What’s trending now@ #organizational research methods

Abstract

This chapter explores three trends in research methods in organization studies. The first concerns attempts to standardize the reporting and conduct of research, with a quants-based template for presenting qualitative studies, and through the evidence-based management movement. The latter means that research findings are now more likely to influence decision makers where methods are grounded in – or are presented in such a manner that they appear to be grounded in – traditional positivist hypothetico-deductive methods. A second trend concerns the growing influence of process-theoretical perspectives. The third concerns the methodological inventiveness which organizational research increasingly displays, and which is justified by the added value that new methods bring to conceptualization and understanding.