Qualitative methods in management research 9781845449315, 9781845449308

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ISSN 0025-1747

Volume 44 Number 2 2006

Management Decision Qualitative methods in management research Guest Editors: Catherine Cassell, Anna Buehring, Gillian Symon and Phil Johnson

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Management Decision

ISSN 0025-1747

Qualitative methods in management research

Volume 44 Number 2 2006

Guest Editors Catherine Cassell, Anna Buehring, Gillian Symon and Phil Johnson

Access this journal online _________________________

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Editorial advisory board __________________________

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EDITORIAL Qualitative methods in management research: an introduction to the themed issue Catherine Cassell, Anna Buehring, Gillian Symon and Phil Johnson ______

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Qualitative research in management: addressing complexity, context and persona Evert Gummesson______________________________________________

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More than a numbers game: qualitative research in accounting Bill Lee and Christopher Humphrey________________________________

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A biographical approach to researching entrepreneurship in the smaller firm Ian Fillis _____________________________________________________

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CONTENTS

CONTENTS continued

Using qualitative research synthesis to build an actionable knowledge base David Denyer and David Tranfield ________________________________

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The role of communication and management support in a lean manufacturing implementation J.M. Worley and T.L. Doolen _____________________________________

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Talking about change: understanding employee responses through qualitative research Melanie Bryant ________________________________________________

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Intransivities of managerial decisions: a grounded theory case David Douglas_________________________________________________

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Meaning and context of participation in five European countries Erna Szabo ___________________________________________________

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The role and status of qualitative methods in management research: an empirical account Catherine Cassell, Gillian Symon, Anna Buehring and Phil Johnson ______

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EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD David Ballantyne Associate Professor of Marketing, University of Otago, New Zealand Laurence Barton PhD President and Chief Executive Officer, The American College, Bryn Mawr, PA, USA Dr Mike Berrell Professor of Work Organization, Director Academic, Graduate School of Business, RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia David M. Boje PhD Department of Management, New Mexico State University, USA Mike Bourne Cranfield School of Management, Centre for Business Performance, Cranfield, UK Catherine Cassell Professor of Occupational Psychology, Manchester Business School, UK Mark Dodgson Director, Technology and Innovation Management Centre, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia Mario Emiliani Professor of Management, Rensselaer at Hartford Lally School of Management and Technology, USA Stan Glaser Fred Emery Institute, Melbourne, Australia Christian Gro¨nroos Professor, Swedish School of Economics, Helsinki, Finland John C. Groth Professor of Finance, Texas A&M University, USA

Yoshio Kondo Professor Emeritus, Kyoto University, Japan Hao Ma PhD Professor of Management & EMBA Director, Peking University, People’s Republic of China Nigel F. Piercy Cardiff University, UK Michael A. Roberto Assistant Professor, Harvard Business School, Boston, MA, USA Jennifer Rowley Head, School of Management and Social Sciences, Edge Hill University College, UK Joseph Sarkis Clark University, Worcester, MA, USA Wang ShouQing Deputy Head, Department of Construction Management, School of Civil Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China Amrik S. Sohal Department of Management, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia Ian Taplin Department of Sociology and International Studies, Wake Forest University, Winston Salem, USA and Bordeaux Business School, France David Tranfield Professor of Management, Director of Research and Faculty Development, Cranfield School of Management, Cranfield, UK

Professor Angappa Gunasekaran Department of Management, Charlton College of Business, University of Massachusetts, North Dartmouth, USA

Joao Vieira da Cunha MIT Sloan School of Management, Cambridge, USA

William D. Guth Harold Price Professor of Entrepreneurship and Strategic Management, New York University, USA

Ingo Walter Charles Simon Professor of Applied Financial Economics, New York University, USA

Sam Ho Dean. Hang Seng School of Commerce, Hong Kong

Charlie Weir Aberdeen Business School, Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen, UK

Jay Kandampully Ohio State University, Columbus, USA Magda Elsayed Kandil Senior Economist, International Monetary Fund, Washington DC, USA Aneel Karnani School of Business Administration, University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, USA Management Decision Vol. 44 No. 2, 2006 p. 160 # Emerald Group Publishing Limited 0025-1747

Tauno O. Kekale University of Vaasa, Finland

Erdener Kaynak Professor of Marketing, Pennsylvania University of Harrisburg, USA

Claus von Campenhausen Accenture, Mu¨nchen, Germany

Ray Wild Principal, Henley Management College, Henley-onThames, UK Richard Wilding Cranfield School of Management, Cranfield, UK Mohamed A. Youssef Eminent Scholar and Chairman, Norfolk State University, Norfolk, Virginia, USA

The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at www.emeraldinsight.com/0025-1747.htm

EDITORIAL

Qualitative methods in management research: an introduction to the themed issue

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Catherine Cassell Manchester Business School, University of Manchester, Manchester, UK

Anna Buehring Business School, Manchester Metropolitan University, Manchester, UK

Gillian Symon Department of Organizational Psychology, Birkbeck, University of London, UK, and

Phil Johnson Management School, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK Abstract Purpose – The purpose of the paper is to introduce the themed issue about qualitative research in the business and management field. Design/methodology/approach – The paper considers some issues about how to define the term “qualitative research”, and then introduces each of the papers in the themed issue. Findings – The contents of this themed issue demonstrate the insights that qualitative research can make into the management field. Originality/value – A large amount of interest was generated in the themed issue. As a consequence, Emerald Publishing Group are launching a new journal which specifically focuses on qualitative research in this field. Keywords Qualitative research, Management research Paper type Research paper

This themed issue of Management Decision focuses upon the uses of qualitative methods in management research. Within this introduction we raise some issues about what is meant by qualitative research, outline our aims in producing the special issue, and introduce the articles within it. Initially one might assume that qualitative research is simply defined as research that does not use numbers or statistical procedures; however defining qualitative research is not as straightforward as it might seem. The main reason for this concerns the range of different approaches that are subsumed under the heading “qualitative” (Symon et al., 2000), indeed this diversity is exacerbated in management research precisely because of its multi-disciplinary (Brown, 1997), and interdisciplinary (Watson, 1997) nature. There is also considerable variety and range in the forms and uses of qualitative research in different parts of the world. For example, Knoblauch

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et al. (2005) outline the considerable diversity that exists within qualitative research in Europe. They suggest that: To be frank, at times the challenge of this variety is hard to meet; at other times it gives a deep insight into the cultural richness (which is not to say relativity) of the scientific enterprise (2005, p. 1).

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A further issue concerns the philosophical assumptions that underlie qualitative research. Whereas most of the quantitative studies reported in the management field might be underpinned by a positivist or modernist paradigm, those who conduct qualitative research do it from a range of different epistemological positions. Some who seek to quantify the outputs of their qualitative research may be working within a positivist paradigm (Prasad and Prasad (2002) describe as “qualitative positivism”, p. 6), whereas others may draw upon other possible epistemological positions, such as postmodernism, interpretivism, critical theory, and social constructionism (Gephart, 1999). Therefore the variety of epistemological perspectives in this context complicate the process of defining qualitative research, as it may mean very different things to different people. Given these alternative positions, we can see that defining “qualitative research” is not a straightforward process. In presenting a themed issue however, it seems both necessary and appropriate that we have some understanding of the boundaries around qualitative research. Holloway and Todres (2003) argue that many elements of qualitative research are shared between different approaches and that: . . . such an overlap of epistemological, aesthetic, ethical and procedural concerns can encourage a fairly generic view of qualitative research – a “family” approach in which the similarities are considered more important than the differences, and where the notion of flexibility becomes an important value and quest (p. 346).

For the purpose of this special issue, and in the interests of pragmatism, we will use the term as it is conventionally used within the management field: that is, to represent those techniques of data collection and analysis that rely on non-numerical data. In defining “qualitative” in this way, we seek to be inclusive of a range of techniques that focus on textual data or visual images, whilst excluding techniques specifically involving quantification processes. We recognise that there are some who would dispute our definition here, but it is offered in the context of the problems outlined above. Qualitative methods have had a long history within the social sciences generally and have for many years made a significant contribution to numerous substantive areas of management research. For example, qualitative research has focused upon: the nature of managerial work (Dalton, 1959; Mintzberg, 1973; Watson, 1977; Jackall, 1988; Watson, 1994); the impact of organizational control systems (Roy, 1960; Lupton, 1963; Kunda, 1992; Willmott and Knights, 1995); relations with employees (Gouldner, 1954; Armstrong et al., 1981; Collinson, 1992); the everyday experience of work (Rosen, 1985; Kondo, 1990; Van Maanen, 1991; Giroux, 1992; Meyerson, 1994); and gender and identity at work (Kanter, 1977; Pollert, 1981; Martin, 1990; Ely, 1995; Parker, 2000). Therefore given the history and significance of qualitative research in the management field, a legitimate question is: why the need for a themed issue such as this? Our contention is that despite the contribution that qualitative research can make, studies using qualitative research methods are not always represented in the various academic and practitioner outlets of the field. Our view is that management researchers are

conducting some interesting and groundbreaking research using qualitative techniques, but that such research may not be widely reported. We feel this is a loss to management research and practice, given the usefulness that the findings of qualitative research can potentially have. Indeed commentators have argued that the outputs of qualitative research may be of more relevance and interest to management practitioners than those of traditional methods. Therefore it would seem that despite the “coming of age” of interpretivist research (Prasad and Prasad, 2002), there are still a number of challenges that qualitative researchers face in promoting their work. Our aims in putting together the themed issue were the following. First, we wanted to provide an overview of the current state of the art of qualitative methods in management research. Second, we wanted to highlight the diverse range of subject areas to which qualitative research can contribute. Third, we wanted to provide a showcase for excellent examples of applied qualitative empirical work. When we initially conceived of the idea of the themed issue, we had no idea what the response would be. Over 100 articles were submitted to the issue, something that the editorial team were quite unprepared for at the time. As editors, and indeed as reviewers, we are aware that the decisions we make about manuscripts are highly subjective and based on our own individual interpretations of what makes good qualitative research. The articles presented here are illustrative of the diversity of work being conducted in the field. The issue begins with two review articles designed to set the scene of the current state of the art of qualitative research in business and management. Evert Gummesson begins by presenting his views on why qualitative research is required in the management area. Gummesson highlights the complex issues that both managers and organizational researchers currently face. He argues that to understand management we need to be creative and use a range of methods and techniques to make sense of these complexities. Indeed he concludes by posing a series of questions for management researchers to reflect upon before engaging with their next research initiative. Our second review article concerns a field that is not traditionally associated with qualitative research: that of accounting. Bill Lee and Chris Humphrey chart the development of accounting as a discipline and the various research strategies that have underpinned that development. In describing and analysing the increased use of qualitative methods in this field, they describe how accounting grew an alternative superstructure to deal with the contribution of qualitative work through the creation of new journals such as Accounting, Organizations and Society, and Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal. The methodological eclecticism of these prestigious journals demonstrate that the area of accounting research is a vibrant field where increasingly work that is both qualitative and reflexive is being valued. The next two articles present cases for the increased use of particular methodological approaches within management research. Ian Fillis outlines the potential that biographical methods have in enhancing our understanding of creativity and entrepreneurship. He argues that given that the development of small firms and the behaviour of owner managers often does not fit neatly into the linear conventional models associated with traditional quantitative approaches, biographical approaches based on rich descriptions have much to offer. David Denyer and David Tranfield present a different account of an approach gaining increasing prominence in the management research field, that of systematic review. Drawing on the debate about the relevance of management research (Starkey and Madan, 2001), they argue that other disciplines have sought to use evidence based approaches to enhance the impact that

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research has on practice. They suggest that one way of doing this is to provide “synthesised findings from systematic literature reviews at the service of experienced professionals”. Within the paper they demonstrate how this can be done in relation to qualitative research using three types of reviews: narrative synthesis; meta-ethnography, and realist synthesis. The debate about evidence based practice has already generated much discussion amongst qualitative researchers, and is seen as a controversial area by some who are concerned by the increased systematization of qualitative approaches. This paper contributes to this ongoing debate. We then move on to the empirical papers within the issue. Empirical work from the USA, Australia, and Europe is presented in the articles that follow, and a range of qualitative techniques are showcased. The first two papers focus on organizational change, from two very different perspectives, highlighting the diversity in qualitative approaches referred to earlier. June Worley and Toni Doolin present a case study of a lean manufacturing implementation in the USA. Using a range of qualitative methods including participant observation and semi and unstructured interviews, they analyse the role of communication and management support in facilitating the implementation. The authors contend that the mix of qualitative methods within the case study enables the unfolding and analysis of “the complex set of relationships” between such issues. The next paper considers change from a rather different epistemological perspective. Melanie Bryant’s paper is located within a constructivist framework and examines the dynamics surrounding organizational change through an analysis of employees’ narratives. In doing so she draws on the concept of “voice” to examine stories of responses to change told by a range of Australian employees. Bryant concludes that the application of narrative analysis in this context enables the participants’ constructions to guide the research, thereby highlighting one of the key advantages of qualitative approaches, in that the participants are construed as active constructors of their working worlds rather than as passive subjects. The next two empirical papers investigate the nature of managerial decisions, clearly an area of key interest to readers of this journal. David Douglas’s paper focuses on the use of grounded theory methodology as a means of investigating the decisions made by an SME owner manager. Through the use of both structured and semi structured interviews and observation, qualitative data were gathered in this UK case regarding a wide range of contextual factors surrounding those decisions including the views of the managers’ colleagues. Douglas details the grounded theory process in depth, thereby illustrating the “worthiness of applying grounded theory to investigating complex management issues”. Erna Szarbo’s paper also focuses on managerial decision-making though addresses it from a very different perspective. In a unique study, Szarbo provides a cross-cultural analysis of the meaning and enactment of participation in decision-making in five different European countries. Typically cross-cultural management research focuses on large scale surveys of employees from different countries. In this paper however, Szarbo reports on theme focused interviews with middle managers in each of the countries and through data analysis generates a series of distinctive country-specific models of participation. Szarbo suggests that qualitative work in this context enables an understanding of the “meaning, enactment and context of participation across countries”. In the final paper in the issue, Catherine Cassell, Gillian Symon, Anna Buehring and Phil Johnson report a study investigating the current perceptions of the role and status of qualitative research in the management area. Drawing on an interview study with

journal editors, PhD programme leaders, qualitative researchers, practitioners, and funders of qualitative research they present findings, which explore how qualitative research is viewed within the management research community. The findings focus upon key issues including definitions of qualitative research; its status and credibility; how quality is assessed; barriers to its dissemination; and training issues. Their analysis implies that there is still a need to challenge the notion that high quality research is associated with quantification processes, and in the conclusions of their paper they suggest some ways of doing this. We hope that the contents of this themed issue demonstrate the insights that qualitative research can make into the management field. A large amount of interest was generated in the themed issue as we highlighted earlier. As a consequence, Emerald Publishing Group is launching a new journal, which specifically focuses on qualitative research in this field. The first issue of Qualitative Research in Organizations and Management: an International Journal edited by Catherine Cassell and Gillian Symon is due out in May 2006. We would encourage readers with an interest in qualitative research to both look out for the journal and consider submitting their work to it at [email protected] The interest generated in this issue, plus the quality of the contributions presented here, demonstrates that qualitative research is thriving in the business and management field. We hope that this situation will continue. References Armstrong, P.J., Goodman, J.F.B. and Hyman, J.D. (1981), Ideology and Shop Floor Relations, Croom Helm, Beckenham. Brown, R.B. (1997), “You can’t expect rationality from pregnant men: reflections on multi-disciplinarity in management research”, British Journal of Management, Vol. 8 No. 1, pp. 23-30. Collinson, D. (1992), Managing the Shopfloor: Subjectivity, Masculinity and Workplace Culture, de Gruyter, New York, NY. Dalton, M. (1959), Men Who Manage, Wiley, New York, NY. Ely, R.J. (1995), “The power in demography: women’s social construction of gender identity at work”, Academy of Management Journal, Vol. 38, pp. 589-634. Gephart, R. (1999), “Paradigms and research methods”, Research Methods Forum, Vol. 4 Summer. Giroux, H.A. (1992), Border Crossings: Cultural Workers and the Politics of Education, Routledge, New York, NY. Gouldner, A.W. (1954), Patterns of lndustrial Bureaucracy, Free Press, Glencoe, IL. Holloway, I. and Todres, L. (2003), “The status of method: flexibility, consistency and coherence”, Qualitative Research, Vol. 3 No. 3, pp. 345-58. Jackall, R. (1988), Moral Mazes: The World of Corporate Managers, Oxford University Press, Oxford. Kanter, R.M. (1977), Men and Women of the Corporation, Anchor, New York, NY. Knoblauch, H., Flick, U. and Maeder, C. (2005), “Qualitative research in Europe: the variety of social research”, Forum: Qualitative Social Research, Vol. 6 No. 3, available at: www. qualitative–research.net/fqs-texte/3-05/05-3-34-e.htm (accessed 11 June). Kondo, D. (1990), Crafting Ourselves: Power, Gender and Discourses of Identity in a Japanese Workplace, Chicago University Press, Chicago, IL.

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Kunda, G. (1992), Engineering Culture. Control and Commitment in a High-Tech Corporation, Temple University Press, Philadelphia, PA. Lupton, T. (1963), On the Shop Floor, Pergamon, Oxford. Martin, J. (1990), “Deconstructing organizational taboos: the suppression of gender conflict in organizations”, Organization Science, Vol. 1 No. 4, pp. 339-59. Meyerson, D. (1994), “Interpretations of stress in institutions: the cultural production of ambiguity and burnout”, Administrative Science Quarterly, Vol. 39, pp. 628-53. Mintzberg, H. (1973), The Nature of Managerial Work, Harper & Row, New York, NY. Parker, M. (2000), Organization, Culture and Identity, Sage, London. Pollert, A. (1981), Girls, Wives, Factory Lives, Macmillan, London. Prasad, A. and Prasad, P. (2002), “The coming age of interpretive organizational research”, Organizational Research Methods, Vol. 5 No. 1, pp. 4-11. Rosen, M. (1985), “Breakfast at Spiro’s: dramaturgy and dominance”, Journal of Management, Vol. 11 No. 2, pp. 31-48. Roy, D. (1960), “‘Banana time’ – job satisfaction and informal interactions”, Human Organisation, Vol. 18 No. 2, pp. 156-68. Starkey, K. and Madan, P. (2001), “Bridging the relevance gap: aligning stakeholders in the future of management research”, British Journal of Management, Vol. 12, special issue, pp. 53-526. Symon, G., Cassell, C. and Dickson, R. (2000), “Expanding our research and practice through innovative research methods”, European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology, Vol. 9 No. 4, pp. 1-6. Van Maanen, J. (1991), “The smile factory: work at Disneyland”, in Frost, P.J., Moore, L.F., Louis, M.R., Lundberg, C.C. and Martin, J. (Eds), Reframing Organizational Culture, Sage, London. Watson, T.J. (1977), The Personnel Managers: A Study in the Sociology of Work and Employment, Routledge, London. Watson, T.J. (1994), In Search of Management: Culture, Chaos and Control in Managerial Work, Routledge, London. Watson, T.J. (1997), “Theorizing managerial work: a pragmatic pluralist approach to interdisciplinary research”, British Journal of Management, Vol. 8 No. 1, pp. 3-8. Willmott, H. and Knights, D. (1995), “Culture and control in an insurance company”, Studies in Culture, Organizations and Society, Vol. 1, pp. 1-18. Further reading Rosenau, P.M. (1992), Post-modernism and the Social Sciences: Insights, Inroads and Intrusions, Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ. Ross, D. (1991), The Origins American Social Science, Cambridge, New York, NY. Corresponding author Catherine Cassell can be contacted at: [email protected]

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Qualitative research in management: addressing complexity, context and persona Evert Gummesson

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School of Business, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden Abstract Purpose – To contribute to improved research practices by addressing three key realities in management research, all being largely disregarded by research: complexity, context and persona (the human and social aspects of researcher behaviour). Design/methodology/approach – Based on observations from real world cases and inductive analysis the article proceeds as a scientific discourse and advocacy for qualitative methodology combined with network theory, particularly current developments in the natural sciences. Findings – A qualitative approach to research is required, allowing researchers to deal with complexity, context and persona and their multitude of factors, relationships and fuzzy phenomena; conventional statistical methods fail in all these aspects. Holistic, systemic thinking as manifested in case study research and modern network theory offers a superior mindset and techniques for merging modern physics and mathematics with qualitative approaches. Social and human properties, including tacit knowledge, common sense, subjectivity and what drives a researcher need to be made part of research. Research limitations/implications – Research in management disciplines, neither basic research nor applied research can rely on mainstream quantitative techniques. These are two shallow as they can harbour too few variables, do not put studied phenomena in their proper context, and sweep persona under the carpet. Originality/value – The article is on qualitative methodology and the opportunities it offers to address issues not handled well by mainstream research in business. Modern natural sciences are introduced; especially network theory, suggesting a merger between the quantitative and the qualitative and between modern natural sciences and business research. In this way the reality of complexity, context and persona can be added to the research agenda. Keywords Qualitative research, Management research, Complexity theory Paper type Research paper

Introduction During the past few years the business press has regularly reported the developments of Airbus, the European manufacturer of aircraft (see, e.g. Business Week, 2003, 2004; The Economist, 2005). Airbus is building the A380 superjumbo that can seat 555 passengers in its standard version – but 800 could be packed in. It flies 14,800 km non-stop. The new aircraft has required the gargantuan development budget of US$13 billion. It not only demands an expensive and lengthy design and engineering phase, the building of new factories and the hiring and training of staff, but also infrastructural investment. To transport components from other countries and factories they had to widen highways, and build an ocean-going ferry and customised river barges. The project is dependent on partners; financial solutions for the project as such and for the customers to be able to buy; government decisions; strict security regulations; capacity of airports; and environmental considerations. On a political

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mega level the project is a threat to the dominant US manufacturer Boeing and this has caused a conflict between the US administration and European Union leaders, also involving the World Trade Organisation, WTO. Eventually, the acid test is the marketing. The Airbus A380 must make it possible for airlines to serve passenger needs. It is an understatement to say that Airbus has embarked on a complex venture. Following the advice from education in management, one should expect Airbus to have secured elaborate quantitative information about future costs, revenue and profits. They must have figured out probabilities of this or that scenario to occur. Costs should be the easier part – one would think. But is it? Who knows what ups or downs in the world economy will present themselves; how prices of components, interest rates and salaries will change; what deliveries of parts will be delayed; what new technologies will emerge to make the chosen design unnecessarily costly or even obsolete; what production problems will show; and what complications may arise when each aircraft is finally tested and delivered. Not only obese addicts of French fries, sugared soda drinks and ice cream need miracle Weightwatcher programmes; so does the superjumbo. The demands from airlines to attract passengers by offering internet workstations, comfortable seats that may even convert into beds, partitions to create private compartments and more, require weight reductions elsewhere without jeopardising performance and security, but holding fuel consumption back, all with impact on cost. How about revenue? Half of the orders needed to break even on the whole project are signed. The list price of an A380 is a whopping US$280 million, but what discounts have to be given to secure volume? And what might the competition do? The airline market is extremely turbulent – history offers little guidance to the future – and buyers may demand re-negotiation of contracts or airline bankruptcies may cancel orders. And what overt or covert subsidies can Airbus count on from European governments? Revenue minus cost constitutes profitability. The uncertainty in both cost and revenue is huge and even minuscule variation in either, can send ripples through the project and quickly swing the bottom line up or down. The decision to go ahead is primarily based on qualitative assessments, vision and leadership. It is based on a belief in the future. Certain quantitative studies of a technical kind can be made, and logical traps can be avoided through careful analysis and simulation. But the future conditions and their combined financial effects can never be assessed with any certainty. All quantitative analysis is founded on qualitative and subjective assumptions – and eventually on interpretation (Gummesson, 2003, 2005). Understanding Airbus requires case study research, which is primarily based on qualitative methods. The Airbus A380 is a huge object of study for those who want to get under the skin of management and industrial politics; it offers all the drama and trauma there is. It covers every management discipline, from engineering and design to manufacturing and assembly, purchasing, human resource management, marketing, customer service, finance and accounting, and in addition political action on a global arena. The end product and service package must satisfy both the buyer – an airline or leasing company – and the customer’s customer – the passenger. There is no need for more than a single case, although through definitional conjecture, Airbus could be divided into a hierarchy of sub cases. In the next stage Airbus cases can be compared

with other cases; constant comparison is a powerful tool to develop and test theory qualitatively. By continuously getting new data and improving data quality and analysis, the processes of developing theory and testing theory merge into a never-ending iterative adventure. The Airbus case has been presented here to introduce the three main themes of this article: complexity, context and persona. From an Airbus perspective, management and staff need to address enormous complexity where everything belongs in a context, and the personalities of people involved are decisive for the outcome. From a research perspective – whether it is commercial research by consultants or academic, scholarly research – a study of the A380 case requires methodology that can embrace complexity, context, and researcher persona, including individual and group research, procedures and roles. To fulfil the demands of contribution to science, the researcher should conceptualise and generalise from the case. This can only be achieved through access to substantive details of Airbus; there is need for grounded data. To just pick a few variables from received theory, hypothesise some insulated causality between two or a few variables and test it with perceptual survey data using statistical techniques will only result in superficiality and emptiness. Such research may offer face validity and reliability – but not genuine validity and relevance. Unfortunately this type of bureaucratised procedures have become mainstream in social sciences including management and business. Quantitative research is appointed superior to qualitative research and traditional natural sciences are hailed by social scientists as the role model for rigorous and objective research. They impress academic peer-reviewed journals and conferences, where the fragmented research results are given theory status and statistical ritual and detail seems more pivotal than the contribution to systemic theory development and understanding of phenomena. However, something has long been happening in modern natural sciences, which brings the qualitative and quantitative together. These developments are not embraced by mainstream social scientists that seem ignorant of the unorthodox methodology and daring visions that natural scientists allow themselves to develop new theory. When social or natural scientists transfer ideas from natural sciences to social issues, a mainstream establishment often treats these scornfully, rejecting them as irrelevant speculation and guru-like evangelism. It is my contention that such a fundamentalist stance has contributed to drive much of research in management and business into a coma. It is further my contention that not only metaphorical but also genuine commonalties exist between the physical and the social. To draw the readers’ attention to what natural sciences can offer to qualitative methodology, the article will make ample references to such developments. The article first presents my three main concerns – complexity, context, persona – and proceeds with holistic approaches addressing these concerns: systems and network theory. The article ends with a personal conclusion. Complexity Whereas reality can contain any amount of variables and interrelations, theory in many economics and management areas shuns complexity. For example, attempts have been made since the 1930s to include other variables than price in microeconomics but the result is meagre. The complexities of the variables affecting

