol 16 (4) ◽  
pp. 593-598
Author(s):  
Gary Spraakman

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore how COVID-19 has affected the author’s management accounting teaching and research. Design/methodology/approach This paper is a reflection essay on management accounting. Findings The author realized that the textbooks, because of the lack of integration among management accounting techniques, do not prepare the students with the ability to make the quick changes required by COVID-19. The author expects that they will have to introduce integration to the management accounting textbooks and courses. Qualitative research will be helpful in identifying the management accounting techniques now integrated in practice. The author further expects the beneficial practices that were learned from online and remote teaching during the pandemic will be with them into the future. Research limitations/implications This paper is limited as it is a personal reflection. Practical implications COVID-19 has required organizations be increasingly agile, particularly in the use of budgets and other management accounting techniques. Social implications Opportunities are identified for improving the teaching and use of management accounting, especially regarding strategy and budgeting. Originality/value The extreme nature of pandemics intensifies the observations of the functioning of disciplines such as management accounting. Everyone learns from extreme experiences.


Author(s):  
Joanne Duberley

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to argue that in order to maintain the legitimacy of qualitative management research it is important to re-emphasise the link between epistemology and methodology and recognise that different knowledge-constituting assumptions can underpin what might on the surface seem to be very similar methodologies. This means that the ways in which any research is evaluated needs to be tied explicitly to the underlying philosophical assumptions at play and those involved in undertaking, judging and publishing research need to show increased awareness in the philosophical assumptions which underpin their judgements of research quality and a willingness to accept difference. Design/methodology/approach – This paper is a discussion piece. Findings – This is a discussion piece. Originality/value – The paper aims to contribute to the debate concerning the future of qualitative methods in management research.


2018 ◽  
Vol 29 (5) ◽  
pp. 809-833 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christoph Breidbach ◽  
Sunmee Choi ◽  
Benjamin Ellway ◽  
Byron W. Keating ◽  
Katerina Kormusheva ◽  
...  

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to analyze the history and future of service operations, with the goal to identify key theoretical and technological advances, as well as fundamental themes that can help to imagine the future of service operations in 2050. Design/methodology/approach A review of the service operations literature was undertaken to inform a discussion regarding the role that technology will play in the future of service operations. Findings The future of service operations is framed in terms of three key themes – complexity, orchestration, and elasticity. The paper makes three contributions to the service science literature by: reviewing key themes underpinning extant service operations research to frame future trajectories of service operations research; elaborating a vision of service operations in 2050 based on history and technology; and outlining a research agenda for future service operations. Practical implications The case of service automation is used to provide an illustration of how the three themes converge to define future service operations, and in particular, to show how technology is recasting the role of the firm. Originality/value Service operations in the next 30 years will be very different from what it was in the past 30 years. This paper differs from other review papers by identifying three key themes that will characterize and instill new insights into the future of service operations research.


2019 ◽  
Vol 22 (3) ◽  
pp. 405-413
Author(s):  
Clive Roland Boddy

Purpose Academic qualitative researchers have been criticized for rejecting the idea that their research can establish causality while market and social researchers, with their realist and pragmatic approach to research, take for granted that it can. This paper aims to explore the ability of qualitative research to determine cause and effect in terms of market and social phenomena. Design/methodology/approach The literature on causality in qualitative research is reviewed and discussed. The discussion is further informed by the author’s own experience of undertaking commercial and academic market and social qualitative research over the past 33 years. Findings In qualitative market and social research, the determination of causality is often needed but rarely discussed. This paper explores this occurrence and brings to the fore, via discussion and the use of example, the ways in which causality can be determined by qualitative research. Practical implications A determination of what events bring about predictable changes in social and market environments can be established via qualitative research particularly at a probabilistic level of causality. This implies that policymakers should give a greater emphasis to qualitative findings than then sometimes do at the moment. Originality/value Causality in market and social research is rarely discussed by practitioners but is nevertheless a premise of much of the qualitative research that is undertaken. This paper is therefore distinctive in that it examines whether this premise is justifiable.


