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 empirical 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.

What Constitutes a Methodological Contribution?

“…The large audience and extent of change are demonstrated by more 7,500 Google Scholar citations across diverse areas, including organizational behavior, strategic management, entrepreneurship, and organization theory as well as neighboring disciplines, such as supply chain management and marketing. This article has inspired much subsequent work, including a number of subsequent critiques (e.g., Köhler, Smith, & Bhakoo, 2022;Mees-Buss, Welch, & Piekkari, 2022;Pratt, Sonenshein, & Feldman, 2022). Methodological contributions of this caliber are rare and aspirational.…”

The Diffusion of Innovations Elements in Library Science Journals

“…The selection of qualitative methods [5,6] in this study emphasizes the elements of innovation adoption from scientific articles published in library science journals, so as to be able to describe and explain the elements of diffusion of innovation. Purposive sampling is used by researchers as technique to determine and select informants.…”

A Curated Debate: On Using “Templates” in Qualitative Research

“…I also suspect that many of the problems people lamentscholars using templates incorrectly, reviewers and editors imposing templates inappropriately (Köhler et al, 2022)also depend on partial or incomplete understandings of these templates, rather than on the templates themselves. Templates can be roughly seen as a combination of fundamental assumptions (ontological and epistemological), methodological guidelines, and visible artifacts (such as Gioia's data structure, data tables, etc.).…”

“…Mees-Buss et al ( 2020) reveal with their review of qualitative articles in top journals that this may have happened, in particular with Denny Gioia's methodology. Informal conversations and other evidence (e.g., Köhler et al, 2022) suggest that some have felt that this methodology was expected of them, or even imposed on them by editors and reviewers, sometimes against their better judgment. Denny himself deplores some of the ways in which his methods and tools (notably the data structure display) have been erroneously or awkwardly deployed, sometimes as a façade, decoupled from what the authors really did (Gioia et al, 2013;Gioia, this issue).…”