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purchasing and competition are so many and so unique to specific situations that they cannot with the current use of quantitative techniques be squeezed into equations and claim universal applicability. When operationalisation of variables is necessary, the phenomenon under research is treated on the conditions of a measurement technique instead of demanding the technique to treat the phenomenon with respect for its unique properties. Examples of how realism is curbed in microeconomics are assumptions that customers, products and quality are alike, that services and relationships are inconsequential, and that factors other than those included in the collected data remain static (“ceteris paribus”). Furthermore, individual companies and customers are reduced to masses, described as averages and distributions. After such reduction, validity and relevance have evaporated. Only the academic reliability criterion remains – to what avail? It simply supports replicability of systematic and rigorous ignorance. What we need is not reduction of complexity but condensation: to make each concept, model and theory progressively denser with knowledge. Within the strategies for grounded theory (Glaser, 2001, 2003) it means that we search for variables and concepts that absorb the core of a phenomenon – without disfiguring its nature. In management disciplines this is primarily the object for qualitative research. Examples of core and subcore variables and concepts in natural sciences are atoms, electrons, quarks, molecules, protons, neutrons and Einstein’s famous formula E ¼ mc2 (energy equals mass times speed of light squared). Despite such seminal achievements as the theory of relativity and quantum mechanics during the past hundred years, natural scientists continue their search for more inclusive, integrative and unifying theories; the latest being string theory. The goal is to find an all-embracing and unifying theory, even if that is a direction more than an attainable goal. According to physics and mathematics professor Greene (2004, p. 328). “We envision each new theory taking us closer to the elusive goal of truth, but whether there is an ultimate theory – a theory that cannot be refined further, because it has finally revealed the workings of the universe at the deepest possible level – is a question no one can answer.” Although in natural sciences complexity is accepted, the social sciences quantitative mainstream, including management disciplines, feel uncomfortable with complexity. “Complexity theory”, a collective label for ways of addressing complexity, is characterised by non-linear dynamics and the phenomenon of emergence. With an illustrative example from Capra (2002, p. 36), the sweetness of sugar does not reside in the atoms of carbon, oxygen and hydrogen but emerges in the interaction between them and the human taste buds. In other words, the very existence of sweetness of sugar is subjective and experiential; quantum theory thus claims that objectivity is unreal. Reality is phenomenological, and science becomes a disciplined examination of human experience and consciousness, very much in line with grounded theory being a systematic way of treating social life and human experience. Complexity is not a property limited to natural sciences and the methods and techniques are largely universal. However, the link between management and modern natural sciences is sparsely treated in the management literature; notable exceptions are Stacey (1996) and Morgan (1998). Lissack (1997) sees complexity theory as a source for metaphors and language development in management; whereas I claim complexity theory findings go beyond the metaphor to be unequivocally applicable in social

sciences. Complexity theory forms new mathematics, a general vocabulary and grammar, which is sympathetic to all types of phenomena. This mathematics is hardly even noted in the quantitative studies favoured by the mainstream social researcher, who primarily represents old mathematics albeit in an upgraded and digital version. Furthermore, the chosen process of knowing will partly decide the outcome, or in the words of physicist and Nobel Laureate Werner Heisenberg: “What we observe is not nature itself, but nature exposed to our method of questioning” (quoted in Capra, 1997, p. 40). For example, the “interviewer effect” – that a host of both verbal and non-verbal cues influence the way the respondent replies to questions – is well known in marketing research. According to Capra (1997, p. 134) modern natural science is more concerned with “. . . the qualitative features . . . rather than the precise values of its variables at a particular time . . . The new mathematics . . . represents a shift from quantity to quality.” Qualitative and quantitative, words and numbers, are thus not in conflict; they should be treated in symbiosis. Keeping the terms qualitative and quantitative here is not to root a difference in stone but for lack of adequate terminology that has enough acceptances to communicate to audiences. For lack of understanding of complexity, the non-linear dynamics and the phenomenon of emergence of the new mathematics can confuse and paralyse decision making in management practice. Academics are often accused of seeing endless ramifications in each issue. Thus they make things so complicated that no decision can be reached even in situations where decisions cannot be postponed. Kurz et al. (2004, p. 66) point out that buyers of market research want straightforward results that are easy to grasp and easy to use. But complexity exists; it does not go away just because we don’t like it. The authors recommend that qualitative researchers accept to deal with a messy reality in the course of their research assignment (“internal complexity”). However, conclusions should be reported to the business client in condensed and structured form that communicates (“external complexity”), not in simplistic form, because that can just mean taking away “difficult” data, settling for the “easy” ones. What they attempt is to present complexity so that it uncovers essential patterns and meanings of seeming confusion and chaos and assist clients in turning the knowledge into actionable decisions. The notion of “thick descriptions”, often recommended in case study research, is on the same track, although a thick description is just the basis for dense concepts and variables. Here statistical survey research shows its weakest point; it dodges complexity from the outset. It lets customers express satisfaction/dissatisfaction on structured alternatives to already structured questions so that these data are amenable to instant statistical computer processing and transformation into colourful, animated Powerpoint presentations. Such data can only be useful in select instances. They are neither addressing complexity, nor offering dense answers. In conclusion, although qualitative research is being produced in both business environments and academic institutions, quantitative research is held up as more scientific and consequently superior – despite its inability to handle complexity. I would like to propose that addressing the complex reality of management issues, qualitative methodology supported by modern natural sciences is superior to quantitative methodology emanating from traditional natural sciences.

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Context According to the Bible, Adam and Eve formed the first society in Paradise. They had a relationship and they interacted; they were not free of context even if the complexity of social life had only just begun to evolve. Later, English poet John Donne (1572-1631) wrote “No man is an island, entire of itself”; twentieth century Argentinean author Jorge Luis Borges echoed that “. . . everything touches everything”; the vantage point for physics professor and networks theorist Albert-La´slo´ Baraba´si (2002) is that “. . . nothing happens in isolation”; and my own conclusion in dealing with marketing and business is that “society is a network of relationships within which we interact – and so is business” (Gummesson, 2004). We experience daily that information taken out of its context can mean something totally different from what was originally intended. A common newspaper trick is to make an isolated statement a headline, and on television the ”editing” of an interview and mixing it with comments and pictures can transmute the original message into almost anything. It is the same with variables, categories and concepts in management. If we take the example of marketing, customer service and customer satisfaction, Airbus engineers and systems designers must find out the needs of their customers. But not only that: they must understand their customers’ customers, in the first place meaning airline staff and passengers. To illustrate this interdependency between people and events, one can draw contextual matrices (Gummesson, 2004). In their simplest two-dimensional form, they can, for example, show individual passengers on the horizontal line and airline staff in the vertical columns. Passengers are immersed in a context with many events and services like travelling to the airport, parking the car, checking in, going through security, and so on. At the destination the business traveller’s context may include a taxi, a meeting, a hotel, the use of a telephone, eating in a restaurant, and so on. A member of the airline staff, such as a flight attendant, will only meet the passenger in one intersection of the passengers’ context. The passenger does not see the whole context of the flight attendants’ work, which is mainly providing a repetitive and highly standardised service to a large number of people. Airline staff are at least in direct contact with the customers but the Airbus engineers and systems designers, who provide the future servicescape, can only indirectly attempt to consider the flight attendant and the passenger, and not even remotely understand the details of the context within which these live. All management contexts offer different lookouts, which pave the way to different perceptions of what is going on. No wonder that companies have great difficulty in understanding customers and designing and delivering goods and services which satisfy buyers. In my view, the major reason for the soaring popularity of event marketing is its capacity to provide consumption in a context. We travel to see a football game with our children and their friends. We gas the SUV, stop to eat, come to the stadium and buy ice cream and beer. But an ice cream a hot summer day with 50,000 football fans is not the same as an ice cream for desert at home in the dark winter night; and a beer at the stadium is not the same as a draft at the local pub. The identity of consumers is deeply rooted in the context of personal networks. For example, a teenage girl may be part of a group with a certain lifestyle and certain values. If she starts smoking depends on the others in the group. The collective consciousness, or more mundanely put, the gang mentality, may include gaining the

approval of a trendsetting opinion leader. Belonging is important and offers a seemingly safe and supportive environment and an identity. It may translate into tangible signs such as piercing and tattoos and a demand to eat and drink the “right” things, use the “right” lipstick, wear the “right” jeans, and worship Britney Spears and Ricky Martin or whoever is currently “right”. Providers of junk food, tobacco, alcohol and drugs, and the whole entertainment industry know this and use it in progressively more sophisticated ways. In summary, qualitative approaches such as case study research entail efforts to address complexity accepting that the object of study can be confusing and ambiguous. They can further be used to put variables and categories in a context. Less rigour than in a traditional quantitative approach, yes, but more realism and relevance. With reference to modern natural sciences, I would like to quote Zohar (1997, p. 46) who sees management in the light of quantum theory and its emphasis on context The ambiguous and heavily relational boundaries of quantum entities are known as “contextualism”. To be known, to be measured, to be used, a quantum entity must always be seen within the larger context of its defining relationships. Change the context, and the entity itself is different. It realises another of its infinite potentialities. It becomes something different. Something more.

Persona The human and social properties of both scientists and people we study add to the complexity and context, going beyond the objective and predictable. The concept of persona is used here to represent human aspects, individual personalities, collective consciousness, roles, and research environment. The reports on Airbus do not specifically address its staff personalities, corporate culture and organisation. But these phenomena are there. However rational, objective and technical Airbus behaviour may stand out, it emerges from the minds and actions of people, and their individual and collective skills and consciousness. As mentioned before, media reports uncover high-level politics and a power game between the EU and the USA. For example, when the first A380 was displayed in January 2005 at the factories in Toulouse, France, it was in the presence the French president and the prime ministers of Germany, Spain and the UK. In the practice of management, data and their relationships are incomplete, and decisions in all functions, levels of an organisation and external relationships – from top management to specialists, workers, suppliers, customers and others – are based on a mix of fact and judgement calls. These imperfections multiply as researcher data in turn are an incomplete subset of an incomplete original data set, and researchers, too, must make interpretations and judgement calls. Within this reality it is easy to see that researcher persona will have a decisive say in both the design and outcome of a study. In methods books and manuals little is said about the psychology and sociology of science and the influence that the flesh and blood of individuals and research teams exert on research procedure, outcome and reporting. Examples of subjective and intersubjective influences are intelligence and emotional quotas, personal ambition and drive, intuition, risk-inclination, greed, honesty, power, social skills, personal preferences and mood swings (see Gummesson, 2000, pp. 72-75, 194-197). The environment in which the researcher works – I would like to call it the researchscape – includes the individual researcher, constellations of research teams

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and organisations, individual as well as collective consciousness, available career paths, political stipulations, and the quality criteria used by reviewed journals, grants committees and promotion, ranking and certification bodies. This is the object for the sociology of science, a less talked about aspect of scientific work that anyone involved in the academic rat race recognises from personal experience. The fastest growing fundamentalist religions today are Scientism and Economism. Their Bible is a collection of peer-reviewed articles and the Gospel according to whoever is the current apostle publishing in “top” journals; and money constitutes the supreme “spiritual” direction for research institutions and science. This is an unhealthy researchscape. It is reflected in some of the most common issues raised by PhD students at universities I visit throughout the world: I want to do case studies but my professor demands that I do a statistical questionnaire survey. My professor wants me to test hypotheses derived from one of the traditional models, but I would like to design my own model inductively. I have to add statistical survey data or the editor will not accept the article.

What psychological and social factors designed this unfortunate researchscape I do not know so I can only speculate: it’s fear and insecurity resulting in a drive for control and power. The behaviour is “rationalised” by groupthink mantras such as “keeping up the high standards of science”, “doing rigorous research”, providing “evidence-based results” and “unambiguous empirical tests”. What it means in practice is numbers; old mathematics; unrealistic assumptions; discarding of disturbing data and anomalies; defence of the currently reigning paradigm; suppression of new knowledge; and preoccupation with details, often trivia. Bureaucratisation of scholarly research and the means to enforce inflexible dogmas and regulations – censorship rather than reflective review processes – are currently threatening to become the epidemic of the scholarly world. I am horrified to see how this virus is now infecting research in the expanding business schools in China and India, which will in the near future constitute half the world population. The one-track research strategy is a setback for all science and scholarship; I hope there will be a tipping point where it will collapse. As we all have different strengths and weaknesses, a productive strategy should be to exploit and develop our strengths and scale down our weaknesses. If we have a statistical and mathematical mind we can be considered favoured today by the currently dominant researchscape; we can easily publish in peer-reviewed journals and we please academic examiners and committees. However, dominant is not the same as monopoly and even monopolies leak. If our strengths are empathy; ability to listen; creatively interpret meaning; conceptualise; and see new phenomena or see old phenomena from a different angle, we should certainly make the most of them. And such research is publishable; many journals accept it. Just think of post-modern articles on organisation and marketing, the breakthrough contributions to service management and marketing, or network theory in B2B marketing! It may well be that researchers feel that the waters are deeper and the currents rougher outside the mainstream than they actually are. The threats may very well not be a swarm of evil sharks but simply a red herring, a threat that is often

not real. Perhaps the threats are only felt real because we comply with them and empower and encourage their advocates through obedience or fear. Management/business is still a young discipline where there is plenty of scope for entrepreneurship whereas economics is more tightly controlled and bureaucratic. My recommendation is: be your own methodologist. Choose the combination of scientific tools that suit your personality. That is where you can contribute. I have done so and I have labelled my mix of approaches “interactive research”. They consist of: case study research, grounded theory, ethnography, action research, and narrative research and to some extent the use of computer software for analysis (see Gummesson, 2001). This is no recommendation to anyone to mimic other researchers and become clones. Do what feels right for you. Do it your way. But just like with yin and yang, it is the tension and the continuous flux that adds the sparkle of life to science and keeps it agile and healthy. If we label the entrepreneurial researcher Yin and the bureaucratic and ritual-bound researcher Yang, the Yin researcher will be the creator and the Yang researcher the police. A dominance of either freewheeling innovators or a police state and dictatorship will be just as detrimental. Common sense is often scorned upon by academics, probably because they associate it with folklore, opinion, ignorance, superstition and irrationality. Here is a case of double standard and low scientific awareness. In my writings on relationship marketing, CRM (customer relationship management) and recently many-to-many marketing, I advocate more common sense in marketing and science (Gummesson, 2004). Common sense, and its brothers and sisters intuition, sound judgement, instinct, experience, wisdom, insights, and tacit knowing are part of the analytic process, and they are there whether we approve of their company or not. The selection of a problem, its variables and the design and purpose of a research programme are subjective, creativity, lateral thinking and a challenge to the mainstream paradigm – that is, the generation of new theory and a basis for propositions or hypotheses – is subjective. All science includes elements of subjectivity as well as elements of rigorous procedure with objective properties. Although the processing of numbers may be objective to some extent, the interpretation of statistical tables is primarily subjective and so are the decisions to act on the data. No science, be it natural or social, can do without subjectivity, not even mathematics and physics, much less medicine. They are no different from management. Summarising this discussion on persona, if we realise that excluding subjectivity from science is the same as excluding the personalities of scientists, their personal motives and social behaviour, we may realise that science battles with self-imposed and unrealistic inhibitions. In the end, all research is interpretive, and all interpretation is a combination of the systematic and objective as well as the intuitive, emotional and subjective. Supportive approaches: systems and network theory It is counterproductive for science to jettison complexity and context; it is productive to get to grips with them. Two approaches supporting the handling of complexity and context will be mentioned here: systems theory and network theory. They can be used as simple structures to tackle a phenomenon but also with sophisticated techniques, both qualitative and quantitative.

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The word “system” is derived from the Greek “systema”, meaning “a whole composed of many parts”. Systems theory translated into management and business says that a company can be viewed as a system with the different functions as subsystems and parts. The system – the organisation – is open and interacts with the external environment – the market and society. Systems thinking, or the systemic view, is holistic, essentially meaning that everything is related and nothing is isolated, all making life harder for scientists – but all the more exciting and challenging. It strives to include the whole, see the ecology of nature and life. The critics easily mistake this for an unrealistic desire to see everything at the same time and to study all phenomena, causality and other connections simultaneously. Doing that would of course be great but I fear that our brains are too small or not (yet) formatted to process these “Gestalts” and to turn them into a language that communicates. Furthermore, a systemic approach cannot be implemented with a few “approved” techniques and the current preoccupation with context less detail. The assumption that the world can be understood through an increasingly more complete series of fragmented “A causes B” studies, where an independent variable and a dependent variable are unambiguously defined, is mechanistic and not realistic; it is in conflict with life and nature. A more “realistic reality” is that sometimes A causes B, in the next moment B might cause A, or they might interact and cause each other, only to stay away from each other totally in the next moment. The dynamic flux and the non-linearity have to be understood. It is understood in theories such as quantum theory, chaos theory, fractal geometry, string theory and autopoeisis (self-organising systems). Modern natural sciences – which seem to be much more daring and adaptable than the economic sciences – can teach management researchers useful lessons, and its scientists do not seem bashful of transforming their findings in to social and business areas. A way of capturing systemic complexity and context is offered by network theory and the basic concepts of graph theory. Network theory is open to both qualitative and quantitative analysis. It can be applied in a verbal discourse, in graphic representation, or with the aid of matrix algebra and other forms of mathematics. Graph theory offers a structure of nodes and links between the nodes. A network structure comes to life through the interaction that takes place between the nodes. It is a powerful descriptive and analytical tool and a basis for interpretation, decisions and action. On social network analysis, see for example Scott (1991) and Kilduff and Tsai (2003). Network theory is also intuitive, reflecting how we think and act in practice. For example, driving a car demands instantaneous and constant interaction with other vehicles and people, road conditions, traffic lights, the weather and so on. It requires immediate observation of detail in a dynamic and non-linear process but also immediate action. It is interaction in a pulsating and ever-changing network of relationships. By reviewing individual links and nodes we aim for the complexity and context of the whole network, recognising that a network, although structurally consisting of its parts, is something other than the linear sum of its parts. Network theory can be taken further, actually as far as to be a universal description of life itself: life consists of networks of relationships within which we interact (Capra, 1997; Gummesson, 2004). Network theory has a long history in both social and natural sciences but currently natural scientists take a particularly keen interest in its development as a general

theory. Some of these scientists also transcend boundaries and integrate natural and social sciences (see Bohm and Peat, 1987; Capra, 1997, 2002; Zohar, 1997; Baraba´si, 2002; Buchanan, 2003). The internet contributes through its complex and still little understood structure and fickle dynamics, and it offers a new tool to survey and analyse networks. Within the basic network structures described by graph theory, a series of concepts, strategies and conclusions have been developed, such as scale-free networks; the power of preferred hubs; tipping points; epidemic dissemination of information and behaviour; Granovetter (1973) seemingly paradoxical “the strength of weak ties” (weak relationships between people are sometimes more important than strong links); and “six degrees of separation” (we are closer to each other than we intuitively realise). When events and other phenomena are composed of a multitude of factors and links – networks of relationships – network theory offers assistance for positioning everything in its proper context. Networks have traditionally been concerned with structures, such as those depicted with graph theory, but increasingly the dynamic transformational aspects of networks are being addressed in natural sciences. Airbus is a complex network structure but the interaction inside and outside the structure lead up to continuous structural changes – self-organising or controlled by someone – and this dynamism is even more challenging to study. Capra (2002), p. 236) has noted the affinity between complexity and networks: “ . . . ‘complexity’ is derived etymologically from the Latin verb complecti (‘to twine together’) and the noun complexus (‘network’). Thus the idea of nonlinearity – a network of intertwined strands – lies in the very root of the meaning of ‘complexity’.” Again qualitative research meets modern natural sciences, not as inferior but as complementary and supportive. This section has proposed that systemic thinking and network theory, which have been developed and applied for decades in social sciences, furnish the best tools to advance the inclusion of complexity and context in research. Network theory can be used in many stages of sophistication and be both qualitative and quantitative. Furthermore, natural sciences are currently developing network theory at a fast pace both with application on social and natural issues. Management disciplines can profit from engaging in this development. In conclusion: “university means unification of diversity” Vedic philosophers gave the quotation in the heading to me. I liked it. I am getting increasingly impatient with those who advocate more rigorous testing of fragmented detail – pretending complexity and context can largely be disregarded – and only marginally sensitive to the systemic whole, the network structures and processes of life, the dynamics and the phenomenon of emergence, and not least individual and collective dimensions of researcher persona and its researchscape. Considering the road travelled by universities today, the heading may seem unrealistic and idealistic. Research and higher education are recurrently being split into specialities with progressively stronger own identities and isolation. But an airplane will not fly if it consists of fragmented and conflicting elements. I will board the new Airbus jumbo jet convinced that all parts are in place and that all interact harmoniously. The difference to a research project is that the Airbus validity test of failure is instant, obvious and violent.

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To understand management we need all the tools we can contrive. We need both creative exploration and law and order; we need constructive entrepreneurship and supportive – not risk-averse and destructive – bureaucracy; and we need disciplined reflection and dialogue over rigid and hyped rituals. Research includes a combination of perceptions of reality based on real world data, attitudes, received theory, and persona, whether these are expressed as numbers, equations, letters or words. It includes objectivity, intersubjectivity and subjectivity. Instead of being ashamed of subjectivity elements, we should let them out of the closet and use them as assets. Wisdom, insights, sound judgement, intuition, common sense and tacit knowledge usually grow with age and experience. Although the interest in tacit knowledge and deeper levels of knowing is increasing in management (see Nonaka and Takeuchi, 1995; Senge et al., 2004), the main trend both in social science research and management practice is still – but for how long? – a belief in techniques and computers. Throughout the article I have connected with ongoing developments in modern natural sciences. My initial statement was that social sciences are getting behind, being stuck in a Big Brother complex to natural sciences – not to modern natural sciences but to their historical repositories. I can only see one possibility for research in management and business to get out of its coma: embrace qualitative methodology and learn from the new modern natural sciences, both from their daring approaches and persona. Whichever scientific stance we advocate – qualitative or quantitative or hybrid – every researcher should ask himself or herself: . Do I address pivotal issues in research in management? . Do bureaucratic restrictions or entrepreneurial initiative and curiosity control my choice of problems to study, the methodology I apply, and the analyses and interpretations I make? . Does my research exert any impact and add value to people, organisations and society? . Do I, on the whole, believe that what I am doing is the right thing for me to do? Make sure you are honest and feel satisfied with your answers before embarking on the next research venture. References Baraba´si, A.-L. (2002), Linked: The New Science of Networks, Perseus, Cambridge, MA. Bohm, D. and Peat, D.F. (1987), Science, Order and Creativity, Bantam Books, New York, NY. Buchanan, M. (2003), Small World, Phoenix, London. Business Week (2003), “Mega plane”, cover story, European edition, Business Week, 10 November, pp. 50-6. Business Week (2004), “Airbus’ megaplane has a weight problem”, Business Week, European edition, 28 June, pp. 20-1. Capra, F. (1997), The Web of Life, Flamingo, London. Capra, F. (2002), The Hidden Connections, HarperCollins, London. (The) Economist (2005), “The super-jumbo of all gambles”, The Economist, 22 January, pp. 55-6.

