Qualitative Inquiry in Management: Methodological Dilemmas and Concerns in Meta‐Analysis

Abstract

We posit that qualitative inquiry is essential to management science but is insufficiently capitalized on and that, if aggregated through meta‐studies, such research could yield rich insight on emergent properties and enable the development of higher‐order knowledge and theory. We introduce a pragmatic approach along four ontological perspectives to conducting meta‐studies from qualitative inquiries. We identify principal epistemological, ethical and methodological concerns and dilemmas that occur in the understanding, review and aggregation of qualitative studies and propose concrete remedying heuristics.

The structural, relational and cognitive dimensions of social capital on innovation and technology in interorganizational and intraorganizational settings

“…In this step it is worthwhile to notice that given our critical realist approach to meta-synthesis, we presuppose thematic and methodologic homogeneity (Point, Fendt and Jonsen 2016). Thus, considering our interest was to gather research investigating social capital dimensions, we performed a search on Thompson-ISI Web of Knowledge, SCOPUS, and EBSCO-Business Source Complete adopting the boolean search string "social capital" AND "innovati*" AND "technolog*" AND "case stud*".…”

“…Since new insights from meta-studies emerge from analysis of relationships (Point et al 2016), for analyzing case-specific level (step #6), we performed an inductive causal network analysis (Miles and Huberman 1994). We looked for emerging variables, patterns and relationships that could emerge in each case analysis, coding them according to reported insights of original researchers.…”

“…After analyzing each case separately, we maintained their central metaphors or concepts in order to compare them in a cross-study level in order to reach a final synthesis (Point et al 2016). In this step of the meta-synthesis (#7), the patterns of the variables that emerged from combining and comparing case studies are presented and accessed in Table 5, enhancing the validity of the constructs and relationships proposed (Hoon 2013).…”

“…In this section, we analyze each case separately in order to consider their contextual and environmental idiosyncrasies (Hoon 2013;Point et al 2016). Al-Tabbaa and Ankrah (2016) investigated how social capital dimensions functioned as facilitator of knowledge transfer in the case of Faraday Partnerships, in the United Kingdom.…”

A New Forum for Advancing Understanding of Research Methods and Practice

“…The establishment of a special section in a well‐respected, longstanding and highly‐ranked journal like the European Management Review ( EMR ) helps to overcome this problem. EMR has a history of stimulating debate on methods and research approaches (for example, Patel, ; Point et al, ). The introduction of the section Methodology Matters takes this support a step further by providing a regular outlet for debates on research methods and research practice.…”