Author(s):  
Bill Lee

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to consider the contribution that this journal has made to the development of qualitative research over the ten years of Qualitative Research in Organizations and Management’s (QROM’s) lifetime and its potential to contribute further in the future. Design/methodology/approach – Reflections are made from the author’s standpoint as a longstanding associate editor of QROM and a UK academic in the field of accounting. Findings – Concern is expressed about the way in which the use of a particular journal list in UK institutions – namely, the ABS list – has skewed development away from qualitative research during the hitherto lifetime of QROM but how, despite that handicap, QROM has made a notable contribution. Originality/value – A reflection informed by both the disciplinary and geographical context as well as ten years’ service as an Associate Editor of this journal.


2019 ◽  
Vol 25 (4) ◽  
pp. 565-584
Author(s):  
Tomasz Olejniczak ◽  
Anna Pikos ◽  
Toshio Goto

Purpose This study aims to represent an early attempt to define the notion of continuity and empirically illustrate its explanatory potential and methodological challenges. Design/methodology/approach This study combines historical and qualitative research techniques to conduct a qualitative analysis of continuity in the Jablkowski Brothers Department Store, a Polish centennial company. The paper highlights the potential synergies between historical and qualitative methods when applied to the analysis of long periods of time. Findings The authors find that using a theoretical framework of continuity provides novel ontological and epistemological insights into the nature of long-lived companies. Based on the findings, the authors present continuity in the context of existing theories and argue that it is a unique concept that deserves more scientific attention and rigorous empirical study. Originality/value This study contributes to the existing literature in three ways. First, it provides a brief, interdisciplinary overview of the concept of continuity. Second, it provides an empirical illustration of continuity analysis in a Polish centennial company with extremely discontinuous history. Finally, it positions continuity within the wider context of existing theories and shows how, through continuity, history can contribute to both the practice and theory of management.


2020 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephanie Anne Shelton ◽  
Maureen A. Flint

PurposeTranscription is an integral component to qualitative research, and as such, the ways that researchers discuss transcription in the literature matter. Scholarly discussions on the “how” and “why” of transcription not only shape discourse within interview data-based fields; they inform the ways that researchers understand the roles and ramifications of transcribing. This study aims to provide a comprehensive literature review of articles on transcription published in qualitative methods journals over the past 25 years, offering implications for research practice and pedagogy.Design/methodology/approachThe literature review asked: How do qualitative researchers discuss transcription/transcribing? The authors first reviewed how transcription was discussed in the literature in qualitative studies in the social sciences broadly. Based on the findings, the authors then conducted a comprehensive literature review in 14 qualitative methods journals.FindingsThe authors found that overall, authors discussed transcription either as a technical tool or as a complex, researcher-constructed process. Specifically, utilitarian discussions of transcription emphasized transcription accuracy and efficiency, while theoretical discussions of transcription emphasized a continuously analytic and researcher-constructed process.Originality/valueThis study offers a comprehensive overview of the past 25 years of articles published on transcription. The authors conclude with a discussion of articles that bridge the theoretical and utilitarian discussions, as well as considerations for using transcription as a pedagogical tool for teaching qualitative research methods.


2019 ◽  
Vol 75 (1) ◽  
pp. 113-116
Author(s):  
Berendien Lubbe

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to provide a brief perspective on the growth of business travel over the past 60 years and how it may unfold in the future, highlighting certain themes and noting limitations in the research. Design/methodology/approach This paper is based on selected academic literature and industry sources on business travel which briefly reviews its growth and directions of research in this field. Practical implications The paper distinguishes between different types of business travel and provides a bird's eye view of the future. Originality/value The review distinguishes between different forms of business travel and concludes that greater clarity of the business travel concept will enable research to be conducted within a properly defined theoretical framework.


2019 ◽  
Vol 75 (1) ◽  
pp. 158-161
Author(s):  
Gang-Hua Chen ◽  
Songshan (Sam) Huang

Purpose This paper aims to contemplate the past development of backpacker tourism research and assess the future development of backpacker tourism research. Design/methodology/approach The authors evaluate the research on backpacker tourism in the past in the following three aspects, namely, research themes, research methods and geographical and cultural contexts of research. Findings Backpackers and backpacker tourism have been evolving in the past 75 years, just as other groups of travelers and forms of travel have. With the rapid pace of globalization in our time, backpacker tourism and its kinship forms will remain an important international tourism phenomenon, with root reasons in different types of economies and societies. As such, it will remain to be a significant research subject for tourism researchers in the future. Originality/value This paper contemplates the past development and assesses the future development of backpacker tourism research.


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