Glaser, B.G. (2001), The Grounded Theory Perspective I: Conceptualization Contrasted with Description, Sociology Press, Mill Valley, CA. Glaser, B.G. (2003), The Grounded Theory Perspective II: Description’s Remodeling of Grounded Theory Methodology, Sociology Press, Mill Valley, CA. Granovetter, M.S. (1973), “The strength of weak ties”, American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 78, pp. 3-30. Greene, B. (2004), The Fabric of the Cosmos, Alfred A. Knopf, New York, NY. Gummesson, E. (2000), Qualitative Methods in Management Research, rev 2nd ed., Sage, Thousand Oaks, CA. Gummesson, E. (2001), “Are current research approaches in marketing leading us astray?”, Marketing Theory, Vol. 1 No. 1, pp. 27-48. Gummesson, E. (2003), “All research is interpretive!”, Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing, Vol. 18 Nos 6/7, pp. 482-92. Gummesson, E. (2004), Many-to-Many Marketing, Liber, Malmo¨. Gummesson, E. (2005), “Qualitative research in marketing: roadmap for a wilderness of complexity and unpredictability”, European Journal of Marketing, Vol. 39 No. 3/4, pp. 309-27. Kilduff, M. and Tsai, W. (2003), Social Networks and Organizations, Sage, London. Kurz, A., Aigner, W. and Meinhard, D. (2004), “Presenting the results of qualitative research to public research administration bodies”, in Buber, R., Gadner, J. and Richards, L. (Eds), Applying Qualitative Methods to Marketing Management Research, Palgrave, Basingstoke. Lissack, M.R. (1997), “Of chaos and complexity: managerial insights from new science”, Management Decision, Vol. 35 No. 3, pp. 205-18. Morgan, G. (1998), Images of Organization: The Executive Edition, Sage, Thousand Oaks, CA. Nonaka, I. and Takeuchi, H. (1995), The Knowledge Creating Company, Oxford University Press, New York, NY. Scott, J. (1991), Social Network Analysis, Sage, London. Senge, P., Scharmer, C.O., Jaworski, J. and Flowers, B.S. (2004), Presence, SoL, Cambridge, MA. Stacey, R.D. (1996), Strategic Management and Organizational Dynamics, Pitman, London. Zohar, D. (1997), Rewiring the Corporate Brain, Berrett-Koehler, San Francisco, CA. Corresponding author Evert Gummesson can be contacted at: [email protected]

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More than a numbers game: qualitative research in accounting

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Bill Lee University of Sheffield Management School, Sheffield, UK, and

Christopher Humphrey Manchester School of Accounting and Finance, Manchester University, Manchester, UK Abstract Purpose – The purpose of the paper is to outline the development of academic research in the discipline of accounting, paying particular attention to the important contribution made by qualitative research projects. Design/methodology/approach – Provision of a historical trajectory based on a review of developments in academic journals, the size and breadth of the academic community and other dimensions of the academic discipline of accounting. Findings – The review indicates that accounting has developed into a pluralist discipline in the UK. Qualitative research features in many sub-disciplinary areas of accounting. Practical implications – The paper identifies the sibling discipline of finance as an area where qualitative research has not developed fully. It makes some suggestions and provides some indicators of how qualitative research in the areas of accounting and finance may develop in the future. Originality/value – The paper provides the only attempt to date to analyse and review developments of qualitative research in accounting. Keywords Accounting research, Qualitative research, Qualitative methods Paper type Research paper

Management Decision Vol. 44 No. 2, 2006 pp. 180-197 q Emerald Group Publishing Limited 0025-1747 DOI 10.1108/00251740610650184

Introduction Accounting practitioners’ manipulation of monetary values by techniques that have some pretensions of neutrality might suggest that the academic discipline of accounting precludes qualitative research and employs quantitative data and methods only. There may be some accuracy in the claim that research in the sibling discipline of Finance remains predominantly quantitative with a tendency for “analysis of the economic properties of various markets . . . where the work . . . emphasizes large sample econometric/ statistical methods” (Bessant et al., 2003, p. 55). It may also be accurate to suggest that academic accounting in the USA remains predominantly quantitative (Lee, 2004, p. 62) and economics-based (Bessant et al., 2003, p. 56). However, academic accounting research in the UK has been described as both “world class” and displaying a “startling eclecticism” (Bessant et al., 2003, pp. 55-56; see also, Otley, 2002, p. 398) that includes qualitative research. It is often contended that British academics in management disciplines do not generally publish in the most influential, American-based, predominantly quantitative journals (for example, Doyle and Arthurs, 1995, p. 265). In which case, the formal recognition given to the pluralist discipline of accounting by members of the 2001 Research Assessment Exercise (RAE)

Business and Management Studies and Accounting and Finance (A&F) Panels (i.e. Bessant et al., 2003; Otley, 2002) is even more notable. This article seeks to convey some contours of accounting’s development into a pluralist discipline, paying particular attention to the increasing importance of research that uses qualitative methods and data. The remainder of the discussion is organized into four sections that reflect our view of a chronological trajectory of the development of academic accounting research. The first section describes how accounting emerged as a largely quantitative, positivistic discipline. The second section details how it evolved into a pluralist discipline that includes a range of phenomenological-informed perspectives utilizing qualitative methods. The third section reports some movement towards a reflexive, critical ethnography of researchers’ encounters with their field and includes our own recent contribution to this area. In the final substantive section, we consider some possible future developments. Emergence of accounting as an academic discipline and initial accounting research Although British universities started to adopt research as a function complementary to teaching in a number of subject areas between 1850 and 1870 (Renshall, 1971, p. 721), both university teaching and research in accounting did not develop until much later. Even in the first half of the twentieth century, accounting had a “dismal” record as an academic subject in the UK (Stacey, 1954, p. 245). This is related to the fact that training of accounting practitioners in the UK, was regulated by the professional institutes and provided outside academe by accountancy firms and industry (Geddes, 1995; Paisey and Paisey, 2000, p. 35). Consequently, there was “very little evidence of formal research being undertaken in England” (Geddes, 1995, p. 192) other than that conducted by the professional institutes. The professional institutes’ commitment to promote and disseminate professional knowledge meant that they had a subsidiary concern of conducting research that addressed the technical problems faced by their members (Garrett, 1952). Accounting started to develop very slowly as an academic discipline from the mid-twentieth century. The first full-time appointment to a chair in the accounting discipline at a UK university took place in 1947 when Professor William Baxter was appointed at the London School of Economics (LSE) (Kitchen, 1978, p. 4). There were still only three full chairs in the disciplinary area – at Birmingham, Bristol and the LSE – in England in 1957 (Matthews et al., 1998, p. 260). Not surprisingly, research in accounting started with a leaning towards the positivism of economics (Roslender and Dillard, 2003, p. 327) and a focus on quantitative issues. For example, Professor Baxter was a member of the LSE’s Economics Department before his appointment to his chair. He and a small group of fellow economists were concerned with “the relevance of orthodox accounting data (especially cost data) to business decisions” (Kitchen, 1978, p. 5). Academic accounting did not develop markedly in the UK throughout most of the 1960s. The number of departments of accounting only grew: from five, with an average of six staff, in 1961; to seven, with an average of less than nine staff, in 1968 (Geddes, 1995, pp. 218-219). Renshall (1971); see also, Hopper et al., 2001, p. 267) suggests that the limited number of accounting staff meant researchers focused on theoretical or

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technical problems of accounting, rather than engaging in empirical research. There was certainly no major financial support for research studies. As Renshall (1971), p. 726) reports, the Social Science Research Council (SSRC) only recognised accounting as a sub-component of “Business and Management” at the end of the 1960s and only one of the 172 projects awarded grants by the SSRC in 1969/1970, was an accounting project. By contrast, a stronger academic accounting community was apparent in the USA during the 1960s. A number of scholarly journals such as the Journal of Accounting Research, Abacus and The International Journal of Accounting Education and Research were established to supplement the American Accounting Association’s publication of the longer running The Accounting Review. However, much of these journals’ content was addressed to technical issues such as “the development of accounting principles” or “basic accounting notions as realization” and “going concern” (Dyckman and Zeff, 1984, pp. 234-235). With the onset of the 1970s, similar developments appeared in the UK. For example, the British Accounting Association’s British Accounting Review was launched in 1969 and the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW)-sponsored Accounting and Business Research was launched in 1970. At first, the accounting research agenda and methods tended to follow those in the USA (see, for example, Hopper et al., 2001, p. 269). However, as the UK academic accounting community grew – to include 30 professors of accounting or finance by 1976 (Matthews et al., 1998, p. 260) – there was the employment of younger academics interested in ideas that were critical of those that had come to dominate accounting research (Hopper et al., 2001, p. 271). These new faculty members were dissatisfied with quantitative methods’ capacity to explain the accounting phenomenon they were researching (see, for example, Scapens, 2004, p. 258). Their dissatisfaction provided a harbinger for the conduct of qualitative research by some researchers. Qualitative research in accounting Unlike some academic disciplines such as sociology (see, for example, Bell, 1984; Hopper et al., 2001, p. 275), accounting experienced considerable growth from the 1970s, to the present time. By 1987, there were over 50 professors of accounting or finance (Matthews et al., 1998, p. 260). This growth gathered momentum from the 1990s. The number of professors, visiting professors or associate professors of accounting or finance registered in the British Accounting Review Research Register (BARRR) (Gray and Helliar, 1994; 1996; Helliar and Gray, 1998; 2000; Helliar et al., 2002; 2004) increased to 149 in 1993, 168 in 1995, 178 in 1997, 213 in 1999, 242 in 2001 and 258 in 2003. With the increased size, there has been a growth in the number of sub-disciplines of accounting. For example, the BARRR 2004 documents accounting professors who have main research interests and publications in one or more of around 20 sub-disciplines including: accounting education; accounting history; auditing; critical accounting and the political economy of accounting; financial accounting; management accounting and control; public sector accounting; and social and environmental accounting and auditing (SEAA). Qualitative research has played a part in each of the subject areas, to a varying extent, depending on a number of inter-related factors. First, there is the general focus of that study. Although the sibling discipline of Finance relies on a high level of abstraction implied by a “market”, the interests of the sub-disciplines of accounting are

less remote. Their focus is on different types of organization, institution or practice that lend themselves more readily to qualitative research. For example, rather than focusing on medicine or education generally, researchers in the field of public sector accounting have conducted case studies of the role and impact of accounting in schools or doctors’ surgeries – for a summary of the way in which some of this research was conducted, see Broadbent and Laughlin (2004). Similarly, researchers in the areas of financial reporting or SEAA have often used different forms of content analysis (for example, Bebbington, 1999) to identify the meaning of statements conveyed by reports. Second, and related to the first point, there has been the assimilation of ideas from other disciplines (Gendron and Baker, 2005; Roslender and Dillard, 2003, p. 329). This helped to give impetus to what Morgan and Willmott (1993) describe as the “new” accounting research. Rather than starting from a position where accounting is seen as a set of neutral techniques that simply reflect reality, the new research recognised “accounting as constitutive of, as well as constituted by, the social and organizational relations through which it travels, and with which it engages” (Morgan and Willmott, 1993, p. 4). Burchill et al., (1980; 1985), Hopwood (1987) and Laughlin (1987) provide early examples of the application of different types of theory to demonstrate the social significance of accounting and to set an alternative research agenda. Qualitative research methods are particularly well suited to studies that seek to understand the origins and role of accounting in its specific historical, social and organisational context. Third, there are the specific research questions that are asked. Even in Finance, where quantitative methods have predominated in the analysis of large statistical databases showing the performance of capital markets, there has been some attempt to introduce qualitative research methods by asking different types of research questions. For example, Holland’s work has focused on the interrelationship between companies and the institutions that regulate the markets. Consequently, he has used interviews and case studies to explore issues relating to voluntary disclosure, price sensitive information and fund management (Holland and Stoner, 1996; Holland and Doran, 1998). For a detailed discussion of the research methods used in this work, see Stoner and Holland (2004). It is beyond the scope of this article to show how these different issues have materialised in the utilization of qualitative methods in all of the sub-disciplines of accounting. Instead, the discussion will focus on the progress of qualitative research in just two areas: management accounting and control; and auditing. Utilization of qualitative techniques in the area of management accounting and control started in the 1970s (Hopper et al., 2001, p. 272). Initially, this entailed detailed case studies of organizations on the effectiveness of accounting for managerial performance evaluation, sometimes from a positivistic framework (for example, Otley, 1978). From the mid-1970s onwards, there was the emergence of two broad groups of scholars – the Management Control Association that had strong representation at Sheffield University (Hopper et al., 2001, p. 273; Loft, 2004, p. 108) and a “southern group” associated with Anthony Hopwood at London Business School (Loft, 2004) – who started to draw inspiration from a range of critical and interpretive theorists. The openness of this part of the academic accounting community to new ideas also led to an influx of scholars from other disciplines such as sociology (Hopper et al., 2001, p. 275), which helped to inform the direction of research throughout the 1980s. There followed

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a number of detailed case studies of different organizations, often with an edge that was critical of political policies of the day, such as Berry et al. (1985) study of the National Coal Board. Assimilation of social theory did not only lead to a wide range of other case studies of control in different contemporary organizations, it also resulted in a number of narratives about the historical emergence and development of management accounting and control (for example, Armstrong, 1985, 1987; Loft, 1986, 1988). For a fuller review of this particular literature, see Baxter and Chua (2003). From the 1980s, the combination of automation, an economic challenge from Japanese industry and new forms of work organization and management practices led to the contention that management accounting had lost its relevance in the USA (Johnson and Kaplan, 1987) and was being applied inappropriately in the UK (Primrose, 1991). This led to the formulation of a number of specific research questions for empirical studies that explored the relationship between accounting and other dimensions of organisations, to establish inter alia whether accounting in Japan was different to elsewhere, management accounting practices were resistant to change and accounting practices restricted industrial change. For example, see Carr and Ng (1995); Jones et al. (1993); Lee (1996); Malmi (1997); Scapens and Roberts (1993). There is also a long and continuing history of qualitative empirical studies that have drawn on social theory to explain instances of accounting change in organizations (Soin et al., 2002; Seal et al., 2004), how accounting has contributed to organizational change (Ezzamel et al., 2004; Knights and Collinson, 1987), or been subject to resistance (Ezzamel et al., 2003; Roberts and Scapens, 1985). Special issues of journals, such as Management Accounting Research in December 2001, have also contained qualitative contributions to this general area of research. There have been similar forces for change and development in auditing research, although it was only with the onset of the 1990s that qualitative research techniques were generally employed. Much early auditing research tended to assume prescriptive, normative accounts of how auditing should be conducted, rather than the way in which it was actually conducted. The assumption was that the methods were technically neutral, allowing simple confirmation of the extent to which a company’s accounts provided a true and fair representation of its financial standing. The weaknesses of this focus were often accentuated by research that entailed experiments under controlled conditions that focused on development of means for practitioners to apply the methods better. Recognition that it might not be simply the application of the methods that were at fault, led to a number of different studies that sought a deeper understanding of audit methods and how they were applied in different organisational contexts. Turley and Cooper (1991) analysed the audit manuals of large audit firms to highlight and explain the discontinuities in the development of a given generation of audit methodology – for a subsequent analysis of business-risk based audit methodologies, see Lemon et al., 2000. The new accounting research idea that accounting both constitutes and is constituted by social relationships was also manifest in audit research. A number of field studies used qualitative techniques to explore how audits are socially constructed. Humphrey and Moizer (1990) used semi-structured interviews to explore the considerations that were significant when audits were planned and the ideologies and rationalities employed to legitimise chosen

audit approaches and maintain belief in the effectives of audit procedures. Pentland (1993) employed observation techniques – in a study in the USA – to understand the social processes leading teams of auditors to arrive at decisions regarding the reliability of representations of performance in a company’s financial report. Power (2003) provides a valuable review of this growing “alternative” auditing literature and the contribution it has made in enhancing understanding of the socially constructed nature of the audit process. As in other areas of accounting research, the influx of ideas – and researchers – from different disciplines has helped to set research agendas that qualitative techniques have been employed to address. For example, Power (1992) used ideas from the Sociology of Science to provide a narrative about documents to highlight the discontinuous nature of successions of different generations of audit methods. Similarly, Grey (1994) employed Foucault’s ideas of “governmentality” to theorise concepts of career from interview data from trainee accountants. Indeed, the socialization of junior staff training to be chartered accountants has been a recurring theme in qualitative research in this area. Power (1991) provided a critical ethnography based around his own personal experience of the formal and informal processes of training to be a chartered accountant. Anderson-Gough et al. (1998a, b, 2000, 2001, 2005) conducted detailed case studies of firms utilizing semi-structured interviews, while Coffey (1994) used participant observation to investigate the nature of work life of junior audit staff. Qualitative research methods have also provided useful insights when confidential issues have risen to the fore in the professional socialisation process. For example, Lee (2002) used a series of semi-structured interviews with junior auditors to explore the validity of claims that, such staff, were consciously engaging in practices that reduce audit quality. From the mid-1990s, a considerable impact on the audit research agenda was made by the emergence of the idea of a growing or “exploding” audit society driven by an increasing demand for and resort to regulatory processes of control (Power, 1994; 1997). This prompted a range of qualitative based studies addressing specific questions regarding the nature, extent and impact of an audit society – typified by special issues on the subject in auditing journals such as the International Journal of Auditing (2000), academic journals outside of the accounting discipline, such as Law and Policy (2003) and edited collections in social anthropology (see Strathern, 2000). The development of qualitative research has given rise to – and been given impetus by – “an alternative academic super-structure that is of at least equal standing to that developed by those who continue to rely on financial economics to provide their insights” (Guthrie and Parker, 2004, p. 10). This alternative super-structure includes a number of conferences and international journals with editors who are willing to publish qualitative research. Brinn et al. (1996) conducted an exercise of ranking the top forty journals in accounting and finance. Table I provides a selection of highly ranked journals that have been launched since the mid-1970s in which UK academics publish qualitative research. Some editors of those journals have articulated clear support for qualitative research. For example, Scapens (2004), p. 257) states: “As editor-in-chief of Management Accounting Research I have encouraged the use of case studies and in the journal’s first ten years (1990-1999) 24 percent of the papers used case study research methods, and a further 13 percent used field studies”. The conferences that form part of this “alternative academic super-structure” include the

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Interdisciplinary Perspectives in Accounting (IPA), the Critical Perspectives on Accounting (CPA) and the Asian-Pacific Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Accounting (APIRA) conferences. These take place in Europe, North America and the Asian-Pacific countries respectively one year in three in a three-year cycle. To some extent, the movement towards the publication of qualitative research in accounting may have been more of a conscious project than has been the case in other disciplines. For example, two of the conferences discussed above, CPA and APIRA, have been purposely aligned with respected journals that publish qualitative research, namely Critical Perspectives on Accounting and Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal respectively (Guthrie and Parker, 2004, p. 9). Academic conferences and journals have also provided a forum for the discussion of the nature of theory and how it may be developed and the relative merits and limitations of different qualitative methods. On the first count, the contributions by Laughlin (1995) on using middle-range theory and Llewellyn (2003) article on different levels of theorising provide useful examples. On the second count, there are examples of discussions of the potential and drawbacks of case studies (Otley and Berry, 1994; Humphrey, 2001a; Humphrey and Scapens, 1996a, b; Llewellyn, 1996; Young and Preston, 1996). Through such debates, the tools for defining a field for a qualitative research project and the methods to use when conducting that research have become both a legitimate focus of academic publications and the means by which qualitative research has become popularised. Qualitative research in accounting was strengthened by academics developing strong links with the professional institutes that have been prepared to finance projects. The ICAEW, the Institute of Chartered Accountants in Scotland (ICAS), the Chartered Association of Certified Accountants (ACCA) and the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (CIMA) have all funded enquiries using qualitative research methods (for example, see Anderson-Gough et al., 1998a; Horton and Macve, 1995; Owen et al., 2001). Despite the above developments, perhaps one dimension that was most absent until very recently – and in contrast to other disciplines such as Sociology (Bell and Newby, 1977) and Organisational Studies (Bryman, 1988) – was critical reflection on exactly how methods were being employed. The present: reflexive accounts of doing research Although there have been some reflexive, insider accounts of events in the accounting community (for example, Hopwood, 1985), this rarely found expression in accounting

Table I. A selection of international journals in accounting and finance that publish qualitative research and their launch dates

Rank

Journal title

5 7 15 17 25 26 35 37 39

Accounting, Organizations and Society Journal of Accounting and Public Policy Critical Perspectives on Accounting Management Accounting Research Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal Accounting Historians Journal Pacific Accounting Review Public Money and Management Accounting Business and Financial History

Launched 1976 1982 1990 1990 1988 1974 1988 1981 1990

research. In recent times, however, there have been such accounts of doing research. For example, Irvine (2003) reports on the difficulties of retaining the trust of the staff of a religious organisation in Australia, for the entire annual cycle of a budget that covered her interview and observation study, when the organisation could suffer public embarrassment. Irvine’s account provides insights into how issues of confidentiality formed the basis of negotiation at the time of entry into the organisation and created some subsequent difficulties because the full terms of confidentiality were not completely clarified at the outset. A recent collection of original papers edited by ourselves (see Humphrey and Lee, 2004) provides a comprehensive set of reflexive studies – or insider accounts – of the research process; ranging from qualitative accounting researchers’ understanding of the meaning of their research, through managing a research project including collecting and analysing data using qualitative methods, to publishing and dissemination of findings. Although academic accountants do provide reflexive accounts of their epistemological and ontological assumptions, of particular relevance to this article is the varying use that contributors to the book made of qualitative methods and their respective reflexive insights about such methods. Semi-structured interviews are clearly a common method used in accounting for collecting qualitative data (see, for example, Ahrens, 2004: Bedard and Gendron, 2004; Horton et al., 2004; Komori, 2004). Interviews are commonly built into a case study “research strategy” (Hartley, 2004, p. 323) entailing collection of data from additional sources such as documents and observations (see, for example, Burns, 2004; Marginson, 2004). The ubiquity of interviews as a method of data collection in accounting represents their adaptation both to the broad range of sub-disciplines identified above and to a range of different types of research questions. All authors in our edited collection provide critical reflections on such issues as factors affecting the success of the research and potential drawbacks. For example, Komori (2004) account of her interviews about gender relations with female accountants in Japan (also see Komori, 2005) provides insights into the affinity that may grow between researcher and respondent. Burns (2004) discusses the conflicting demands that are placed on the time and energy of a research associate employed on major qualitative research projects into management accounting change. Horton et al. (2004) – whose work explored major changes in insurance accounting in EU countries (for example, Horton and Macve, 1995) – provide insights into the difficulties of interviewing people with busy schedules. Marginson (2004) provides some useful advice on tactics to tease out information and allow for reflection that he employed during his study (Marginson, 1999) of the role of accounting in management control systems at a fast changing telecommunications-company. Ahrens (2004) discusses the need to be both flexible and persistent in pursuit of data and illustrates, with reference to a study of a German bank, how access is not an all-or-nothing phenomenon. Given the increasing demands from research boards and other institutions for proper ethical practices in research, Bedard and Gendron (2004) provide some valuable insights into the ethical procedures that they followed in North America when conducting their research into auditing committees (see Gendron and Bedard, forthcoming). Participant-observation is another method that is sometimes used for gathering qualitative data in accounting. Both Lapsley (2004) and McSweeney (2004) provide reflexive accounts of their experiences of studies where variants of

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participant-observation were either attempted or used. Lapsley recounts how a PhD student of his sought to investigate the process of investment decisions through attendance at meetings for post-completion reviews of investment projects. Participant-observation was chosen because of its potential to gather a wider range of relevant information not accessible by other methods. The participant-observation was designed to supplement interviews of initiators of projects and analysis of documented investment proposals that had already been undertaken. Lapsley explores the difficulties of gaining access to sites where the review of investment appraisals took place. McSweeney (2004) provides an interesting contrast with the problems of participant-observation that Lapsley documents. McSweeney was invited to take on a role that placed him at the centre of what subsequently became the research site. McSweeney’s earlier history as a trade union official led to him being invited to be a honorary adviser to trade union members about financial matters at the company at which they were employed. The company’s management accepted this arrangement. McSweeney’s role allowed him to gather data that was used subsequently in his article on the relationship between accounting and organizational action (McSweeney, 1995). However, while McSweeney had made clear that he intended his enquiry to be independent, rather than him prejudging the merits of either the unions’ or the management’s case, he documents how the other parties sometimes engaged in approaches that could have compromised that independence. Documentary evidence is often used in different branches of accounting research. It has been used in accounting history to provide narratives on such phenomena as the development of accounting professions. Walker (2004) provides a reflective consideration of the difficulties of using historical documents based on the problems that he faced when preparing such works as Walker (1995). The problems that he experienced include documents being lost, destroyed or returned to their original owners, but represented in archive records as still being available. Documents have also been used in contemporary accounting research. For example, researchers interested in different investment appraisal techniques have collected and analysed investment proposals – see Lapsley (2004). However, a recent innovation in accounting research, that reflects the recent development of the internet, is the analysis of documents downloaded from the world wide web. Sangster and Tyrall (2004) include a discussion of a study of web-based accounting education. Sangster and Tyrall recount how one of their projects (reported in Sangster and Lymer, 1998) arose out of a move from a simple desire to count the occurrence of different features of web ites, to a qualitative understanding of how the web sites were being experienced and used by their visitors. Given the popularity of interviews as a method of qualitative data collection in accounting, it is hardly surprising that one of the main problems facing qualitative researchers is how to analyse interview transcripts. Subsidiary issues include what weight to give to meanings that are only apparent in a part of an interview, how to retain understanding of the whole interview when the focus is on individual parts and how to derive patterns both within and across interviews without losing sight of any idiosyncratic elements that may provide unique insights. Some researchers have used Computer Assisted Qualitative Data Analysis Software (CAQDAS) packages such as NUD *IST and The Ethnograph to help analyse their data. Anderson-Gough (2004) describes her and her colleagues’ use of The Ethnograph for their research into the

professional socialisation of Chartered Accountants (see Anderson-Gough et al., 1998a, b; 2000, 2001, 2005). Anderson-Gough reflects that the use of the computerised package that allowed her and her colleagues to code and use work that entailed 160,000 lines of transcripts was only achieved by the same good practice required in any project, of thorough engagement with the interviews’ content to come up with a credible analysis. Not all accounting researchers have opted for either CAQDAS packages or a regimented application of a standardised manual method for coding and analysing data. For example, O’Dwyer (2004) explains how he adopted an approach that was partly intuitive in analysing his interview data on corporate social disclosure in Ireland. This entailed categorising themes and individual aspects of interviews in several stages to ensure that both general patterns and individual differences were articulated. The process facilitated the writing of accounts that addressed research questions such as how did management perceive social disclosure in Ireland (O’Dwyer, 2002) and what was the nature of any management capture of the corporate social responsibility agenda (O’Dwyer, 2003). In some management disciplines, there have been works that document a broad range of qualitative methods and provide examples of how to use each method (Cassell and Symon, 1994, 2004; Symon and Cassell, 1998). Such developments have been less evident in accounting. The example of O’Dwyer’s intuitive application of a thematic analysis may provide one indication of why this is the case. Accounting researchers have succeeded in developing qualitative techniques in an ad hoc way according to either their research questions, or the type of data that they have collected. Indeed, a recurring theme in many of the chapters in the Humphrey and Lee collection, is the need for “opportunism” (Ahrens, 2004, p. 306) when conducting qualitative research. This may entail recognising new research questions as they arise (Walker, 2004), accepting unexpected offers of collecting data (Ahrens, 2004) and being ready to accept unexpected outcomes (Sangster and Tyrall, 2004). The future In looking to the future, it is to be hoped that qualitative research will not only continue to flourish in the areas of accounting where it has hitherto been successful, but that it will also spread to other areas including the sibling discipline of finance. For example, Dowd (2004) provides an excellent outline of how research in finance is based on qualitative ideas and assumptions that lend themselves readily to research. Indeed, finance’s recent assimilation of ideas from outside of its discipline, namely from psychology, in the development of behavioural finance, has led to qualitative studies that look at the traders’ perceptions of risk and how this influences their trading behaviour in financial markets – see, for example, Willman et al. (2002)). There may be scope for the adoption of ideas from other disciplines, such as sociology. For example, sociological ideas, such as panic, could inform views of the financial performance of firms and markets and lend themselves to the use of qualitative techniques to explore understanding of such issues. For the foreseeable future, the divide between the USA and the UK is likely to continue. The focus of North American academics’ research has tended to exclude other countries (Humphrey, 2001b) while differences in the types of research training received by academics in America and elsewhere promotes division. As Lee (2004, p. 62) reports,

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“American researchers are usually better trained in quantitative research compared to researchers in other countries” with the consequence that “few researchers not trained in US universities publish in US research journals” while “non-US researchers are better able to deal with qualitative research because US researchers rarely see it or, indeed, know if its existence”. There is always a concern that the disproportionate esteem that is given to US journals that favour quantitative research may discourage qualitative enquiries. To some extent, there are counter-tendencies to this in accounting in the UK. Alongside the aforementioned assimilation of academics from other disciplines, academic accounting departments have always tried to recruit personnel who have experience of accounting practice and the problems and limitations of the methods of accounting practitioners, although it has to be acknowledged that the proportion of academic accounting faculty with a professional accounting qualification has declined in recent years. There are many – both inside and outside the SEAA research community – who share Owen (2004), p. 31) view that: [A]n obsession with issues of research method is likely to be counter-productive. One only has to skim the pages of the so-called prestigious American journals, notably The Journal of Accounting Research and Accounting Review to illustrate this point. Here we simply have . . . numerous examples of increasingly sophisticated techniques being employed to annihilate increasingly trivial problems. . . . [I]n the SEAA research arena, the problem being studied and the motivations underpinning the work, are infinitely more important factors, in my view, than issues of methodological intricacy.

In this context, it is encouraging that the 2001 Business and Management Studies and A&F RAE panels did not define “world-class” research by the simple criterion of publication in such American journals[1]. As Bessant et al. (2003, p. 56) made clear “being world-class in accounting is not identical to having impact on US research” (see also, Otley, 2002, p. 398). If such a climate endures, a fusion of emphasis on the importance of research problems and the increasing number of reflexive accounts providing practical insights into the drawbacks and potential problems of different qualitative research techniques, will – hopefully – lead simply to more informed choice about the most suitable method and appropriate refinement of those methods in innovative ways on an ad hoc basis. Accounting journals may help this development by carrying an increasing number of reflexive accounts of people doing qualitative research. Recent or forthcoming additions to the range of available journals are likely to prove helpful. For example, Qualitative Research in Accounting and Management, which is dedicated to the publication of qualitative research particularly in accounting, was launched at the University of Auckland in 2004 and has recently been taken over by the Emerald Publishing Group. Similarly, the pending launch of Emerald Publishing Group’s Qualitative Research in Organizations and Management: An International Journal in 2006, with its intended range of themes including accounting – and its proposed section of “Insider Accounts” for inter alia, critical reflection on research practice – promises another important outlet. Concluding summary In the UK, accounting has progressed from a largely, positivistic, quantitative, academic discipline, concerned predominantly with improvement of the techniques employed in accounting practice. It is now a pluralistic discipline that includes people who use

qualitative methods to explore a broad range of issues. The development of conferences and high-ranking journals has helped to consolidate qualitative approaches in accounting. Recent reflexive accounts of doing qualitative accounting research serve to encourage more informed choice of methods and examples of – and reasons for – innovation. Cross-germination of ideas between accounting and other disciplines, appreciation of the limits to accounting in practice and reflexive accounts of methods and examples of innovative studies should help to encourage the rigorous application of qualitative methods to a greater number of research questions in accounting. In this regard, the development of new journals reflecting on the practice of qualitative research in accounting is to be welcomed and it is to be hoped that they will help to extend the pluralism and openness that already exists in the accounting discipline in many parts of the world. Indeed, given the aforementioned reference to an “audit society” and the growing role of accounting in the regulation of all aspects of people’s lives, there is an ongoing need for both critical reflection on the conduct of accounting research and qualitative studies capable of highlighting that accounting should not be viewed simply as a technical subject that is the preserve of accounting experts. Note 1. Although, it is worth noting that there have been some occasional signs recently of North American accounting journals showing a degree of willingness to publish case-based research articles (for a recent example, see Ahrens and Chapman, 2004). References Ahrens, T. (2004), “Refining research questions in the course of negotiating access for fieldwork” in Humphrey, C. and Lee, B. (Eds), The Real Life Guide to Accounting Research: A Behind the Scenes View of Using Qualitative Research Methods, Elsevier, Oxford, pp. 295-307. Ahrens, T. and Chapman, C. (2004), “Accounting for flexibility and efficiency: a field study of management control systems in a restaurant chain”, Contemporary Accounting Research, Vol. 21 No. 2, pp. 271-302. Anderson-Gough, F. (2004), “Using computer assisted qualitative data analysis software: respecting voices within data management and analysis” in Humphrey, C. and Lee, B. (Eds), The Real Life Guide to Accounting Research: A Behind the Scenes View of Using Qualitative Research Methods, Elsevier, Oxford, pp. 373-90. Anderson-Gough, F., Grey, C. and Robson, K. (1998a), Making Up Accountants: The Organisational and Professional Socialization of Trainee Chartered Accountants, Ashgate, Aldershot. Anderson-Gough, F., Grey, C. and Robson, K. (1998b), “‘Work hard, play hard’ an analysis of cliche´ in two accountancy practices”, Organization, Vol. 5 No. 4, pp. 565-92. Anderson-Gough, F., Grey, C. and Robson, K. (2000), “In the name of the client: the service ethic in two international accounting firms”, Human Relations, Vol. 53 No. 9, pp. 1151-74. Anderson-Gough, F., Grey, C. and Robson, K. (2001), “Tests of time: organizational time-reckoning and the making of accountants in two multi-national accounting firms”, Accounting, Organizations and Society, Vol. 26 No. 2, pp. 99-122. Anderson-Gough, F., Grey, C. and Robson, K. (2005), “Helping them to forget: the organizational embedding of gender relations in public audit firms”, Accounting, Organizations and Society, Vol. 30 No. 5, pp. 469-90.

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Ian Fillis Department of Marketing, University of Stirling, Stirling, UK Abstract Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to consider the methodological limitations of existing dominant research paradigms in entrepreneurship research. In order to encourage the use of little used methodologies to create higher quality data, an alternative approach is proposed whereby data triangulation from conventional quantitative and qualitative methods of the postal survey and the in-depth interview are combined with biographical data. Design/methodology/approach – By following a path of research, which embraces data triangulation from both contemporary and historical perspectives, this paper explores the benefits of embracing methods from disciplines outside the conventional confines of business research in order to better inform our understanding of smaller firm behaviour. Findings – Introducing creativity into the research process mirrors the behaviour of entrepreneurial small firms, which often thrive in non-linear environments where conventional linear, stepwise research methodologies fail to capture the full picture of owner/manager behaviour. Adoption of a biographical approach to entrepreneurship research can result in the uncovering of rich descriptions of valuable data, which would otherwise remain undiscovered if more conventional approaches were adopted, alone. Research limitations/implications – Whichever methodological approach is adopted, it will be open to criticism and bias. Biographical research has been criticised for its subjectivity in terms of the biographer imposing his or her own thinking on the process. However, good biographical research utilises the creative “story telling” strengths of the biographer as researcher to uncover clearer truths. Practical implications – The paper presents a discussion of how to utilise biographical data as a management research tool, either as a stand-alone method or in conjunction with other research methodologies through the process of data triangulation. Originality/value – Following a more creative, biographical approach to researching entrepreneurship suggests adopting a more postmodern, or even critical approach. Management researchers can now begin to understand how chaos and fragmentation are located in a world where formal, linear methods of understanding are being superceded by more creative conceptualisations and interpretations of the truth. Keywords Methodology, Entrepreneurialism, Small enterprises Paper type Research paper

Management Decision Vol. 44 No. 2, 2006 pp. 198-212 q Emerald Group Publishing Limited 0025-1747 DOI 10.1108/00251740610650193

Introduction There has been developing research interest in the link between entrepreneurship and small business since the start of the 1980s (Wortman, 1986). The marketing/entrepreneurship interface paradigm (Carson et al., 1995) has been used to help explain idiosyncratic behaviour in that some small firms carry out business via highly informal, unstructured, reactive mechanisms while others develop a proactive and skilled approach grounded in innovation and identification of opportunities. Despite suffering from sometimes-severe resource limitations, creativity can be used to

equip the small firm with the necessary competencies to engage in profitable business encounters. Owner/manager personality is directly related to smaller firm behaviour, through locus of control effects (Hansemark, 1998). The relationship between creativity and personality can be explained by utilising existing personality theories, by examining the personality and biographical characteristics of well known creative individuals and their activities in different fields and by focusing on a small number of particular personality dimensions (Woodman and Schoenfeldt, 1990). Psychoanalytical theorists view creativity as emerging from the unconscious or preconscious while humanistic theorists relate creativity to self-actualisation. Examining biographical information and identifying personality characteristics within the same field and also across disciplines can predict future creative behaviour. The interplay between imagination and judgement is central to contemporary models of creative problem solving (Isaksen and Treffinger, 1985) and in critical marketing management research (Brownlie, 1998; Brownlie and Spender, 1995). Approaches used to uncover evidence of creativity include the allotted space in biographical dictionaries for each individual (Cattell, 1903); achievement and intelligence testing (Cox, 1926); degree of socially recognised status; and statistical analysis of individual differences between groups (Galton, 1892). Recent work in biographical management research focuses on contemporary data in the form of the biography, or “story”, of the organisation and its managers (Stansky, 1990; Carson and Carson, 1998). Creativity can be managed and developed as a competitive strength (Kao, 1989), a key competency (Carson et al. 1995), and as an entrepreneurial attribute (Bridge et al., 1998). Creative ability alone is not sufficient in determining success but that it must also be assessed in conjunction with strong leadership skills and visionary ability (Frisch, 1998). Roweton (1989) identifies the main focus of creativity and business as the entrepreneurial business personality where innovation and change are central ingredients. Amabile (1997) identifies passion as a key intrinsic factor in determining successful entrepreneurial behaviour. Much of the work of the author identifies how the entrepreneurial microenterprise, essentially consisting of one or two people, can utilise creativity in order to create competitive advantage in the marketplace (Fillis, 2002a, b, 2004). Those organisations, which are prepared to recognise creative achievement, are subsequently likely to promote further creative, entrepreneurial behaviour. In environments where creativity is not rewarded or is undesirable, it will not happen. Creativity does not always have to be complicated; sometimes the simplest notion is the most effective (Collings, 1999). The willingness to accept the basic idea may be all that is required to differentiate firm performance from competition. In order to achieve this, a cult of change is required (Fillis, 2000a). This is easier to achieve within the smaller firm environment where flexibility is a key strength (Poon and Jevins, 1997). Creativity is linked to this flexible approach, with the entrepreneurial marketer challenging existing methods and implementing changes when needed. Evidence of successful creative practice has been uncovered in the smaller internationalising craft firm where severe resource constraints are overcome by developing and exploiting sets of product and business competencies grounded in creativity and innovation (Fillis, 2000b; Fillis, 2001). Such a firm can enter international markets much quicker than previously modelled (Johanson and Vahlne, 1990; Bell, 1995; Knight and Cavusgil, 1996). These firms have developed a key set of creativity-related competencies, linked to networking, relationship building, opportunity recognition and exploitation

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(Shaw, 1998; Hulbert and Brown, 1998). This behaviour provides evidence of Winslow’s belief that: . . . those who have adjusted to the conservative policies of the past accomplish little growth. Rarely do new discoveries come from the central core of a culture or society, almost always new methods, products or services come from the edges of society (Winslow, 1990, p. 260).

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In essence, this “edge of society” is avant-garde in nature, while conventional behaviour is seen as “The Establishment of conservatism” (Fillis, 2003, 2002c, d, 2000c). Qualitative research methodologies A growing number of qualitative methods are being adopted in management research in response to the failure of quantitative techniques to address new theory development. Examining the contents pages of research methods texts such as those in entrepreneurship and marketing indicates that the qualitative approaches discussed are often narrow in nature and fail to consider more creative (but not necessarily less rigorous) ways of data collection and analysis (Malhotra and Birks, 2000). Proctor (2000), for example, provides an overview of depth interviews, focus groups, teleconferencing and projective techniques. While these methods are useful and give necessary depth and quality to the research process, it is the limited timeframe, which constricts the meaningfulness of the data. Critical incident techniques have been used widely in the management literature and have been defined as interaction incidents over time which the respondent perceives or remembers as unusually positive or negative when asked about them and which are subsequently told as stories (Bitner, 1990; Edvardsson and Roos, 2001). Wong and Sohal (2003) view critical incidents as moments of truth. They are a form of content analysis, which classifies incidents or narratives in order to uncover emergent themes. Flannagan (1954), p. 327) is credited with originating the technique, defining it as: Any observable human activity that is sufficiently complete in itself to permit inferences and predictions to be made about the person performing the act. To be critical, an incident must occur in a situation where the purpose or intent of the act seems fairly clear to the observer and where its consequences are sufficiently definite to leave little doubt concerning its effect.

This compares to biographical methodology, which is truly longitudinal in nature and offers a much more holistic, rather than disjointed, interpretation of events. The critical incident technique utilises a range of methods, including personal interviews, focus groups and direct and participatory observation but it is crucial that the incidents are contextualised from the point of view of the individual’s world (Edvardsson, 1992). However, biographical methodology provides far more extensive opportunity for contextualisation. Life histories are closely related to biography; indeed, Roberts (2002) includes a chapter on life histories in his book on biographical research. Life documents can be used to uncover cultural meanings and to detect changes in individual and group experiences. The method incorporates data from written stories, diaries, letters and other personal documents. The life story can vary in length and can be written and revised a number of times. Pre-existing data, which has been composed for other purposes such that contained in letters can interact with, constructed data in order to

uncover personal and social outlooks, feeling and conceptions of the individual (Denzin, 1989).

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Biography as methodology Biography . . . seems a rich and only partially exploited form of inquiry for reaching multiple intellectual goals and purposes . . . for scholars with even a bit of an innovative or experimentalist set of values, current biographical forms and formats should be seen as only tentative guidelines towards their own creative inquiry endeavours (Smith, 1998, p. 217).

The use of the biographical method in business research is limited, with the few papers, which exist focusing on the historical biographical approach (Carson and Carson, 1998). An exception is Perren (1998) who combines a contemporary biographical approach with in-depth interviews and participant observation in an investigation of owner/manager relationships. The owner/manager is encouraged to tell his/her life story in order to provide a longitudinal historic perspective. The approach has been embraced in other disciplines for a much longer time period; for example, in sociology and in education research (Merill, 2002). There are many criticisms of following the biographical approach to research, including the claim that biography is voyeuristic, invasionary, exploitative and that its methods are obsolete but within the framework of entrepreneurial research, it can be viewed as novel and capable of incorporating the imagination and creativity of the researcher into the research process. The exploration of the sociological imagination can result in the discovery of a rich vein of interwoven historical and societal factors, which interact, with the experience of the individual or organisation under examination. Alpers (1996), pp. 12-13) identifies three types of biography but ignores the potential for living informants to be the constructors of their future biographies through the extended interview process alongside wider data triangulation methods: Biographies fall roughly into three kinds . . . depending on the author’s distance from his human subject in space and time . . . Setting aside all books on living persons, there is first the biography written fairly soon after the subject’s death by someone who knew him . . . I shall call it the personal biography . . . Then comes the class which . . . I shall call the proximate or reported biography. The author may not have known his subject personally . . . but he either possesses, or is equipped to acquire, a thorough understanding of the human subject’s background and sphere of activities . . . If he was not actually there, he is near enough in time to go there . . . his author can turn his unattachment to account and produce biography of a superior sort . . . I shall call my third category the historical biography. The writer in this class works after the dust has settled . . . this biographer works from books and documents.

One of the strengths of adopting the biographical approach is that there is no set direction for the researcher to follow, no stringent research hypotheses to investigate and that the biographer is concerned with investigating the truth (Stannard, 1996). Kent (1986) has suggested that management researchers must understand the sociological aspects within which the manager exists and that we, as researchers, must understand the impact of the social world on decision making. The merits of adopting a biographical approach to research is that the sociological imagination: Enables us to grasp history and biography and the relations between the two within society . . . No social study that does not come back to the problems of biography, of history and of

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their intersections within a society has completed its intellectual journey (Merill, 2002 citing Wright Mills, 1959, p. 12).

The biographical method can be used to reach an understanding of the ways in which the collective experiences of individuals can be placed within socio-economic and political contexts. Most importantly:

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Biographies illustrate the dialectics of human agency and structure. Viewed from this perspective it offers a radical approach to research (Merill, 2002, p. 1).

.And uncovers much more data than is possible from the in-depth interview or postal survey alone. Biographies are capable of integrating public and private factors within a wider social framework of understanding, resulting in the production of powerful data: A more complete identity and understanding of the entrepreneur can be constructed by triangulation of the conventional methods of data collection such as the in-depth interview and the postal survey together with the biographical approach which draws on historical and contemporary data. Weil (1989) notes that the biography as a qualitative research method has the potential to enrich and re-define theory. Jones (1998) sees biography as being able to offer information on the motivation and personality of the individual, as well as details of the people and conditions that impact on them. Biographical data and sampling A criticism of following the biographical approach is that it tends to focus on a sample of one, much like a case study, and therefore generalisations are difficult to make. However, by gathering data from a series of biographical studies (e.g. studies on creative entrepreneurial marketing) and cross checking for consistencies, this source can provide much greater insight than other, more popular research methods. There is also a distinction to be made between the primary and secondary data sources of other research methods and that of biography. Jones (1998) identifies a number of different types of biographical data: the personal biography involves demographic, family and personality characteristics of the subject; the professional biography relates to the development of the career of the subject; the intellectual biography gives a description of the subject’s education and training and the environmental biography considers the social, political and economic conditions during the lifetime of the subject. One of the main benefits of adopting a biographical approach to research is the ability to bring creativity into the process: Such analysis of historical data involves creative interpretation and has been described as a synthesis or web of imaginative construction based on critical evaluation of source materials (Fullerton, 1988).

Smith (1998) identifies a variety of biography or life writing labels, including profiles, portrayals, memoirs, life stories, life histories, case studies, autobiographies and diaries. One of the key aspects of formulating a biography, and in interpreting the data, is the reflective nature of the process. Schon (1983, 1987) noted that professional practitioners cannot solve problems by adopting the “technical rationality” approach alone and that issues such as complexity, uncertainty, instability, uniqueness and value conflict must be understood by other means. Smith (1998) sees the initial role in biography as the selection of an individual to write about and that this must be a hero

or heroine. In the case of the biographical approach to entrepreneurial research, the author has selected a range of individuals and organisations from the past and also the present, some of who have achieved a certain level of heroic creative status, while others exhibit a number of elements of creative behaviour. Unlike survey work where a representative sample of the population under investigation is investigated, biographical research focuses on the subjective creative judgement of the researcher in being able to identify appropriate examples for investigation. The process involves a variety of planned and unplanned input. Clifford (1970) identifies a number of forms of biography, which contain various degrees of subjectivity and objectivity. A truly objective biography is difficult to achieve but there are biographies, which contain minimal interpretation by the biographer and large degrees of factual information held together by chronological organisation. In the artistic-scholarly biography, the biographer exerts a degree of creative imagination in order to present the data to the reader. The narrative biography contains fictionalised scenes and conversations, which have been constructed from reading letters and other documents. The fictional biography contains minimal resemblance to the original happenings and uses little in the way of primary resources. Whatever, the biographical form; creative imagination plays some part in the research process: The intellectual problems seem to demand more of creativity than of technical or rule-governed problem solving. And that is a challenge to the practice of social science. Some . . . suggest that the integration might occur in “meta-cognition’, self-directed thinking about thinking (Smith, 1998, p. 199).

Smith notes that there is a call for the biographer to move beyond the simple storytelling approach in order to reach a more abstract understanding of the issues. In so doing, patterns of concepts, hypotheses, theories and metaphors can be identified. The biographical approach to research has a further strength in that it has the ability to uncover longitudinal data, something largely lacking from more conventional entrepreneurship research methods. Newton (1995) sees biographical research as a legitimate form of empirical research, unlike Howe (1982) who argues for the investigation of biographical materials but believes that they cannot serve as empirical data: This mistaken contrasting of biographical evidence with empirical evidence conforms to current professional usage where empirical is often used as though it meant objective, quantitative, or even scientific. This misusage is prejudicial toward biography as well as toward other forms of qualitatively empirical research, because the word empirical is so value laden . . . empirical data may be either quantitative or qualitative. Biography means literally the graphing of the bios, or life, and is a form of naturalistic as distinct from experimental empiricism. To say that biographers are engaged in empirical work reminds us that there is more than one kind of empiricism, more than one way of making observations and representing them, and that there is more than one way of contributing to science (Newton, 1995, p. 147).

The biography differs from the case study in that the latter focused on a specific set of questions grounded in a limited amount of data while the former attempts to focus on the entire lifetime of a subject. Newton (1995), p. 149) suggests that biographical

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methods can be used to formulate hypotheses, much like other forms of qualitative research: Biography is best suited for research whose primary task is to open up and illuminate an area, rather than to refine variables, pin down findings, or support and reject hypotheses. Findings about the individuals studied may be definitive; when they are used as a basis for generalisations about people, they may only be suggestive.

Forms of biographical research In order to carry out archival biographical research there must be sufficient material regarding the subject under investigation so that the life can be constructed in detail. The process ideally involves drawing from a combination of autobiographical material such as letters and diaries, together with biographical material concerning the individual written by others. Biographical interviewing involves a large number of hours spent with the living subject and, the older the subject, the longer it will take to construct the story. Newton describes the process followed as semi structured and the content covered is not rigidly predetermined. The process of revealing the personality of the subject is of prime importance. The author carries out a variety of methods when collecting biographical data, including recording observations via a dictaphone, handwriting and word processing notes, visits to creative sites, examining diaries, paintings, attending plays and exhibitions. Newton notes that once patterns have been identified in the empirical data, then a higher level of theoretical abstraction can be constructed. In the analysis, pieces of data should be linked to other pieces of data, rather than attempting to link data to theory, in order to identify empirical themes. The subjective input of the reader of the biography also has a role to play. Newton believes that the analysis should be related directly to existing theory and evidence but what the author has done is to also incorporate theory from the Marketing/Entrepreneurship interface in order to widen the scope of entrepreneurship research and also to encourage and facilitate creativity in to the process. The process of biographical research data triangulation The author has published the results of biographical research elsewhere (Fillis, 2000a; Fillis and Rentschler, 2005; Herman and Fillis, 2005). This section of the paper focuses on how, following biographical research, data triangulation can be used to construct a higher quality and more meaningful discussion guide for future research (see list below). Data from literature reviews, biographical research, in-depth interviews and postal surveys have been triangulated in order to investigate creativity in the smaller firm (Fillis, 2000d, 2002c). Much of the content of the guide is derived from historical biographical research, which has subsequently been crosschecked with contemporary measures for consistency. The content of the guide is shown below: (1) Tell me about your business. (2) What skills would you say you have? (3) Have you always wanted to do this? (looking for evidence of early impact from social environment). (4) Do you make much effort to distinguish between your social and work life? (background impacting on business direction).

(5) How would you say you responded to a new/challenging situation? (6) Would you say you were creative? If you are, is this just an occasional thing or is it a continual, ongoing situation? Is this recent or have you always had this ability? (7) Tell me about your ambitions. (8) Do you think that not having the resources of the larger firm affects how you think/behave? What resources/skills would you say you lacked? (9) Would you say you are: flexible in your approach; able to visualise/see problems easily; able to use your imagination; innovative; a risk taker; open to new ideas/new methods or do you prefer to always do things in the same way; curious; don’t want to be controlled, but prefer to think for yourself; easily motivated; able to identify new opportunities; using networks/networking and building relationships to grow the business; not scared of making mistakes/failure. (10) How much time would you say you spent thinking compared to actually doing the job? (11) Is lifestyle important to you? (12) What are your strong points? Any weaknesses? (13) Would you say you were entrepreneurial? Would you say you were any good at marketing? (14) Do you like working with other people or prefer to do things on your own? Or does it depend on the situation? (15) If you were going to employ other people, what would be the main requirements you would look for? (16) Would you say you did things on the spur of the moment or do you spend time thinking and planning ahead? (17) Do you think that being creative is an asset, some sort of competitive advantage? (18) Would you say that your industry/business makes it easy to be creative or don’t you think it’s necessary? (19) How do you feel when you have completed a job? (20) What’s more important to you – things happening within the business or are you also concerned with what’s happening around you? (21) Would you describe yourself as an expert? (22) What do you like most/least about your job? (23) Do you think qualifications are important? (24) How do you think – do you take time to reach a decision or is it sometimes more of a gut reaction? (25) Do you like solving problems, being presented with a difficult task? (26) Finally, any thoughts on the future direction of your business?

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The first theme, for example, “tell me about your business”, focuses on the owner/manager constructing the story or biography of their business, from its formation to its present state of development. Subsequent questions focus on the impact of a variety of factors in the work and social environments, mirroring how biographical data is constructed from internal and external sources. In the second question, when asking about specific skills, the researcher is looking for evidence of how competencies have evolved and developed over time. The respondent is then asked if they have always wanted to pursue what they are currently doing. This question is designed to extract historical data from the respondent’s social environment where many factors will have impacted directly and indirectly on the shaping of their current state of thinking. This also relates to the next question on whether or not the owner/manager makes much effort to distinguish between social and business life. Biographical texts contain this mixture of data and within small business research it has also been shown that wider business and social contact networks influence decision making (Shaw, 1998). Evidence of entrepreneurial ambition is being sought when the respondent is asked how they respond to a new or challenging situation. Ambition is a key entrepreneurial ingredient and immense insight into the process can be gleaned by tracing how the individual demonstrates this through action and through actual biographical commentary (e.g. in diaries). Biographies have uncovered in-depth information on how individuals develop and practice creativity (Sweetman, 1990; Warhol, 1975). Respondents are asked to think about their frequency of their creativity; if it has been occasional or more of a daily occurrence and not just in their current position but also throughout their lifetime. The questions relating to flexibility, visualisation, imagination, curiosity and so on have been constructed following biographical analysis of texts on creative individuals (e.g. Adams, 1997; De Long, 1998). Insight into the length of time-spent thinking compared to actually performing a task is greatly enhanced through the reading of biographical texts. Issues relating to growing the firm such as embracing marketing, lifestyle versus business pressures and human resource management can also be more clearly understood through biographical analysis of individuals and organisations. The final set of questions relates more specifically to the creative abilities of the owner/manager and has been formulated as the result of biographical analysis and through prior knowledge of interviewing owner/managers. Insight into the motivation of being an owner/manager, for example, is acquired by asking how the individual feels once he/she has completed a task. Further insight is available through the reading of biographical texts (e.g. Sweetman, 1990). Figure 1 demonstrates the rationale behind the call for adopting biographical research in the field of small business and entrepreneurship. It presents an overview of the key themes discussed in the paper and how biographical research emerges as an alternative, or complement even, to existing, more popular approaches in small and medium sized enterprise research. Beginning by evaluating how the nature of the SME environment can be at odds with textbook visualisations, the model shows how the gap between actual business behaviour of the smaller firm and existing theory relating to it is still to be closed, or at least narrowed. The formal, linear, rational prescriptive behaviours of the textbook clash with the non-linear, sometimes chaotic and irrational modes of behaviour adopted by the entrepreneurial smaller firm. Despite decades of researchers endeavouring to inform the owner/manager of the merits of formalised

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Figure 1. Biographical research and smaller firm marketing theory generation

modes of behaviour alone, the entrepreneurial smaller firm can grow successfully by developing its own system of entrepreneurial marketing, based on exploitation of formal and informal competencies. Using the marketing/entrepreneurship interface as a platform, the model promotes entrepreneurial research endeavours such as the biographical approach as equal to the more formal and more widespread positivist stance taken by many management researchers and their fascination for linear representations of truth. Entrepreneurial techniques such as networking, word of mouth communication, opportunity recognition and creative managerial judgement as used by the owner/manager are viewed as equally relevant, if not more pertinent, to formal modes of planning and strategy. Insight into these modes of behaviour are available through biographical text analysis of both conventional and less conventional managers. The focus of much of the author’s recent work has been on creativity in the smaller firm. Given the largely intangible nature of creativity and the limitations of large scale quantitative surveys in

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uncovering core creativity factors, a biographical approach to research has resulted in greater understanding of creativity in the smaller firm. Adoption of a biographical approach to research has helped to promote the merits of the existence of multiple managerial truths and experiences, rather than one single, correct, version of events. Rather than following a purely quantitative research path, which seeks, to model sets of dependent and independent variables grounded in various levels of confidence and apparent accuracy, triangulation of biographical research with other methods can introduce creativity and imagination into the research process. Conclusion Whatever research process is followed, there is little possibility of reaching an absolute truth and therefore the weaknesses of popular methodologies should be upheld and alternative approaches encouraged: There is no such thing as proof in science – because some later alternative explanation may be as good or better – so that science advances only by disproofs. There is no point in making hypotheses that are not falsifiable, because such hypotheses do not say anything. It must be possible for an empirical scientific system to be refuted by experience (Popper cited in Platt, 1964, p. 350).

Biography and case study research share the fact that both approaches deal with actual results rather than expected results (ex-post rather than ex-ante). Goodman and Kruger (1988) note that mainstream management researchers appear to accept the fact that their chosen methodological path has its limitations but it is the best option currently available. However, as confirmed by the author in previous papers, creativity is largely lacking in the research process in terms of how it can be used in identifying data and in variable construction. Creativity is viewed as the over-riding catalyst which can spur the researcher to examine alternative, under-used, but no less useful, approaches such as biographical research. Biography can serve as a complement to existing research methodologies within entrepreneurship in terms of its abilities to uncover wider, richer data which is based on understanding the mood, feeling, thought processes and motivations of the owner/manager. It is hoped that those researchers with a spirit of creative entrepreneurship will also be spurred to adopting the biographical approach and that this will also act as a catalyst for more meaningful small business and entrepreneurship theory, which closely mirrors actual business practice. References Adams, S. (1997), The Barbizon School and the Origins of Impressionism, Phaidon Press, London. Alpers, A. (1996), “Biography – the scarlet experiment”, in Salwak, D. (Ed.), Literary Biography, Macmillan, London, pp. 12-21. Amabile, T. (1997), “Entrepreneurial creativity through motivational synergy”, Journal of Creative Behavior, Vol. 31 No. 1, pp. 18-26. Bell, J.D. (1995), “The internationalization of small computer software firms”, European Journal of Marketing, Vol. 8, pp. 60-75. Bitner, M.J. (1990), “Evaluating service encounters: the effects of physical surroundings and employee responses”, Journal of Marketing, Vol. 54, April, pp. 69-82.

Bridge, S., O’Neill, K. and Cromie, S. (1998), Understanding Enterprise, Entrepreneurship and Small Business, Macmillan Press, Basingstoke. Brownlie, D. (1998), “High minds and low deeds: on being blind to creativity in strategic marketing”, Journal of Strategic Marketing, Vol. 6, pp. 117-30. Brownlie, D. and Spender, J.C. (1995), “Managerial judgement in strategic marketing: some preliminary thoughts”, Management Decision, Vol. 33 No. 6, pp. 39-50. Carson, D., Cromie, S., McGowan, P. and Hill, J. (1995), Marketing and Entrepreneurship in SMEs. An Innovative Approach, Prentice Hall, Basingstoke. Carson, P.P. and Carson, K.D. (1998), “Theoretically grounding management history as a relevant and valuable form of knowledge”, Journal of Management History, Vol. 4 No. 1, pp. 29-42. Cattell, J. (1903), “A statistical sudy of eminent men”, Popular Science Monthly, Vol. 62, pp. 359-77. Clifford, J.L. (1970), From Puzzles to Portraits: Problems of a Literary Biographer, University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill, NC. Collings, M. (1999), This is Modern Art, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London. Cox, C.M. (1926), The Early Mental Traits of Three Hundred Geniuses, Stanford University Press, Stanford, CA. De Long, D.G. (1998), Frank Lloyd Wright and the Living City, Vitra Design Museum, Weil am Rhein. Denzin, N.K. (1989), Interpretive Biography, Sage, London. Edvardsson, B. (1992), “Service breakdowns: a study of critical incidents in an airline”, International Journal of Service Industry Management, Vol. 34 No. 4, pp. 17-29. Edvardsson, B. and Roos, I. (2001), “Critical incident techniques. Towards a framework for analysing the criticality of critical incidents”, International Journal of Service Industry Management, Vol. 12 No. 3, pp. 251-68. Fillis, I. (2004), “The internationalising smaller craft firm: insights from the marketing and entrepreneurship interface”, International Small Business Journal, Vol. 22 No. 1, pp. 57-82. Fillis, I. (2003), “Image, reputation and identity issues in the arts and crafts organisation”, Corporate Reputation Review: An International Journal, Vol. 6 No. 3, pp. 239-51. Fillis, I. (2002a), “Creative craft behaviour in Britain and Ireland”, Irish Marketing Review, Vol. 15 No. 1, pp. 38-48. Fillis, I. (2002b), “The internationalisation process of the craft firm microenterprise”, Journal of Developmental Entrepreneurship, Vol. 7 No. 1, pp. 25-43. Fillis, I. (2002c), “An Andalusian dog or a rising star: creativity and the marketing/ entrepreneurship interface”, Journal of Marketing Management, Vol. 18 Nos 3/4, pp. 379-95. Fillis, I. (2002d), “Creativity, marketing and the arts organisation: what can the artist offer?”, International Journal of Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Marketing, Vol. 7 No. 2, pp. 131-45. Fillis, I. (2001), “Small firm internationalisation: an investigative survey and future research directions”, Journal of Management Decision, Vol. 39 No. 9, pp. 767-83. Fillis, I. (2000a), “The endless enigma or the last self portrait – implications for the future of marketing”, in Brown, S. and Patterson, A. (Eds), Imagining Marketing: Art, Aesthetics and the Avant Garde, Routledge, London, pp. 52-72. Fillis, I. (2000b), “An examination of the internationalisation process of the smaller craft firm in the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland”, Department of Marketing, University of Stirling, Stirling, unpublished doctoral thesis. Fillis, I. (2000c), “Being creative at the marketing/entrepreneurship interface: lessons from the art industry”, Journal of Research in Marketing and Entrepreneurship, Vol. 2 No. 2, pp. 125-37.

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Fillis, I. (2000d), “Creativity at the marketing/entrepreneurship interface: an investigation of smaller firms in the central belt of Scotland”, 14th Annual UIC Research Symposium on Marketing and Entrepreneurship, August 4-5, Chicago, IL. Fillis, I. and Rentschler, R. (2005), Creative Marketing, Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke. Flannagan, J.C. (1954), “The critical incident technique”, Psychological Bulletin, Vol. 54 No. 4, pp. 327-58. Frisch, B. (1998), “A pragmatic approach to vision”, Journal of Business Strategy, Vol. 19 No. 4, pp. 12-15. Fullerton, R. (1988), “How modern is modern marketing? Marketing’s evolution and the myth of the ‘production era’”, Journal of Marketing, Vol. 52, pp. 108-25. Galton, F. (1892), Hereditary Genius: An Inquiry into its Laws and Consequences, 2nd ed., Macmillan, London. Goodman, R.S. and Kruger, E.J. (1988), “Data dredging or legitimate research method? Historiography and its potential for management research”, Academy of Management Review, Vol. 13 No. 2, pp. 315-25. Hansemark, O.C. (1998), “The effects of an entrepreneurship programme on need for achievement and locus of control reinforcement”, International Journal of Entrepreneurial Behaviour and Research, Vol. 4 No. 1, pp. 28-50. Herman, R. and Fillis, I. (2005), “A biographical study of Isambard Kingdom Brunel as insight into entrepreneurial marketing endeavour”, Journal of Enterprising Culture, Vol. 13 No. 3, pp. 223-252. Howe, M. (1982), “Biographical evidence and the development of outstanding individuals”, American Psychologist, Vol. 37, pp. 1071-81. Hulbert, B. and Brown, R. (1998), “Business opportunity explored in the context of entrepreneurial marketing”, in Hulbert, B., Day, J. and Shaw, E. (Eds), Proceedings of the Academy of Marketing UIC/MEIG-AMA Symposia on the Marketing and Entrepreneurship Interface 1996-1998, Nene University College, Northampton, pp. 529-34. Isaksen, S.G. and Treffinger, D.J. (1985), Creative Problem Solving: The Basic Course, Bearly Limited, Buffalo, NY. Johanson, J. and Vahlne, J-E. (1990), “The mechanism of internationalisation”, International Marketing Review, Vol. 7 No. 4, pp. 11-24. Jones, D.G.B. (1998), “Biography as a methodology for studying the history of marketing ideas”, Psychology and Marketing, Vol. 15 No. 2, pp. 161-73. Kao, J.J. (1989), Entrepreneurship, Creativity and Organization, Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ. Kent, R.A. (1986), “Faith in four ps: an alternative”, Journal of Marketing Management, Vol. 2 No. 2, pp. 145-54. Knight, G. and Cavusgil, S.T. (1996), “The born global firm: a challenge to traditional internationalisation theory”, in Cavusgil, S.T. and Madsen, T.K. (Eds), Advances in International Marketing, Vol. 8, JAI Press, London, pp. 11-26. Malhotra, N.K. and Birks, D.F. (2000), Marketing Research: An Applied Approach, Financial Times Prentice Hall, Harlow. Merrill, B. (2002), “Biographies as collective experience?”, paper presented at ESREA: the Biography and Life History Network Conference, Geneva, 7-9 March. Newton, P.M. (1995), “Some suggestions for the conduct of biographical research”, Journal of Adult Development, Vol. 2 No. 3, pp. 147-58.

Perren, L. (1998), “Owner-manager relationships preceding and during start-up: issues of help, harm, trust and morality”, Journal of Small Business and Enterprise Development, Vol. 5 No. 2, pp. 130-40.

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Platt, J.R. (1964), “Strong inference”, Science, Vol. 146, pp. 347-53. Poon, S. and Jevins, C. (1997), “Internet-enabled international marketing: a small business network perspective”, Journal of Marketing Management, Vol. 13 No. 1, pp. 29-41. Proctor, T. (2000), Essentials of Marketing Research, 2nd ed., Financial Times/Prentice Hall, Harlow. Roberts, B. (2002), Biographical Research, Open University Press, Buckingham. Roweton, W.E. (1989), “Enhancing individual creativity in American business and education”, Journal of Creative Behavior, Vol. 23 No. 4, pp. 248-57. Schon, D. (1983), The Reflective Practitioner: How Professionals Think in Action, Basic Books, New York, NY. Schon, D. (1987), Educating the Reflective Practitioner: Toward a New Design for Teaching and Learning in the Professions, Jossey-Bass, San Francisco, CA. Shaw, E. (1998), “Networks as a strategic entrepreneurial marketing tool – a review of the evidence”, in Hulbert, E., Day, J. and Shaw, E. (Eds), Proceedings of the Academy of Marketing UIC/MEIG-AMA Symposia on the Marketing and Entrepreneurship Interface 1996-1998, Nene University College, Northampton, pp. 707-22. Smith, l.m. (1998), “Biographical method”, in Denzin, N.K. and Lincoln, Y.S. (Eds), Strategies of Qualitative Inquiry, Sage, London. Stannard, M. (1996), “The necrophiliac art?”, in Salwak, D. (Ed.), The Literary Biography, MacMillan, London, pp. 32-40. Stansky, P. (1990), “The crumbling frontiers of history or history and biography. Some personal remarks”, Pacific Historical Review, Vol. 59, February, pp. 1-14. Sweetman, D. (1990), The Love of Many Things. A Life of Vincent Van Gogh, Hodder and Stoughton, London. Warhol, A. (1975), The Philosophy of Andy Warhol. From A to B and Back Again, Harcourt Brace and Company, San Diego, CA. Weil, S. (1989), “From a language of observation to a language of rxperience; studying the perspectives of diverse adults in higher education”, Journal of Access Studies, Vol. 3 No. 1, pp. 17-43. Winslow, E.K. (1990), “The issue of motivating entre (intra)preneurial behavior”, Journal of Creative Behavior, Vol. 24 No. 4, pp. 256-62. Wong, A. and Sohal, A. (2003), “A critical incident approach to the examination of customer relationship management in a retail chain: an exploratory study”, Qualitative Market Research: an International Journal, Vol. 6 No. 4, pp. 248-62. Woodman, R.W. and Schoenfeldt, L.F. (1990), “An interactionist model of creative behaviour”, Journal of Creative Behaviour, Vol. 24 No. 4, pp. 279-90. Wortman, M.S. (1986), “A unified framework, research typologies, and research prospectuses for the interface between entrepreneurship and small business”, in Sexton, D.L. and Smillor, R.W. (Eds), The Art and Science of Entrepreneurship, Ballinger Publishing Company, Cambridge, MA. Wright Mills, C. (1959), The Sociological Imagination, Penguin, Harmondsworth.

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Further reading Arndt, J. (1986), “On making marketing science more scientific: role of orientations, paradigms, metaphors and puzzle solving”, Journal of Marketing, Vol. 49, Summer, pp. 11-23. Carney, D.P. and Williams, R. (1997), “The memetics of firms, entrepreneurship and the new body politic: the memetics of the marketplace”, Management Decision, Vol. 35 Nos 5/6, pp. 447-51. Carson, D. (1995), “Editorial”, European Journal of Marketing, Vol. 29 No. 7, pp. 6-8. Fillis, I. (2002), “Creativity at the marketing/entrepreneurship interface: an investigation of smaller firms in the central belt of Scotland”, in Hills, G.E. and Singh, R.P. (Eds), Research at the Marketing/Entrepreneurship Interface, The University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, IL. Fillis, I. (2002), “Barriers to internationalisation: an investigation of the craft microenterprise”, European Journal of Marketing, Vol. 36 Nos 7/8, pp. 912-27. Gardner, H. (1993), Creating Minds, Basic Books, New York, NY. Glueck, W.P. and Willis, R. (1979), “Documentary sources and strategic management research”, Academy of Management Review, Vol. 4, pp. 95-102. Hunt, S.D. and Menon, A. (1993), “Is it, metaphor at work, or is it, metaphors, theories and models at work?”, in Laurent, G., Lilien, G.L. and Pras, B. (Eds), Research Traditions in Marketing, Kluwer, Boston, MA, pp. 426-32. Murphy, A. (1999), Jean-Francois Millet, Yale University Press, London. Rindfleisch, A. (1996), “Marketing as warfare: reassessing a dominant metaphor (questioning military metaphors centrality in marketing parlance)”, Business Horizons, Vol. 39 No. 5, pp. 3-10. Storey, J. (1994), Understanding the Small Business Sector, International Thomson Business Press, London. Wren, D. (1987), “Management history: issues and ideas for teaching and research”, Journal of Management, Vol. 13, pp. 339-50. Corresponding author Ian Fillis can be contacted at: [email protected]

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Using qualitative research synthesis to build an actionable knowledge base David Denyer and David Tranfield

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Centre for Management Knowledge and Strategic Change, Cranfield School of Management, Cranfield University, Cranfield, UK Abstract Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to address the qualitative synthesis and use of existing management research to inform management practice. Design/methodology/approach – Three methods of qualitative synthesis, each with contrasting methodologies, are presented and their potential contribution in the management field explored. Findings – Professional practice could be improved if practitioners had better access to the products of a large body of management research. Evidence-based reviews of the literature in the management field could form a crucial bridge between research and practice. The task of reviewing and synthesising qualitative studies comprises a key challenge. Research limitations/implications – The key issues in conducting qualitative synthesis are highlighted and the barriers and enablers to the application of the product of qualitative synthesis in practice are discussed. Originality/value – The paper stimulates debate about what counts as an effective synthesis of qualitative research and highlights the growing array of approaches. In so doing the paper presents new models for the production of evidence-based reviews. Keywords Management research, Qualitative research, Evidence-based practice Paper type Research paper

Introduction The production of qualitative management research has grown exponentially over recent years generating an extensive stock of knowledge. For the practising manager this information has the potential to be thought provoking, persuasive and the basis for decision-making and action. However, there are few clear signs of its direct impact in the world of management practice. When managers face decisions or implement organisational interventions, often they prefer to draw on their experience, intuition or social networks rather than the science base. However, with the advent of the knowledge economy and a growing recognition within firms, they need to exploit their knowledge assets (Eisenhardt and Santos, 2002; Conner and Prahalad, 1996; Spender, 1996; Leonard-Barton, 1995; Davenport and Prusak, 1998), it is important that the scholarly and practitioner communities develop processes and methodologies for bringing research evidence together systematically and applying it in practice. In this paper we explore the dislocation of research from practice and present a number of barriers to the effective exploitation of management research. We go on to This paper results from research undertaken in Cranfield IMRC (EPSRC) grant no IMRC19, “Developing a methodology for evidence-informed management knowledge using systematic review”, Professor David Tranfield and Dr David Denyer.

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argue that in a fragmented field such as management, new methods of synthesis may be required to deal with the diverse and varied literature. Three qualitative approaches to synthesis are presented and their potential contributions to the management field are explored. We discuss the key issues in conducting qualitative synthesis and explore some of the philosophical and practical challenges. Finally, we argue that qualitative research synthesis can provide an effective means of producing an actionable knowledge base. The relevance of management research Some 40 years ago the Ford Foundation (Gordon and Howell, 1959) and Carnegie Council (Pierson, 1959) reports established a key mission for management research, which was to legitimise itself within the context of the social sciences. This “scientisation” of the management field emphasised a concern for establishing the discipline of management on the traditional social science model of research. By and large a much more scientific approach subsequently has been developed in understanding the field of management. As a result, an extensive science base has been created with an extensive range of learning journals, which have been used to house a significant and voluminous knowledge stock. However, it could be argued that the downside of this strategic mission has been the dislocation of knowledge producers from knowledge users, resulting in a “relevance gap” (Starkey and Madan, 2001). Overcoming this division by creating a management research, that is both theoretically sound and methodologically rigorous, as well as relevant to the practitioner community, has become a key theme in recent years and the subject of much academic debate on both sides of the Atlantic (Berry, 1995; Pettigrew, 1997; Tranfield and Starkey, 1998; Wind and Nueno, 1998; Pfeffer and Sutton, 1999; Starkey and Madan, 2001; Aram and Saliparte, 2000; van Aken, 2004; Hodgkinson et al., 2001). To overcome the separation of research from practice, management research commentators have argued for a number of key methodological changes, questioning the assumptions behind positivism and the domination of the field by “normal” scientific methods. Many authors such as Berry (1995) have argued that actionable knowledge can be produced from qualitative work (see for example other articles in this special issue). As a result, there has been a significant shift in research methods towards the deployment of qualitative methods. Other researchers have made a case for the privileging of academic-user relations and the production of knowledge in the “context of application” (Gibbons et al., 1994). Tranfield and Starkey (1998), for example, argued that the Mode 2 knowledge production system might benefit the future of management research by encouraging knowledge co-production. On the other hand, in contrast to focussing on new forms of knowledge production, some scholars contend that practical knowledge can indeed derive from traditional scientific knowledge by improving the efficiency of transfer mechanisms (van de Ven and Johnson, 2003). To improve the uptake and increase the chances of exploitation, scientific knowledge must be effectively translated into the language and frame of reference of the practitioner (Mohrman, 2001). The disconnection between academic research and practice is a phenomenon common in both the physical and social science disciplines. To overcome this challenge many fields have adopted an evidence-based approach, which puts synthesised

findings from systematic literature reviews at the service of experienced professionals. The purpose is to ensure that practitioners and end users adopt interventions that high quality research has shown to be effective (Hamer and Collinson, 1999; Muir-Gray, 1997; Trinder and Reynolds, 2000). Novel systematic literature review methodologies have been developed, particularly in medical science, that locate, appraise and synthesise existing research evidence to ensure that the outputs are more relevant for policy and practice. These developments have led the way in offering an evidence-based “design template” for consideration by the business and management field. In considering an evidence-based approach using systematic review, Tranfield et al. (2003) conclude that despite distinct epistemological and ontological differences between the medical and management sciences, the development of a bespoke evidence informed methodology for management could provide an important and effective means of creating actionable knowledge. However, understanding the precise nature of management research is a key requirement when considering the potential use of techniques such as systematic review which have been developed to service other academic fields. The fragmented nature of the management research field The epistemological and ontological status of the field of management and organisation research has been subject, over the years, to considerable analysis and discussion. Much of this conversation and debate has focused upon fragmentation (Whitley, 1984a) and the absence of cohesion, in terms of both epistemological consensus and research agenda (Tranfield and Starkey, 1998). Management research is a relatively young field, which arguably is still developing in terms of agenda and question formulation. Whereas more mature fields, such as medicine or engineering, enjoy considerable and extensive consensus, this is untrue of management research in general (Tranfield et al., 2003). In management research there tends to be low agreement concerning key research questions to be addressed and methods to be used. Consequently, there are very few areas in which continuous research over a period of years has tackled specific problems in a consistent manner, or sought a unified understanding of particular phenomena (Tranfield et al., 2003). The fragmentation of models, methods and appropriate frameworks for investigation has resulted in difficulties when establishing agreed thresholds for what constitutes high quality evidence (Tranfield and Starkey, 1998). There are often hot disputes, with strong resistance to privileging one research method over another. The fragmented nature of management research (Whitley, 1984a, b) has resulted in separate sub fields creating their own distinct questions, hypotheses, methodologies, and conclusions (Baligh et al., 1996). These disconnected groups often engage in their work oblivious to work in related areas. For example, Salipante et al. (1982), complains that one sub-field is: Lacking any general model of review methods (and as a result) this literature has remained somewhat disconnected, undeveloped, and under-utilised across different domains of research (p. 322).

Following the accelerated pace of knowledge production in the field of management and organisation over the two decades since Salipante’s observation, the fragmentation of the field can only be argued to have been amplified. Synthesising diverse literatures

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into a coherent whole and accumulating a knowledge base that can serve both the research and practitioner communities therefore has become an increasing challenge. The role literature reviews play in management research Conducting reviews of existing research is a critical competence for a scholar in the field of management in order to position their contribution to knowledge and to construct reasoned, logical and substantiated arguments. Since most primary research studies are required to be grounded in previous research, conceptual models or theories, the management science base is typically built in small, incremental steps with each new primary study building upon previous research. As noted by Light and Pillemer (1984): The need for research synthesis can only be realized when one understands that in order for the gains in scholarship to be cumulative, there must be a link between the past and future research. Often the need for a new study is not as great as the need for the assimilation of already existing studies. Thus the latter is a prerequisite of the former (p 169).

In addition to contributing to the research community, the review of existing research evidence has the potential to guide managers by providing ideas, illustrations and recommendations for practice. The use of reviews of the available evidence to provide insights and guidance for intervention into the operational needs of practitioners and policy-makers has largely been ignored within the field of management. Researchers have at their disposal a number of techniques for making sense of a cumulative set of primary research articles. The most common technique in management research is the traditional literature review in which the researcher summarises and interprets previous contributions in a subjective and narrative fashion. Traditional literature reviews have been criticised because the determination of which studies are to be included in the review and the appraisal of study quality can be subjective. Such reviews are often partial and rarely include all studies relating to a particular issue. In education, for example, it was argued by Glass (1976) that: The armchair literature review in which one cites a couple of dozen studies from the obvious journals can’t do justice to the voluminous literature of . . . research that we now confront (p. 4).

Researchers in many fields have also argued that different individuals synthesising the same research evidence often arrived at entirely different conclusions (Mulrow, 1994; Antman et al., 1992). Because of this traditional reviews have been criticised as an unreliable basis on which to base policy and practice (Antman et al., 1992). Systematic reviews Within many domains it is commonly assumed that the validity of the findings of a review are dependent on the comprehensiveness of the search and the comparability of the studies located. It is with this in mind that systematic reviews have been developed to synthesise research according to an explicit and reproducible methodology (Greenhalgh, 1997, p. 672). Cooper (1998) highlights the principles of systematic review: The approach to research synthesis presented . . . represents a significant departure from how reviews had been conducted just 20 years ago. Instead of a subjective, narrative approach, this book presents an objective systematic approach. Here, the reader will learn how to carry

out an integration of research according to scientific principles and rules. The intended result is a research synthesis that can be replicated by others, can create consensus among scholars, and can focus debate in a constructive fashion (p. xi).

Systematic reviews have become regarded as the most reliable form of research review (Clarke and Oxman, 2001; NHS Centre for Reviews and Dissemination, 2001) due directly to the explicit and rigorous methods utilised (Mulrow, 1994). Cook (1997) suggests that systematic review, in contrast to a traditional review: Includes a clear statement of the purpose of the review, a comprehensive search and retrieval of the relevant research, explicit selection criteria, critical appraisal of the primary studies, and reproducible decisions regarding relevance, selection, and methodological rigour of the primary research (p. 350).

In conjunction with systematic review, Meta analysis is frequently used to quantitatively combine the data from studies on the same topic in order to reach some general conclusions about the effect of X intervention on Y outcome (Cook et al., 1997, p. 380). The primary motive behind this form of aggregative synthesis is to provide greater confidence in the results of statistical analysis. Meta-analysis: Allows for an increase in power and thus based on a summary estimate of the effect size and its confidence interval, a certain intervention may be proved to be effective even if the individual studies lacked the power to show effectiveness (Ohlsson, 1994, p. 27).

The aim of systematic review in its original form is to produce results that are generalisable to other contexts and can be used to make reasonable predictions of future events. The aim of meta-analysis is the development of algorithmic guidelines (Pawson, 2001). In medicine, for example, an algorithmic rule might be: “to treat disorder Y in adult males, administer 0.2 milligrams of medicine X, once a day for 21 days”. Where several different types of intervention are synthesised, the practitioner is presented with a league table showing which type of interventions are most likely to have the most positive effect (Pawson, 2001). The limitations of systematic review and meta-analysis Whilst some authors have argued that systematic review methodologies developed in the natural sciences can inform other fields, others have suggested that they are not transferable for use in the social sciences (Hammersley, 2001). Indeed, some researchers have resisted undertaking systematic reviews on philosophical and epistemological grounds, arguing they are based on a positivistic epistemology and cannot accommodate other perspectives. Within the natural sciences, the quest for “truth” and the elimination of bias in reviews has been a central concern. In the social sciences the existence of objective truth is often contested and bias is often an accepted dimension of knowledge, to be acknowledged rather than eliminated. A further major weakness of meta-analysis is its inability to cope with variation in study design, study populations, study context and types of analysis (Cook et al., 1997, p. 290). Within fragmented fields such as management, researchers address a range of research questions and draw on a range of methodologies making heterogeneity a key challenge. Even where comparable studies are located, in complex social situations there are always likely to be subtle differences between studies. Combining studies in

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order to achieve a mean effect can remove critical contextual information (Hammersley, 2001). Using qualitative evidence to create actionable knowledge Researchers promoting systematic reviews have often excluded qualitative studies from evidence-based reviews. For example, Oakley (2000) claims that anything else but randomised, controlled trials “is a ‘disservice to vulnerable people’” (Oakley, 2000, p. 318; quoting Macdonald, 1996, p. 21). Whilst most researchers take a less extreme position, qualitative studies are frequently misrepresented or undervalued in systematic reviews (Hammersley, 2001), often being simply summarised and appended to systematic review reports. Some attempts have been made to integrate qualitative and quantitative data using Bayesian meta-analysis (Roberts et al., 2002). To achieve this, a summary of the qualitative data is used to develop a probability distribution (prior distribution), which can be tested later using a more conventional synthesis of the quantitative data. In so doing the qualitative and quantitative data are combined to produce a posterior distribution. However, this approach favours the quantitative data in a way that is unacceptable for most qualitative researchers. Recently, however, the potential contribution of qualitative research for the purposes of informing policy and practice has been recognised and increasingly valued within the evidence-based approach. A great deal of interest has emerged across many disciplines regarding the synthesis and utilisation of qualitative studies for the purposes of informing policy and practice. For example, the Cochrane Collaboration has developed a Qualitative Methods Group, based at Lancaster University with the purpose of demonstrating the value of including evidence from qualitative research in systematic reviews and developing and disseminating methods for including qualitative research in systematic reviews (Cochrane Collaboration, 2005). The Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and the Health Development Agency (HDA) funded Dixon-Woods et al. (2004)), to address the question of how qualitative research may be incorporated in systematic reviews. The HDA has also provided funding in 2003/2004 for a series of seminars encouraging methodological development in research synthesis, bringing together quantitative and qualitative researchers from both the natural and social sciences. As a result, a wide range of techniques to qualitatively synthesise research have been developed and tested across a range of disciplines including management, public health, social care and education. Dixon-Woods et al. (2004) have identified 12 qualitative approaches to research synthesis: (1) narrative synthesis; (2) grounded theory – constant comparison; (3) meta-ethnography; (4) meta-synthesis; (5) meta-study; (6) logical analysis; (7) data analysis techniques; (8) metaphorical analysis; (9) domain analysis;

(10) hermeneutical analysis; (11) discourse analysis; and (12) analytic induction. Whilst each of the approaches in Table I has been used to produce qualitative research synthesis, in most cases examples of their application are limited. However, the use of three approaches, narrative synthesis, meta-ethnography and realist synthesis, has increased rapidly across different disciplines. In the section below we present these important approaches to qualitative research synthesis and explore their potential for use in management research. Although we cannot provide an exhaustive explanation of these methodologies and specific steps within the space available, we outline the study designs that can be accommodated, the review process/method of synthesis and explain how the output of the synthesis can be used to inform policy and practice. Narrative synthesis Narrative synthesis focuses on how studies addressing a different aspect of the same phenomenon can be narratively summarised and built up to provide a bigger picture of that phenomenon. Narrative synthesis is largely a process of compiling descriptive data and exemplars from individual studies and building them into a mosaic or map (Hammersley, 2001). Rumrill and Fitzgerald (2001) argue that there are four potential objectives of a narrative synthesis: to develop or advance theoretical models; to identify, explain, and provide perspectives on complicated or controversial issues; to provide information that can assist practitioners in advancing “best” practice; to present new perspectives on important and emerging issues. Narrative synthesis is a flexible approach that allows the reviewer to be reflexive and critical (Hart, 1998). However, in so doing, the narrative approach is open to bias and misinterpretation (Cook et al., 1997) as it is possible that authors selectively quote only research that supports a particular position (Griffiths, 2002). As such it is not uncommon for two researchers reviewing the same question to report contradictory findings (Rumrill and Fitzgerald, 2001). Unlike meta-analysis, where there must be a “fit” between the nature and the quality of the secondary sources, narrative synthesis can accommodate differences between the questions, research designs and the contexts of each of the individual studies. Narrative approaches are particularly valuable when the sample of studies includes qualitative contributions, which are frequently chosen to provide a strong sense of context (Cassell and Symon, 1994). Narrative reviews provide deep and “rich” information (Light and Pillemer, 1984) and enable the wholeness or integrity of the studies to be maintained, thus preserving the idiosyncratic nature of individual studies (Pawson, 2001). Meta-ethnography Meta-ethnography is comprised of a comparative textual analysis of qualitative studies and offers three alternative methods: “refutational synthesis” which is used to reconcile apparently contradictory explanations between studies; “reciprocal translations” which can be used to translate concepts of comparable studies into one another; and “lines of argument synthesis” which attempts to produce a higher order interpretation grounded in the findings of the primary studies (Noblit and Hare, 1988).

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Table I. Three different forms of qualitative research synthesis

Realist synthesis Development and testing of programme theories

Meta-ethnography Translation of the findings of some studies into the terms of another

Narrative synthesis Develop understanding by building a mosaic or map

Review process

Can accommodate any research designs but requires a lot of detail about the context and process of programmes. Therefore, may be more suited to qualitative studies

Intended for ethnographic studies but is also suited to long-term, intensive studies involving observation, interviewing, and document review

Lack of transparency/ subjectivity No guidance on sampling Captures a list of vital ingredients or mechanisms (positive or negative) that gives subjects the resources (material, social, cognitive) to generate change?

No guidance on locating or selecting studies Some screening of inappropriate studies The worth of studies is determined in the process of achieving a synthesis

A diversity of literatures and Flexible study designs Opportunistic search and selection Heavily dependent on skills and prejudices of reviewer

Study designs accommodated

Often there is no attempt to seek generalisations or cumulative knowledge from what is reviewed Rarely pragmatic or oriented towards practice

Output/use

Synthesis is not just the review of the evidence but requires the tacit testing of submerged theories The researcher then builds theory by accumulating understanding of the generative mechanism across a range of programmes in a wide range of different contexts

The aim of synthesis is to produce a transferable programme theory in the form of “what works for whom in which circumstances” Pragmatic and oriented to policy and practice

The lists of the key Provides a new metaphors, phrases, ideas, interpretation based on the and/or concepts (and their sum of the individual studies relations) used in each account are juxtaposed The senses of different accounts are then translated into one another In its simplistic form, translation involves treating the accounts as analogies: One programme is like another except . . .

Summary, description and explanation of the studies Does not aim to fully integrate studies

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Meta-ethnography is driven by interpretation, not analysis, is seen as an alternative to the positivist paradigm and assumes that the social and theoretical contexts in which substantive findings emerge should be preserved through the synthesis (Noblit and Hare, 1988, pp. 5-6). The orientation of meta-ethnography is analogous to a grounded theory approach in so far as it uses open coding and identifies categories emerging from the data as well as making constant comparisons between individual accounts (Beck, 2001). The reviewer identifies and lists key metaphors (themes, perspectives, phrases, ideas, and/or concepts) from each individual study (Noblit and Hare, 1988). These metaphors are then “put together” by linking the metaphors across studies interpretively to provide a holistic account of the phenomenon (Suri, 1999). Conducting a meta-ethnography necessarily involves abstracting from individual real world cases. To many qualitative researchers the results of a study are specific to one particular context at one point in time (Campbell et al., 2003). Noblit and Hare (1988) argue that all synthesis, whether quantitative or qualitative involves interpretation as the reviewer gives meaning to the sets of studies under consideration. Importantly, meta-ethnography enables the reader to translate the studies into her/his own social understanding (1988, p. 18). It consists of a process of “like-with-like” comparison, while remembering that the translator is always translating studies into her/his own world-view (1988, p. 25). As such, advocates of the approach argue that translations are unique forms of synthesis that preserve the interpretive qualities of the original data by: Carefully peeling away the surface layers of studies to find their hearts and souls in a way that does least damage to them (Sandelowski et al., 1997, p. 370).

The major weakness of meta-ethnography is that any interpretation is only one possible reading of the studies and it is quite feasible for another investigator to have an entirely different reading (Noblit and Hare, 1988). Despite this, meta-ethnography is now beginning to gain ground in the field of systematic review in the UK (Britten et al., 2002; Campbell et al., 2003). Campbell et al. (2003) p. 673), for example, argue that meta-ethnography is: Perhaps the best developed method for synthesising qualitative data and one which clearly had its origins in the interpretivist paradigm, from which most methods of primary qualitative research evolved.

Realist synthesis The third form of synthesis we have chosen involves the development and testing of theoretical ideas. Pawson (2001) has introduced realist synthesis as a technique for evaluating the effectiveness of policy programmes by utilising the findings from a range of study types. Pawson argues that social interventions are theories and act through mechanisms – resources provided to subjects in order to change their reasoning. Whether change is achieved depends on the nature of the actors and the circumstances of the programme. Realist synthesis surfaces and articulates the programme theories underpinning an initiative, and then attempts to verify, falsify or refine the programme theory using the available evidence.

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The reviewers’ task is to inspect the programme theory in a range of contexts. Each paper is described and discussed in terms of its contribution to the emerging theory. The results take the form of a revised model designed to explain for whom, in what circumstances, in what respect and why certain interventions work (Pawson, 2004). For Pawson, cumulative realist synthesis aspires to a “mid-range theory”, a theory that lies:

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Between the minor but necessary working hypotheses that evolve in abundance during day-to-day research and the all inclusive systematic efforts to develop a unified theory that will explain all the observed uniformities of social behaviour, social organization and social change (Merton, 1968, p. 39).

Understanding the nature of the relationship between the contexts, mechanisms and outcomes is crucial. For example, the mechanism of “naming and shaming” works well in many contexts, but when used in non-payment of council tax was found, among certain communities, to create “heroes” rather than “villains”. In another review Pawson (2004) suggests that in certain circumstances mentoring is better at befriending, but progressively less successful at direction setting, coaching and advocacy. Comparing alternative approaches to qualitative research synthesis Several appraisal tools in the form of checklists have been developed to help researchers and policy makers make sense of systematic reviews (for example, see Hunt and Mckibbon, 1997). These tools typically comprise of a set of simple criteria to evaluate the process in which evidence is assembled, the validity of the results and whether or not they are capable for informing practice (Hunt and Mckibbon, 1997). However, a framework comprising of key criteria for comparing and appraising qualitative and theoretical approaches to research synthesis is currently unavailable. In Table I we propose a framework for comparing qualitative approaches to research synthesis and evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of the three methods of research synthesis outlined in the previous section. This framework may guide researchers, policy makers and practitioner is making choices when commissioning or producing research reviews. Discussion: the benefits of qualitative synthesis Our view is that evidence-based reviews using qualitative research synthesis can contribute significantly to the development of actionable knowledge in a number of ways. First, evidence-based reviews, unlike traditional literature reviews, are driven by a user led agenda. Practitioners and potential users can be engaged alongside academics in framing specific review questions. The dialogue that this facilitates enables the exchange of ideas, clarification, refocusing and refining of the research objectives (Tranfield et al., 2004). Second, unlike systematic reviews and meta-analyses, qualitative syntheses are generally inclusive; being capable of integrating different forms of evidence generated from different methods such as action research, case studies, in-depth interviewing and observation studies. Some methods of qualitative synthesis are also capable of including quantitative and theoretical contributions as well as “grey” literature, including contributions in practitioner journals, conference papers, books, policy documents and reports from public and private sector bodies.

Third, qualitative reviews may not aspire to objectivity, since the “hallmark of good qualitative methodology is its flexibility rather than standardisation” (Popay et al., 1998, p. 346). However, many methods share a concern for transparency of the processes undertaken and the decisions made by the researcher. Transparency not only ensures that potential users of the review can question the decisions and judgements made by the reviewer, but also necessitates critical self-reflection and sensemaking. The resultant hermeneutical deliberations may lead to new perspectives or a deeper understanding of the subject. Fourth, meta-ethnography and realist synthesis demonstrate that qualitative synthesis can be used to distinguish important variables (themes, ideas, and/or concepts) from confounding factors. The reviewer can then compare and contrast separate studies and if the synthesis discovers that an attribute is consistently found across a wide range of settings and populations, the author may surmise that the attribute is pertinent (Pawson, 2001). By highlighting the key dimensions of successful and unsuccessful practices, qualitative synthesis can offer managers insights into the work that they do and how they may carry it out more effectively and efficiently. Finally, evidence based reviews and qualitative synthesis can “have impact” by being “presented in an accessible and usable form in the real world of practice and policy making” (Sandelowski et al., 1997, p. 365). Whilst the product of synthesis may not produce knowledge that can be directly applied and used instrumentally (Beyer and Trice, 1982), the products of qualitative synthesis may be used conceptually, contributing to individual and organisational learning and influencing practice in indirect ways. This supports and encourages evidence informed practice rather than attempting to substitute rule driven behaviour. For example, for the product of qualitative synthesis to be used to inform decision-making and action in local circumstances, there remains an imperative that it must be interpreted, contextualised and integrated with the personal skills and experiences of the practitioner/manager. This linking of science base to experience and professional judgement is central to an evidence-based approach. Conclusion: applying the product of qualitative synthesis in practice Existing management research will not contribute to management practice if individual studies simply accumulate in academic journals. In many social science fields tight coupling of the science base to policy and practice has involved reviewing fields of literature in order to synthesise and convey essential collective wisdom from existing research studies to professional practice. Whilst systematic review methods in general and meta-analysis in particular have not fitted comfortably with qualitative approaches, as Davies et al. (2000), p. 4) argue optimistically: The different ontological and epistemological starting points in different professional traditions undoubtedly colour the methods and enthusiasm with which professionals engage with evidence. However, what is clear is that there remains in all of the areas examined great potential for research evidence to be vastly more influential than hitherto.

In this article we have presented three alternative approaches to qualitative synthesis, each with different methodologies and outputs. Narrative synthesists argue that studies should be summarised and interpreted to provide a full understanding of the phenomenon and the context under consideration. Meta-ethnographers infer that it is

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possible to translate the findings of some studies into the terms of another to build higher-level constructs, whilst realist synthesists argue for the development of transferable mid-range theories in the form of “what works, for whom, in which circumstances” (Pawson, 2001). Whilst, many of the techniques of synthesis remain embryonic, undeveloped and in need of further exploration, we share Davies et al.’s (2000) optimistic view that qualitative research synthesis already developed and in use in other fields can provide the management field with a means of creating actionable knowledge in the future. References Antman, E.M., Lau, J., Kupelnick, B., Mosteller, F. and Chalmers, T.C. (1992), “A comparison of results of meta-analyses of randomized control trials and recommendations of clinical experts”, JAMA, Vol. 268 No. 2, p. 240. Aram, J.D. and Saliparte, P.F. (2000), “Applied research in management: criteria for management educators and for practitioner-scholars”, US Academy of Management Conference: A New Time, Paper 650 in Multiple Perspectives on Learning in Management Education, Toronto. Baligh, H.H., Burton, R.M. and Obel, B. (1996), “Organizational consultant: creating a useable theory for organizational design”, Management Science, Vol. 42 No. 12, pp. 16-48. Beck, C.T. (2001), “Caring with nursing education: a metasynthesis”, Journal of Nursing Education, Vol. 40 No. 3, pp. 101-10. Berry, M. (1995), “Research and the practice of management: a French view”, Organizational Science, Vol. 6 No. 1, pp. 104-16. Beyer, J.M. and Trice, H.M. (1982), “The utilization process: a conceptual framework and synthesis of empirical findings”, Administrative Science Quarterly, Vol. 27 No. 4, pp. 591-622. Campbell, R., Pound, P., Pope, C., Britten, N., Pill, R., Morgan, M. and Donovan, J. (2003), “Evaluating meta-ethnography: a synthesis of qualitative research on lay experiences of diabetes and diabetes care”, Social Science and Medicine, Vol. 56 No. 4, pp. 671-84. Cassell, C. and Symon, G. (1994), Qualitative Methods In Organizational Research: A Practical Guide, Sage, London. Clarke, M. and Oxman, A.D. (2001), Cochrane Reviewers Handbook 4.1.4 (updated October). Cochrane Collaboration (2005), Cochrane Qualitative Methods Network, available at: www.iphrp. salford.ac.uk/cochrane/homepage.htm Conner, K.R. and Prahalad, C.K. (1996), “A resource-based theory of the firm: knowledge versus opportunism”, Organization Science, Vol. 7 No. 5, pp. 477-501. Cook, D. (1997), “Systematic reviews: the case for rigorous methods and rigorous reporting”, Canadian Journal of Anaesthesia-Journal Canadien D Anesthesie, Vol. 44 No. 4, pp. 350-3. Cook, D.J., Mulrow, C.D. and Haynes, R.B. (1997), “Systematic reviews: synthesis of best evidence for clinical decisions”, Annals of Internal Medicine, Vol. 126 No. 5, pp. 376-80. Cooper, H.M. (1998), Synthesizing Research: A Guide for Literature Reviews, 3rd ed., Sage, Newbury Park, CA. Davenport, T.H. and Prusak, C. (1998), Working Knowledge, Harvard Business School Press, Boston, MA. Davies, H.T.O., Nutley, S.M. and Smith, P.C. (2000), What Works? Evidence-Based Policy and Practice in Public Services, Policy Press, Bristol.

Dixon-Woods, M., Agarwal1, S., Young, B., Jones, D. and Sutton, A. (2004), Integrative Approaches to Qualitative and Quantitative Evidence, Health Development Agency, London, available at: www.hda.nhs.uk Eisenhardt, K.M. and Santos, F.M. (2002), “Knowledge-based view: a new theory of strategy?”, in Pettigrew, A. (Ed.), Handbook of Strategy and Management, Sage, London, pp. 138-64. Gibbons, M., Limoges, C., Nowotny, H., Schwartzman, S., Scott, P. and Trow, M. (1994), The New Production of Knowledge: the Dynamics of Science and Research in Contemporary Societies, Sage, London. Glass, G.V. (1976), “Primary, secondary, and meta-analysis of research”, Educational Researcher, Vol. 5, pp. 3-8. Gordon, R. and Howell, J. (1959), Higher Education for Business, Columbia University Press, New York, NY. Greenhalgh, T. (1997), “Papers that summarise other papers (systematic reviews and meta-analyses)”, British Medical Journal, Vol. 315 No. 7109, pp. 672-5. Griffiths, P. (2002), “Evidence informing practice: introducing the mini-review”, British Journal of Community Nursing, Vol. 7 No. 1, pp. 38-40. Hamer, S. and Collinson, G.E. (1999), Achieving Evidence-Based Practice: a Handbook for Practitioners, Baillicˇre Tindall, Edinburgh. Hammersley, M. (2001), “On ‘systematic’ reviews of research literatures: a ‘narrative’ response to Evans and Benefield”, British Educational Research Journal, Vol. 27 No. 5, pp. 543-54. Hart, C. (1998), Doing a Literature Review: Releasing the Social Science Research Imagination, Sage Publications, London. Hodgkinson, G.P., Herriot, P. and Anderson, N. (2001), “Re-aligning the stakeholders in management research: lessons from industrial, work and organizational psychology”, British Journal of Management, Vol. 12 No. 1, special issue, pp. 41-8. Hunt, D.L. and Mckibbon, K.A. (1997), “Locating and appraising systematic reviews”, Annals of Internal Medicine, Vol. 126 No. 7, pp. 532-8. Leonard-Barton, D. (1995), Wellsprings of Knowledge: Building and Sustaining the Sources of Innovation, Harvard Business School Press, Boston, MA. Light, R.J. and Pillemer, D.B. (1984), Summing Up, Harvard University Press, Boston, MA. Macdonald, G. (1996), “Ice therapy? Why we need randomised controls”, What Works? Effective Social Interventions in Child Welfare, Barnados, Ilford. Merton, R.K. (1968), Social Theory and Social Structure, Free Press, New York, NY. Mohrman, S.A. (2001), “Seize the day: organization studies can and should make a difference”, Human Relations, Vol. 54 No. 1, p. 57. Muir-Gray, J.A. (1997), Evidence Based Healthcare: How to Make Health Policy and Management Decisions, Churchill-Livingstone, London. Mulrow, C.D. (1994), “Systematic reviews – rationale for systematic reviews”, British Medical Journal, Vol. 309 No. 6954, pp. 597-9. NHS Centre for Reviews and Dissemination (2001), Undertaking Systematic Reviews of Research on Effectiveness. CRD’s Guidance for those Carrying Out or Commissioning Reviews, CRD Report Number 4, 2nd ed., York. Noblit, G.W. and Hare, R.D. (1988), Meta-Ethnography: Synthesizing Qualitative Studies, Sage, London. Oakley, A. (2000), Experiments in Knowing: Gender and Method in the Social Sciences, Polity Press and The New Press, Cambridge and New York, NY.

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Ohlsson, A. (1994), “Systematic reviews – theory and practice”, Scandinavian Journal of Clinical and Laboratory Investigation, Vol. 54, pp. 25-32. Pawson, R. (2001), Evidence Based Policy: II. The Promise of “Realist Synthesis”, ESRC UK Centre for Evidence Based Policy and Practice, Queen Mary, University of London, London, www.evidencenetwork.org/cgi-win/enet.exe/biblioview?2448 Pawson, R. (2004), Mentoring Relationships: an Explanatory Review, ESRC UK Centre for Evidence Based Policy and Practice, Department of Politics, Queen Mary, University of London, London, www.evidencenetwork.org/cgi-win/enet.exe/biblioview?2448 Pierson, F.C. (1959), The Education of American Businessmen: A Study of University College Programs in Business Administration, McGraw-Hill, New York, NY. Pettigrew, A.M. (1997), “The double hurdles for management, research”, Advancement in Organizational Behaviour, Ashgate, Aldershot. Pfeffer, J. and Sutton, R.I. (1999), “Knowing ‘what’ to do is not enough: turning knowledge into action”, California Management Review, Vol. 42 No. 1, pp. 83-108. Popay, J., Rogers, A. and Williams, G. (1998), “Rationale and standards in the systematic review of qualitative literature in health services research”, Qualitative Health Research, Vol. 8 No. 341351. Roberts, K.A., Dixon-Woods, M., Fitzpatrick, R., Abrams, K.R. and Jones, D.R. (2002), “Factors affecting uptake of childhood immunisation: a Bayesian synthesis of qualitative and quantitative evidence”, Lancet, Vol. 360, pp. 1596-9. Rumrill, P.D. and Fitzgerald, S.M. (2001), “Using narrative reviews to build a scientific knowledge base”, Work, Vol. 16, pp. 165-70. Salipante, P., Notz, W. and Bigelow, J. (1982), “A matrix approach to literature reviews”, in Staw, B.M. and Cummings, L.L. (Eds), Research in Organizational Behavior, JAI Press, Greenwich, CT, pp. 321-48. Sandelowski, M., Docherty, S. and Emden, C. (1997), “Qualitative metasynthesis: issues and techniques”, Research in Nursing and Health, Vol. 20 No. 4, pp. 365-71. Spender, J.C. (1996), “Making knowledge the basis of a dynamic theory of the firm”, Strategic Management Journal, Vol. 17, pp. 45-62. Starkey, K. and Madan, P. (2001), “Bridging the relevance gap: aligning stakeholders in the future of management research”, British Journal of Management, Vol. 12, special issue, pp. S3-S26. Suri, H. (1999), “The process of synthesising qualitative research: a case study”, paper presented at the Annual Conference of the Association for Qualitative Research, Melbourne. Tranfield, D. and Starkey, K. (1998), “The nature, social organization and promotion of management research: towards policy”, British Journal of Management, Vol. 9 No. 4, pp. 341-53. Tranfield, D., Denyer, D. and Smart, P. (2003), “Towards a methodology for developing evidence-informed management knowledge by means of systematic review”, British Journal of Management, Vol. 14 No. 3, pp. 207-22. Tranfield, D., Denyer, D., Marcos, J. and Burr, M. (2004), “Co-producing management knowledge”, Management Decision, Vol. 42 Nos 3/4. Trinder, L. and Reynolds, S.E. (2000), Evidence-Based Practice: A Clinical Approach, Blackwell Science, Oxford. van Aken, J. (2004), “Management research based on the paradigm of the design sciences: the quest for field tested and grounded technological rules”, Journal of Management Studies, Vol. 41 No. 2, pp. 219-46.

van de Ven, A.H. and Johnson, P.E. (2003), “Knowledge of science, practice, and policy”, working paper, Strategic Management Research Centre, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN. Whitley, R. (1984a), “The fragmented state of management studies: reasons and consequences”, Journal of Management Studies, Vol. 21 No. 3, pp. 331-48. Whitley, R. (1984b), “The scientific status of management research as a practically-oriented social science”, Journal of Management Studies, Vol. 21 No. 4, pp. 369-90. Wind, J. and Nueno, P. (1998), “The impact imperative: closing the relevance gap of academic management research”, paper presented at the International Academy of Management North America Meeting, New York, NY. Further reading Jensen, L.A. and Allen, M.N. (1996), “Meta-synthesis of qualitative findings”, Qualitative Health Research, Vol. 6 No. 4, pp. 553-60. Corresponding author David Denyer can be contacted at: [email protected]

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J.M. Worley and T.L. Doolen Oregan State University, Corvallis, Oregan, USA Abstract Purpose – The purpose of this research is to investigate the role of management support in a lean implementation. The impact the lean implementation made on communication within the organization is also examined. Design/methodology/approach – Qualitative methods were used to study the relationships between management support, organizational communications, and a lean manufacturing implementation. A case study was conducted in an electronics manufacturing company in the northwestern USA. Data were collected over a three-month time period. The data were coded using an evolving coding scheme and analysis was performed on the resulting data set. Findings – Evidence was found to support the supposition that management support does play a role in driving a lean manufacturing implementation. Management support impacted the lean manufacturing implementation both negatively and positively. The research also found moderate support for improved communication in the organization attributable to the lean implementation. Research limitations/implications – The organization studied was in the early stages of implementing lean manufacturing practices and principles. Future research should include multiple organizations with a longer history of lean manufacturing. Practical implications – The research findings identified management support and communications as important variables in a lean manufacturing implementation. Furthermore, there is evidence that these variables are critical in not only the implementation of lean manufacturing practices and principles, but also in the ongoing planning and deployment efforts of organizational leaders. Originality/value – This research provided empirical evidence for the role of management support and communication in an organization’s lean implementation. The findings highlight the importance of studying organizational phenomenon within real-world settings. As a result of the methodology used, both positive and negative implications were identified. The research design has enabled the uncovering of a complex set of relationships that existed between two sociocultural variables and an organization’s effort to improve performance through the implementation of lean practices. Keywords Lean production, Communication, Qualitative research, Manufacturing systems, Management roles, Electronics industry, United States of America Paper type Research paper

1. Introduction As organizations have struggled to remain profitable during periods of economic slowdown, many have embraced lean manufacturing as a tool to improve competitiveness. Like many improvement programs, lean manufacturing Management Decision Vol. 44 No. 2, 2006 pp. 228-245 q Emerald Group Publishing Limited 0025-1747 DOI 10.1108/00251740610650210

This research was supported by the National Science Foundation under grant No. SES-0217866. The authors gratefully acknowledge the organizational members of the case study site for their participation and insight in data collection and validation.

implementations have not succeeded universally in their application. Many different variables may impact a lean implementation. This research investigated two specific variables – management support and communication. The literature contains examples of both lean manufacturing implementation successes and failures. Both anecdotal (Ahls, 2001; Alavi, 2003, Parks, 2002; Stamm, 2004) and empirically evaluated (Bamber and Dale, 2000; Emiliani, 2001; Krafcik, 1988; Spear and Bowen, 1999; Womack et al., 1990; Womack and Jones, 1994, 1996) studies have been completed. Few formal research studies have, however, focused on the linkage between sociocultural variables such as management support and organizational communication and the success or failure of a lean implementation. Previous research and existing practitioner case studies provided justification for this work. The importance of the role of management support in any change program is widely acknowledged within the literature. This study has provided evidence that, in practice, management support is not related to the success of a lean manufacturing implementation in a simple or direct way. Similarly, this study also explored how a lean manufacturing implementation affected communication lines within an organization. Communication is often cited in the practitioner literature as an important factor in lean manufacturing success, but the specific details of how and why communication is important are not well delineated nor have they been empirically validated. This research revealed that a dynamic relationship exists between a lean implementation and organizational communications. The relationships uncovered during data collection and analyses add to the body of knowledge by extending our understanding of complex organizational phenomenon and provide empirical evidence that will be of value to both practitioners and researchers. In particular, this research has empirically demonstrated that management support and communications are not related to the success or failure of a lean implementation in a one-dimensional way. Rather, as a result of the research design used, this study has uncovered a complex set of relationships between management support and communications and an organization’s effort to improve performance through the implementation of lean practices. 2. Literature review 2.1. Lean manufacturing The roots of lean manufacturing originate with early automobile manufacturing. The master craftsmen that first built individual cars possessed a wide range of skills and abilities, but with low efficiency and at high cost. Henry Ford recognized these limitations and broke the assembly process down into 30-second tasks, which were performed almost a thousand times a day (Krafcik, 1988). In the 1950’s, Eiji Toyoda and Taiichi Ohno merged the knowledge and skill of master craftsmen with the standardization and efficiency of the moving assembly line and added the concept of teamwork to create the Toyota Production System (TPS) (Womack et al., 1990). John Krafcik introduced the term “lean production system” in 1988 in his review of the Toyota Production System, and the term “lean manufacturing” was popularized by Womack et al. (1990), in The Machine that Changed the World. Lean manufacturing has many definitions associated with it. Some researchers provide definitions specific to manufacturing processes while others employ a more

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general definition that could be applied to a variety of industries. For this research lean manufacturing, was defined as the systematic removal of waste by all members of the organization from all areas of the value stream (Worley, 2004). The value stream is defined as all of the activities that contribute to the transformation of a product from raw material to finished product including design, order taking, and physical manufacture (Womack and Jones, 1996). Waste is any non-necessary activity that does not add value for the customer. Lean manufacturing is often associated with benefits such as reduced inventory, reduced manufacture times, increased quality, increased flexibility, and increased customer satisfaction (Ahls, 2001; Alavi, 2003; Emiliani, 2001; Ross and Francis, 2003; Womack and Jones, 1994, 1996). Some of the practices of lean manufacturing include Five S events, kaizen events, kanbans, pull production, quick changeovers, and value stream mapping. Table I provides a summary of the definitions of some common lean practices. Though lean manufacturing can result in improved organizational performance, challenges do exist. Convincing managers and employees to think and act in ways that are foreign may be difficult. Employees may resist the tools of lean manufacturing or may experience difficulty thinking in new terms such as customer value and waste. It may also be difficult to adequately manage external relationships with customers and suppliers. Suppliers may be unable to deliver the smaller quantities of parts or subassemblies that are required for pull production. Customers may be unable to place predictable orders, causing the organization to stockpile inventory to meet demand (Womack and Jones, 1994). Though the challenges may be difficult to manage, lean manufacturing has nevertheless been embraced in many sectors of manufacturing.

Lean practice

Definition

Five S events

Defined as the five dimensions of workplace organization. The events are designed to organize and clean. Five S events are often incorporated with Kaizen events. The Five Ss are defined as sort (identify unnecessary equipment), straighten (arrange and label the area so all tools have a specified home), shine (clean the area and maintain equipment daily), standardize (establish guidelines and standards for the area), and sustain (maintain the established standards) (Worley, 2004) Defined as continuous improvement in small steps (Womack et al., 1990), organizations typically use kaizen events to focus on improving a specific process Defined as a system that uses a card to signal a need to produce or transport a container of raw materials or partially finished products to the next stage in the manufacturing process (Nicholas, 1998) Characterized by the manufacture of a product only when a customer places an order Characterized as a method for minimizing the amount of time it takes to change a machine’s setting or to prepare an area to begin processing a new product (Worley, 2004) Defined as investigating the flow of material through the manufacturing process from the customer’s point of view. The end result highlights areas of waste (Rother and Shook, 1999)

Kaizen events Kanban Pull production Quick changeovers Table I. Examples and definitions of common lean practices

Value stream mapping

2.2. Management support Though many variables may affect the success of a lean manufacturing implementation, many researchers agree anecdotally that commitment by top management is vital (Alavi, 2003; Bamber and Dale, 2000; Boyer and Sovilla, 2003; Parks, 2002; Womack and Jones, 1996). Management that fails to embrace the implementation may intentionally or unintentionally sabotage the effort (Boyer and Sovilla, 2003; Stamm, 2004). Top management should not only demonstrate commitment and leadership, it must also work to create interest in the implementation and communicate the change to everyone within the organization (Boyer and Sovilla, 2003). Management must be visibly connected to the project and participate in the lean manufacturing events (Alavi, 2003; Boyer and Sovilla, 2003; Emiliani, 2001). A lack of investment by upper management in the lean manufacturing implementation may also affect the success of the implementation in less visible ways. If employees feel that the executive team does not respect their efforts, discouragement may take hold and the lean manufacturing effort will fail. Though it is often desirable to drive change from the factory floor, it is important that a transition to lean manufacturing be driven by the executive management team (Boyer and Sovilla, 2003). 2.3. Communication The variables that will affect the success rate of a lean manufacturing implementation are important to understand, but it is also important to realize how the organization may be impacted by the lean manufacturing implementation. A lean manufacturing implementation may not only provide economic benefits to the organization, but other less tangible benefits as well. A key example of such a benefit is increased communication. Communication in any organization is important, but particularly in a manufacturing environment where multiple shifts are employed. When communication does not occur, production and quality may suffer and resentment between workers may occur (Hancock and Zayko, 1998). Lean manufacturing requires clear communication, not only between shifts, but also between all value streams (Storch and Lim, 1999). All customer-supplier connections within the organization must have a direct connection and there must be a clear method for sending and receiving responses to problems (Spear and Bowen, 1999). Lean manufacturing enterprises must have communication pathways that are efficient and broad (Jenner, 1998). 3. Methodology This study is well suited for qualitative methodologies and, in particular, for an exploratory case study. When a researcher is delving into the how and why of a set of events, the case study offers advantages not found in more quantitative research tools (Yin, 1994). Qualitative data allows the researcher to more fully explore complex relationships between variables in their natural setting. The complex interactions between humans and multiple variables can be difficult to capture in a quantitative study employing traditional tools such as surveys. Qualitative research does rely on data collection methods that may be subject to biases such as researcher bias or over-reliance on one source. To negate the possible effects of some of these biases the researcher must develop a documented, systematic

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approach to data collection to allow other researchers to assess potential bias. Utilizing triangulation will also help increase research robustness (Patton, 1990). Triangulation is defined as occurring when data from multiple sources from different data collection methods support the same conclusion, or at the least, do not contradict it (Miles and Huberman, 1994). A single site case study design was used for this research. Data was gathered from multiple sources, using four different data collection methods (observations, structured interviews, unstructured interviews, and value stream mapping). Unique sources were purposely sought to increase validity and to provide a wider perspective. 3.1. Variables As the variables of interest have been studied across a variety of disciplines, it was critical to operationalize each variable for the purposes of this case study. Definitions were developed for each variable and were used to guide the analysis of data. For this study, management support was defined as the participation of the upper management team in leading or supporting the lean manufacturing implementation. Communication was defined as a method, usually verbal or written, by which employees in the organization transfer work related information to other employees. Understanding the role of management support in a lean manufacturing implementation can be complex as the lean manufacturing implementation may impact so many aspects of an organization. The balanced scorecard concept provides an evaluation framework adaptable for investigating the potentially diverse impacts of a lean manufacturing implementation. The balanced scorecard developed by Kaplan and Norton (1992) incorporates a range of measures from four different perspectives: finance (profitability, growth, and shareholder value), customer (delivery timeliness and product quality), innovation (percentage of sales from new products), and internal (cycle times and productivity). Emiliani (2000) created an alternate version of the balanced scorecard that included measures from the perspective of customers, employees, investors, and suppliers. A balanced scorecard framework was developed and used for this research to assess the impact of lean on organizational performance. As the study organization was privately held, the measures in the investor category did not directly apply. The scorecard developed for this research included elements from both Kaplan and Norton and Emiliani’s frameworks. The scorecard incorporated three perspectives – customers, employees, and internal. The measures used within each category are summarized in Table II.

Table II. Balanced scorecard framework

Employees

Customers

Internal

Employee attitude

Ability to meet customer’s manufacturing needs through the use of lean practices such as kanbans Customer satisfaction in areas such as on-time delivery or quality

Streamlined processes (elimination of waste)

Improved employee skills

Adaptation of lean manufacturing concepts/tools

3.2. Case study site The subject of the case study was a printed circuit board electronics manufacturer in the northwestern USA. The organization is privately held and family owned. It has been in business for over 32 years. The current organization president is part owner and the son of the organization’s founder. The organization employed 64 employees and had an organizational structure consisting of a president, an operations manager, a production floor supervisor and seven productions leads at the time of the study. The skill level of most of the employees on the manufacturing floor was moderate, with many employees skilled in multiple tasks within their departments. Some of the employees were also trained in tasks in other departments and would perform duties in those departments when short-term labor was needed. The manufacturing floor was divided into functional departments, with a non-supervisory area lead in each department. The departments and the number of people in each department are shown in Table III. The organization designed and manufactured products to meet customer needs, but also manufactured products based on customer specifications. At the time of data collection the organization manufactured over 1,800 different products with an approximate annual income of $6.5 million. The organization typically manufactured in varying batch sizes, resulting in large inventories of raw materials and finished products. The typical order size was 43 units. The organization averaged 210 orders per month. The organization had no minimum build order size and would build orders of one or two units when necessary. Initial contact with the organization was made as part of a larger research project funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and administered by Toni Doolen, PhD of the Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering department at Oregon State University, USA. The NSF study investigated the link between specific lean practices and their outcomes.

Department

Primary function

Materials

Receive in all parts Track part shortages Assemble kits of raw parts for the floor Prepare parts for the kits Store and track finished goods Ship all finished goods Add components to boards with machines Inspect boards Add components to boards by hand Inspect boards Make cable assemblies for use on boards Assemble boards Perform wave soldering function Secure components with chemical compounds Wash boards Perform additional assembly Test various board components

Surface mount assembly (SMT) Hand assembly and quality assurance Cables Mechanical Assembly 1 and wave solder Mechanical assembly 2 Test

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Number of employees

6 5 12 3 3 6 3

Table III. Manufacturing departments, functions, and size at the case study site

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The implementation of lean manufacturing practices at the organization began in 2001. The operations manager led the efforts in the organization, with some assistance from the manufacturing engineer. Both the operations manager and the president expressed some skepticism when interviewed regarding the ability to successfully implement lean manufacturing in a small organization. The monetary benefits had not been made clear when compared to the costs required to undertake lean manufacturing projects. Though some doubt as to the ultimate success of lean manufacturing was voiced, both continued to invest time in reading about lean manufacturing concepts and in attending training. Area leads were sent to a three-day training session on basic lean manufacturing concepts in early 2002. The leads were to disseminate information to other employees, but this did not occur uniformly. Some production employees had been exposed to lean manufacturing through previous employment. The lean manufacturing implementation was focused on the manufacturing floor at the time of data collection. Support functions such as engineering, purchasing, order entry and human resources did not participate in any of the lean manufacturing activities. Practices implemented by the organization included a Kanban system for one customer, reorganization of individual work areas to improve information and material flow, and a Five S implementation. The kanban system had an impact on the ordering and management of materials, but the implementation of the Kanban was constrained by raw materials shortages. Initial efforts to improve information and material flow were initiated as part of a lean training workshop hosted by the organization. A variety of analyses and small changes were implemented as a result of this workshop. The Five S activity was introduced to employees in December 2002 through a two-page memo. Employees in each area were expected to work as a team in identifying unnecessary equipment, straightening and standardizing. Each team submitted a budget and was allowed to work without interference from management. The operations manager later inspected each of the work areas. Though this was a small step in the journey to utilizing lean manufacturing, it provided employees with an opportunity to work as a team and control some aspects of their work areas. 3.3. Phases of data collection and analysis This study was divided into seven phases. Phases one through three involved data collection. Phases four and five concerned the transcription and sorting of the data. Phases six and seven involved the analysis process. 3.3.1. Phase one – structured interviews. Employees of the organization participated in structured interviews, unstructured interviews, and observations. Two interview instruments were developed for this research. The first interview instrument was developed for non-supervisory employees and focused on the details of the lean manufacturing implementation specific to the data source’s area. The other interview instrument was developed for executive or managerial personnel who managed more than one area. Overall, 21.8 percent of the organization was interviewed using a structured interview instrument. The number of people interviewed and the corresponding percentage of the population for each employee category are summarized in Table IV. 3.3.2. Phase two – unstructured interviews and observations. During the second phase, observations and unstructured interviews were conducted on the

manufacturing floor and in some support areas. An unstructured interview is more spontaneous than a structured interview and may be more conversational in tone (Patton, 1990). The researcher must be flexible and willing to follow multiple lines of inquiry (Patton). Multiple unstructured interviews were conducted at the case study site during the observations. In all circumstances, the unstructured interview took place as an informal conversation, with the researcher asking follow-up questions in response to statements made by the interviewees. This type of interview resulted in some irrelevant information, but also allowed evidence related to the variables of interest to emerge naturally. Observations typically involve recording behaviors or conditions in an environment that are relevant to the research propositions (Yin, 1994). Understanding the complexities associated with an environment may best be attained through observation. Sometimes structured interviews may be biased by the emotional involvement of the interviewee with the topic. Observations permit the researcher to reach his or her own understanding. Observations also allow the researcher to collect data on routine activities that may never be discussed in structured or unstructured interviews. Observations, however, can also be biased. Data collected during observations may be limited by the researcher’s judgment of what is important enough to record. The researcher’s presence may also unintentionally affect the behavior or responses of the participants. People that know they are being observed may perform duties differently. During observations conducted for this research, employees were informed that the general purpose of the study was to link lean manufacturing practices and organizational performance. The sociocultural variables studied in this research were not fully developed at the time of data collection at the case study site. As a result, the variables of interest were not disclosed to the participants. While this approach may have resulted in the loss of some information pertinent to this research, it also helped prevent inadvertent bias on the part of the researcher and the participants. Participants did not have the opportunity to consciously change their behavior or responses to specifically address the research questions investigated in this study. In an effort to collect data in a uniform manner, a value stream map was used as the tool for summarizing the flow of product through each department. This tool served two purposes. First, the value stream map provided a focused reason for the observation. Second, it provided a system wide view of both information and product flow. Data collected during the value stream mapping process included manufacturing processes in each area, the technical tools needed, the placement of machines and support equipment, and the flow of data and paper through the department. The departments observed and the number of participants from each area are detailed in Table V.

Employee category Executive Managerial Department leads Production employees

Number of employees

Percent of employees interviewed in category (%)

1 3 6 4

100 100 85.7 12.9

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Table IV. Interview statistics by employee category

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Department Materials Surface mount assembly (SMT) Hand assembly and quality assurance Cables Mechanical Assembly 1 and wave solder Mechanical assembly 2 Test Order entry Production planning Purchasing

Number of employees

Percent of employees interviewed in department (%)

5 1 3 2 2 2 2 2 1 3

83.3 20.0 25.0 66.7 66.7 33.3 66.7 100 100 100

In some departments (Surface Mount Technology, Hand Assembly, and Mechanical Assembly 2), English was not the first language of all employees. As a result, interviews were limited to those employees able to communicate effectively enough to participate in the study. Those employees with adequate communication skills as well as the leads in the departments were interviewed using both a structured interview and an unstructured interview. The researcher also spent a greater proportion of time observing in these departments. As the amount of data collected from these departments was not significantly less than data collected from departments where language was not a barrier, this limitation was not judged to have significantly impacted the study. 3.3.3. Phase three – document and organizational data collection. An overall organizational survey instrument was developed prior to the initiation of data collection. The survey was completed during an initial interview with the president and the operations manager of the case study organization. The topics covered in the overall organizational survey were divided into six categories: physical, production style, financial, customer/marketing, manufacturing personnel and internal operations. Table VI provides a sample of the items included on the survey. 3.3.4. Phase four and phase five – transcription and database development. After the initial data collection began, all field notes were transcribed using a word processor. Field notes will not usually reflect all of the content of the interview or observation.

Table VI. Sample of the data collected from the organizational survey

Physical average Age of machinery Square footage of buildings Number of managerial positions

Production style Production system Product variety Production volumes Skill level of production personnel

Financial Average per unit cost Revenue per full time employee Gross profit margin

Customer/marketing Average order completion time Average percentage of orders delivered on time Average amount invested per year in marketing/sales

Manufacturing Personnel Turnover rate Average amount of initial training Compensation policies

Internal operations Number of suppliers Amount of inventory typically held Typical amount of work in progress

The transcribing process allowed for content to be added back to the notes as memory of events was stimulated (Miles and Huberman, 1994). Transcribing during the data collection phase also created opportunities for sources to verify data and for the researcher to obtain clarification. The transcribed observations and interviews resulted in over 80 pages of electronic notes. As the amount of data to be analyzed was considerable and could not be expediently or accurately processed without the aid of a computer, a database was designed (Miles and Huberman, 1994). A database provides another advantage in that it allows other researchers the opportunity to inspect the data leading to the conclusions presented by the researcher (Yin, 1994). 3.3.5. Phase six and phase seven – data coding and analysis. Upon development of the research questions, a conceptual framework was developed to group the data into appropriate categories. Absolute rules do not exist for qualitative analysis. The primary goal of qualitative data analysis is to present the data fairly while communicating results from the data (Patton, 1990). The framework exhibited in Figure 1 displays the preliminary conceptual framework used for this study. Using the framework as a guideline, the field notes were initially coded using the labels communication, management support, success, and failure. The data was entered into the database with codes corresponding to these four areas. Those sections of the field notes that provided only background information or did not apply to this study were not coded. After entering the data into the database, a checklist matrix was generated and preliminary analysis occurred. A checklist matrix is a table display that lists the data associated with a variable (Miles and Huberman, 1994). The initial checklist matrix revealed that much of the data coded as management support provided background on management involvement in the lean manufacturing process, but did not indicate the impact, if any, of management support on the lean implementation. Likewise, the field notes coded, as communication did not indicate if the lean implementation had made any impact on communication within the organization. As a result, a second coding scheme was developed to more accurately classify the data. The second coding scheme provided further definition for labeling successes and failures in terms of the balanced scorecard categories. A third code was added to assess the role of management support in the success or failure. Those notes coded as communication were also given a second code to assess the impact of the lean implementation on communication. The final coding scheme is summarized in Table VII. The evolving coding scheme is consistent with grounded theory analysis as linkages are questioned and subcategories are identified (Eaves, 2001; Strauss and Corbin, 1990). Though both propositions were broadly developed before data analysis occurred, the evidence yielded patterns and implications not originally envisioned. This is characteristic of qualitative research and grounded theory as the theory is allowed to emerge (Eaves, 2001). Some could argue that the data was forced to fit the

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Figure 1. Conceptual framework used for coding field notes and analysis

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Initial code

Second code

Third code

Communication

Positive evidence, attributable to the implementation Positive evidence, but not attributable to lean manufacturing implementation Communication difficulties noted despite the implementation Communication deteriorated due to lean manufacturing implementation Communication deteriorated, but not due to lean manufacturing implementation Customer needs Customer satisfaction Employee attitude Employee skills noted Processes streamlined, waste eliminated Lean manufacturing concepts adopted

NA

238

Success, failure

Table VII. Final coding scheme

Management support played a direct role in the success or failure Management support did not play a role in the success or failure

research propositions (Eaves, 2001). For this research, the evolving coding scheme reiterated the flexibility of the methodology and its encouragement of the emergence of relationships not previously highlighted. After patterns emerged, interpretation of the patterns could occur. Both the negative and the positive evidence revealed by the data as well as the interpretation of the evidence are presented in the next section. 4. Results and discussion The analysis of the coded field notes yielded interesting results. Evidence was found of management support both negatively and positively impacting the lean manufacturing implementation. Likewise, evidence was found of the lean implementation making a positive and negative impact on communication within the organization. 4.1. Management support The number of failures attributable to management support was small, but provided interesting insight into the role of management support in the lean manufacturing implementation. Table VIII provides a summary of failures attributable to management support. The evidence from the employee attitude category illustrated the frustration experienced by some of the employees regarding the changes within the work area. Employees did not understand why the organization was starting a lean manufacturing initiative. The evidence from the employee skills category and the processes streamlined category highlighted the amount of time the employees were allotted to complete activities associated with the lean manufacturing implementation. The employees felt the time pressure did not allow them to develop the skills necessary to continue the lean manufacturing initiative. The evidence from the adoption of lean concepts category involved an operator who felt that management did not provide enough help implementing changes within the work area. The other piece of evidence from this category involved lack of participation

Balanced scorecard category

Number of pieces of evidence/sources Sample evidence

Customer needs Customer satisfaction Employee attitude

0 0 4/3

Employee skills

1/1

Processes streamlined, waste removed

2/2

Lean concepts adopted

2/2

NA NA Operator does not agree with the direction leadership is taking the lean effort The cycle count was targeted when they had training by an outside facilitator. If they had more time as a group with the teacher from the class they could have done more Management previously was not receptive to giving them time to clean up their area. Time is a resource they (the department) just recently acquired They (the personnel within the department) are trying to make it a go, but things are not put into place as they planned it. They have a good understanding of what they need

Note: Annotations provided by the researcher for clarification are shown in parentheses

in one of the work areas stemming from management’s decision not to force employee participation in the activities associated with the lean manufacturing initiative. The failures attributable to management support shared some common characteristics. First, executive management must provide employees with more information on the lean manufacturing initiative and why it is needed. Second, executive management must provide employees with resources such as time and materials to allow the employees to successfully participate in the lean manufacturing effort. If employees make plans for changes but do not see results, disillusionment may occur and future lean manufacturing activities may not be supported (Abrahamson, 2004; Alavi, 2003; Boyer and Sovilla, 2003; Kotter, 1995; Parks, 2002). Finally, the executive management team must create an implementation plan that includes all members of the organization to reduce friction among team members and to create an organization that is moving together towards a common goal. Those portions of the field notes coded as successes provided evidence for all three categories of the balanced scorecard. The successes attributable to management support are summarized in Table IX. Lean manufacturing activities were initially implemented at a customer’s request. The customer wanted to achieve just-in-time deliveries and required cooperation from its suppliers. Some gains in product delivery time were achieved as a result of the lean manufacturing implementation. In the category of adoption of lean concepts, evidence of specific lean practices such as Five S, kanban, and color-coding were found. The management team led the lean practices that were cited. While some success was achieved at the customer level, more success was realized from the employee perspective. Though the executive management team did not initially set out to implement lean manufacturing to create better relationships with employees on the manufacturing floor, strong evidence suggests this did occur. Employees expressed more positive feelings towards management. Many of the

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Table VIII. Summary of lean manufacturing failures related to management support

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Table IX. Summary of successes linked to management support

Balanced scorecard category

Number of pieces of evidence/sources

Customer needs Customer satisfaction

4/3 2/2

Employee attitude

8/5

Employee skills Processes streamlined, waste removed

0 1/1

Lean concepts adopted

5/5

Sample evidence A large part of the lean effort is customer driven On time delivery has significantly improved in one case It is nice to get the employees on the floor involved. Employee morale seems better people seem excited about what they are doing NA The Kanban system is working well. They never come up short on the parts that are kanbanned. (The operations manager led the Kanban effort. A line operator made the comment) Some of the parts are on the Kanban system. Management gave them more shelf space, and the other areas cleaned out the stuff they had stored in their area so they have more room now (during the Five S activity)

Note: Annotations provided by the researcher for clarification are shown in parentheses

employees also expressed satisfaction with the lean manufacturing implementation, which may aid the organization as it continues to introduce lean practices (Alavi, 2003; Boyer and Sovilla, 2003; Parks, 2002). 4.2. Communication The field notes contained numerous examples of communication. Table X provides a summary of the field notes coded as communication that could be directly linked to the lean manufacturing implementation. The evidence of the lean manufacturing implementation making a positive impact on communication primarily involved communication lines with management. Two of the line operators felt communication with management had improved since the initiative. A member of the management team also identified improvements in communication within the organization since the lean manufacturing implementation. Examples of poor communication despite the initiative were more prevalent. One source identified deterioration in communication between departments with the implementation of lean manufacturing, but this example was not corroborated by other sources. A large proportion of the evidence of poor communication shared common features that fostered further analysis and categorization of the field notes. Six categories were identified based on previous research (Ahls, 2001; Alavi, 2003; Emiliani, 2000; Hancock and Zayko, 1998; Jenner, 1998; Spear and Bowen, 1999; Storch and Lim, 1999). Table XI summarizes the evidence of poor communication. The lean manufacturing implementation was still in the early stages at the time of data collection. None of the lean activities at that time had involved working with other departments. The majority of evidence of poor communication (64.6 percent) involved communications between departments or communication necessary to facilitate material flow through the factory. As the lean manufacturing initiative continues to

Type of effect

Number of pieces of evidence/sources Sample evidence

Positive evidence attributable to implementation

5/4

Positive evidence not attributable to implementation Communication difficulties despite implementation

1/1

Deterioration due to implementation

1/1

48/16

Communication has also improved Can talk to anyone about anything that is going to improve things (comment made by line operator) Everyone in the group knows it is an open forum There are no performance measures readily available to people at the operator level. No cost savings information is fed back to line employees. If the company wants to drive lean manufacturing it should have meetings devoted to it and talk about plans and timelines. Management may have these, but they are not communicated to the manufacturing floor level If the area had an order for something before lean, the other departments would send an e-mail. Now they (the other departments) have to go through the paperwork and wait to pull it. Now, instead of a few minutes, it takes a few days. They (the other departments) can’t rush it

Note: Annotations provided by the researcher for clarification are shown in parentheses

Category Lack Lack Lack Lack Lack Lack

of of of of of of

communication of performance measures feedback loops information about lean implementation communication within the department communication with other departments clear communication for facilitating material flow

Number of pieces of evidence/sources

Category (%)

2/2 2/2 9/7 4/3 9/4 22/11

4.2 4.2 18.8 8.3 18.8 45.8

progress, it is possible that many of the negative issues associated with communication between the departments will improve (Jenner, 1998; Spear and Bowen, 1999). There was also strong evidence that dissemination of information to all employees about lean manufacturing did not occur. The executive management team and the area leads appeared to understand the concept of lean manufacturing, but the employees did not receive sufficient information. Though some employees identified communications with management as improved, most still did not see communication as a two-way channel. Specifically, three of the line operators did not feel as though management provided opportunities for feedback about the lean manufacturing implementation. The field notes provided some evidence that communication in the organization had improved, but a great deal of improvement is still possible. The organization must

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Table X. Impact of the lean manufacturing Implementation on communication

Table XI. Summary of evidence of poor communication despite lean implementation

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focus on increasing communication between departments, especially as it pertains to the flow of materials through the factory. Communication is recognized as a vital part of lean manufacturing (Jenner, 1998; Spear and Bowen, 1999; Womack et al., 1990). As the organization continues its lean manufacturing initiative, it is important that improving communication becomes a goal to maintain momentum. 4.3. Research validity Four tests (construct validity, internal validity, external validity, and reliability) are used to validate empirical research (Yin, 1994). Internal validity is usually associated with explanatory or causal case studies. Reliability involves documenting the methodology thoroughly enough to allow another researcher to duplicate the conclusions of the first researcher at a similar case study site. For this research, as it was exploratory in nature, construct validity and external validity were considered particularly important when addressing the question of validity. Construct validity involves linking the types of changes studied with specific measurements that reflect the changes (Yin, 1994). Using multiple sources of evidence, creating a chain of evidence, and asking sources to review the case study results for accuracy may increase construct validity. For this research, multiple pieces of evidence and multiple sources were used. The number of sources was reported with the number of pieces of evidence to allow the reader to judge the uniqueness of the data. The field notes were linked in the database with pertinent background information as well as the data type (observation, structured interview, unstructured interview). Each variable was also operationalized and linked to possible outcomes in the coding framework. External validity involves the generalizability of the research (Yin, 1994). It defines how the findings of the research can be applied to other case study sites. Increasing external validity requires the replication of results at multiple case study sites. Because this research was exploratory in nature, only one case study site was involved. The results presented in this research are not generalizable to other organizations, but do provide strong justification for future research to further investigate the link between a lean manufacturing implementation and management support and communication. 5. Conclusion Though this was an exploratory study of a single case study site, the evidence does support the proposition that management support plays a strong role in a lean manufacturing implementation. Most of the evidence related to the negative impact of management support involved the deployment process. Problems occurred because the management team did not require participation in the lean manufacturing initiative, creating a rift in one of the teams. Management also failed to provide a consistent education effort accessible to all employees in the organization. The positive impact of management support on the lean manufacturing implementation was evident as well. The dedication of the executive management team was apparent to employees on the manufacturing floor. This dedication created more positive feelings towards management. The direct role of the executive team in leading the implementation of the new lean practices such as the kanban and the Five S activity also reinforced the importance of the new initiative and aided in opening communication lines with employees on the factory floor.

Increased communication with employees on the factory floor was a positive outcome of the lean manufacturing initiative, but many examples of poor communication were also collected. Most of the evidence of poor communication involved communication between departments. This is not unexpected as the lean manufacturing implementation was still very new and little focus had been placed on working as an organizational unit with a common goal. Some of the evidence of poor communication could also be attributed to failings in management support, illustrating the interconnectedness of the sociocultural variables studied. Sufficient evidence was found to justify the call for further research to collect more evidence, both supporting and contradictory, to further study the relationships between management support, communication, and a lean manufacturing implementation. A follow-on study should involve multiple case study sites with collection of data occurring both before the lean manufacturing implementation and after the implementation was underway. Such an approach will strengthen the causal links between the variables and the lean manufacturing implementation and potentially expand the understanding of these links. To increase generalizability, the research methodology should be applied across a variety of organizations. Results from such a cross case study analysis would have far reaching implications for a variety of industries wishing to implement lean manufacturing. Many organizations are attempting to implement lean manufacturing programs. Unfortunately, managers may fail to recognize that multiple variables contribute to a lean manufacturing success or failure. Executive management also may fail to understand how the lean manufacturing implementation can impact aspects of the organization, such as communication. Too often, lean manufacturing is thought of as a set of tools that can be implemented anywhere at anytime (Allen, 2000; Alavi, 2003; Bamber and Dale, 2000). Transforming an organization to a lean enterprise is a dynamic process, unique to each organization. The journey to create a lean enterprise is often difficult, but provides many benefits, both financial and non-tangible. This research has provided empirical validation for a complex set of relationships between management support, communication, and the overall performance of an organization engaged in a lean transformation effort. References Abrahamson, E. (2004), “Avoiding repetitive change syndrome”, Sloan Management Review, Vol. 45 No. 2, pp. 93-5. Ahls, B. (2001), “Advanced memory and lean change”, IIE Solutions, Vol. 33 No. 1, pp. 40-2. Alavi, S. (2003), “Leaning the right way”, Manufacturing Engineer, Vol. 82 No. 3, pp. 32-5. Allen, J.H. (2000), “Make lean manufacturing work for you”, Manufacturing Engineering, Vol. 124 No. 6, pp. 54-61. Bamber, L. and Dale, B.G. (2000), “Lean production: a study of application in a traditional manufacturing environment”, Production Planning and Control, Vol. 11 No. 3, pp. 291-8. Boyer, M. and Sovilla, L. (2003), “How to identify and remove the barriers for a successful lean implementation”, Journal of Ship Production, Vol. 19 No. 2, pp. 116-20. Eaves, Y.D. (2001), “A synthesis technique for grounded theory analysis”, Journal of Advanced Nursing, Vol. 35 No. 5, pp. 654-63.

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Emiliani, M.L. (2000), “Cracking the code of business”, Management Decision, Vol. 8 Nos 1/2, pp. 60-79. Emiliani, M.L. (2001), “Redefining the focus of investment analysts”, The TQM Magazine, Vol. 13 No. 1, pp. 34-50. Hancock, W.M. and Zayko, M.J. (1998), “Lean production implementation problems”, IIE Solutions, Vol. 30 No. 6, pp. 38-42. Jenner, R.A. (1998), “Dissipative enterprises, chaos, and the principles of lean organizations”, International Journal of Management Science, Vol. 26 No. 3, pp. 397-407. Kaplan, R.S. and Norton, D.P. (1992), “The balanced scorecard – measures that drive performance”, Harvard Business Review, Vol. 70 No. 1, pp. 71-9. Kotter, J.P. (1995), “Leading change: why transformation efforts fail”, Harvard Business Review, Vol. 73 No. 2, pp. 59-67. Krafcik, J.F. (1988), “Triumph of the lean production system”, Sloan Management Review, Vol. 30 No. 1, pp. 41-52. Miles, M.B. and Huberman, A.M. (1994), Qualitative Data Analysis, Sage Publications, Thousand Oaks, CA. Nicholas, J. (1998), Competitive Manufacturing Management, Irwin/McGraw-Hill, New York, NY. Parks, C.M. (2002), “Instill lean thinking”, Industrial Management, Vol. 44 No. 5, pp. 14-18. Patton, M.Q. (1990), Qualitative Evaluation and Research Methods, Sage Publications, Newbury Park, CA. Ross, A. and Francis, D. (2003), “Lean is not enough”, IEE Manufacturing Engineer, Vol. 82 No. 4, pp. 14-17. Rother, M. and Shook, J. (1999), Learning to See Value Stream Mapping to Create Value and Eliminate Muda, The Lean Enterprise Institute, Brookline, MA. Spear, S. and Bowen, H.K. (1999), “Decoding the DNA of the Toyota production system”, Harvard Business Review, Vol. 77 No. 5, pp. 96-106. Stamm, D.J. (2004), “Kinda, sorta lean”, Industrial Engineer, Vol. 36 No. 2, p. 22. Storch, R.L. and Lim, S. (1999), “Improving flow to achieve lean manufacturing in shipbuilding”, Production Planning and Control, Vol. 10 No. 2, pp. 127-37. Strauss, A. and Corbin, J. (1990), Basics of Qualitative Research, Sage Publications, Newbury Park, CA. Womack, J.P. and Jones, D.T. (1994), “From lean production to the lean enterprise”, Harvard Business Review, Vol. 72 No. 2, pp. 93-103. Womack, J.P. and Jones, D.T. (1996), “Beyond Toyota: how to root out waste and pursue perfection”, Harvard Business Review, Vol. 74 No. 5, pp. 140-51. Womack, J.P., Jones, D.T. and Roos, D. (1990), The Machine that Changed the World, Rawson Associates, New York, NY. Worley, J. (2004), “The role of sociocultural factors in a lean manufacturing implementation”, Oregon State University, Corvallis, OH, unpublished Master’s thesis. Yin, R.K. (1994), Case Study Research Design and Methods, Sage Publications, Thousand Oaks, CA.

About the authors J.M. Worley is a graduate student with the Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering Department at Oregon State University, Corvallis, Oregon, USA. She is the corresponding author and can be contacted at: [email protected] T.L. Doolen is an Assistant Professor in the Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering Department at Oregon State University, Corvallis, Oregon, USA. She teaches courses in manufacturing, management systems engineering, human factors engineering, and industrial engineering. Dr Doolen received a BS in Material Science and Engineering and a BS in Electrical Engineering from Cornell University in 1987. She received an MS in Manufacturing Systems Engineering from Stanford University in 1991. She received her PhD in Industrial Engineering from Oregon State University in 2001. Her research is focused on manufacturing systems design, lean manufacturing, work group effectiveness, and mobile technology in education. Prior to seeking her PhD, Dr Doolen gained 12 years of manufacturing experience at Hewlett-Packard Company as an engineer, senior member of technical staff, and manager.

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Talking about change Understanding employee responses through qualitative research

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Melanie Bryant Monash University, Churchill, Australia Abstract Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to focus on the understanding that can be gained about employees’ use of voice as a response to organisational change using qualitative research and, in particular, narrative analysis. Narrative analysis of voice can provide insight into why voice is used and how voice differs from resistance. Design/methodology/approach – This paper uses a constructivist approach to study the interpretations of participants and explores the qualitative research interview as a method of data collection that enables participants to report experiences of organisational change. Thematic narrative analysis explores inductive themes that are embedded within participants’ stories. Findings – Findings suggest that qualitative research approaches are useful in exploring individual interpretations of voice, such as the forms in which voice is used, reasons why voice is used, and participant reports of management reactions to voice. Findings from the narrative analysis suggests that voice may be confused with resistance in the workplace and is likely to lead to negative reactions from management, even though both the literature and participants differentiate between intentions of voice and resistance to change. Research limitations/implications – The paper calls for further research concerning employee intentions surrounding the use of voice as well as management perceptions of employees’ use of voice. Originality/value – Qualitative studies can explore differences between voice and resistance through unlocking voices of employees who are marginalised in management literature. Such studies also derive feedback from staff about the effects of change programmes, thus providing managers with information from which communication/participation strategies could be tailored to individual organisations. Keywords Qualitative research, Narratives, Employee attitudes, Organizational change, Australia Paper type Research paper

Management Decision Vol. 44 No. 2, 2006 pp. 246-258 q Emerald Group Publishing Limited 0025-1747 DOI 10.1108/00251740610650229

This paper argues that qualitative research techniques provide useful methods for exploring and analysing organisational events such as change. Qualitative approaches to data collection and analysis can provide the flexibility necessary for gaining an in-depth understanding of individual employee experiences of organisational change and the relationships and contexts in which these occur. Based on a larger study, this paper focuses specifically on the understanding that can be gained concerning employees’ use of voice as a response to change and utilises narrative analysis in particular. The paper argues that analysing individual narratives drawing upon qualitative methods can provide insight into why voice is used as a response to change and how voice differs from resistance to change. Analysis of themes derived from the narratives suggests that although common experiences of change can be identified, each individual’s experience is unique and occurs within a specific context. Employee versions of organisational change are often marginalised at the expense of dominant narratives constructed at managerial levels of organisations (Boje, 1995).

Focusing only on management perspectives on change provides management theorists and practitioners with a limited understanding of what transpires. Incorporating employee accounts adds plurality to studies of change and enables managers to develop more specific knowledge of the effects of change on employees, thus aiding in the development of future organisational change strategies. In this paper, the voices of individual participants are explored from a critical perspective. The critical perspective of studying voice as a response to change “challenges the managerial view” (Mackenzie Davey and Liefooghe, 2004, p. 180) and considers the impact of using voice on employees. Studies of voice as a response to dissatisfaction can be linked to Hirschman (1970) seminal work on consumer responses to supply firm decline. Hirschman suggested that when dissatisfied with the supply or quality of goods and services, consumers could “voice their complaints” (Withey and Cooper, 1989, p. 521) in an attempt to have supply or quality changed. Within the organisational context, voice may be used as a strategy to signal dissatisfaction about working conditions to management. Zhou and George (2001, p. 683) define voice as an active attempt to “improve conditions, actively searching for and coming up with new ways of doing things and advocating changes to make things better”. More specifically, employee voice can “show . . . managers certain aspects that are not properly considered in the change process” (Pardo del Val and Fuentes, 2003, p. 149) or highlight poor decision making by “ill-informed senior managers” (Perren and Megginson, 1996, p. 24). Voice as a response to dissatisfaction is considered by Hirschman (1970) and other researchers (Farrell, 1983; Van Dyne and LePine, 1998) as a constructive response that sends a clear message from employees to upper levels of the organisation concerning problems that exist and need to be corrected. However, Bryant (2003) argues that voice is usually met with disdain by managers and considered as an act of resistance, particularly in the context of responding to organisational change. At this point it is important to clarify the difference between voice and resistance. Pardo del Val and Fuentes (2003) argue that resistance to change can be defined in two ways. First, resistance refers to strategies or behaviours used by individuals or groups in organisations to slow down organisational change implementation, thus increasing costs. The second definition suggests that resistance to change is any attempt to maintain the status quo and avoid the implementation of change, and is often associated with the work of trouble makers (Dent and Goldberg, 1999), or as providing negative aspects to an organisation’s success (Krantz, 1999; Piderit, 2000). Participants in the present study reported that voice was used in an attempt to make the workplace better after the implementation of change, with the specific emphasis on making individuals’ jobs better, rather than to hinder or avoid organisational change. However, when considering Pardo del Val and Fuentes (2003) latter definition of resistance that focuses on maintaining the status quo, it is not surprising that voice may be mistaken as resistance and considered as a negative response by management. Confusion between voice and resistance is documented in research conducted by Feuille and Delaney (1993) who argue that those who use voice to inform managers of performance lapses may be subjected to exclusion, such as lower promotion rates. In addition, Bryant and Wolfram Cox (2003) found that punishment in the form of exclusion from decision making, workplace bullying and pressure to resign from the organisation is also linked to voice when used as a response to organisational change.

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It is important to recognise that employee responses such as voice and resistance to organisational change are not necessarily negative (Dent and Goldberg, 1999) even if they communicate views that differ from management or organisational values. Rather, organisations consist of a multiplicity of divergent and often conflicting interests and responses the complexity of which is not always documented within management literature (Boje, 1995). Consequently, the critical perspective of voice as a response to change provides an important approach to considering the individual and their diverse and multiple responses “in the context in which they arise” (Hardy et al., 2000, p. 1232). This paper argues that qualitative investigation of voice as a response to organisational change has important implications for management theory by providing a bottom-up perspective on organisational change and unlocking voices of employees who are often marginalised within the organisational change literature. Several of the studies cited above have used qualitative approaches to explore scripts, texts, discourses and conversations within organisations (e.g. Boje, 1995; Hardy et al., 2000), specifically focusing on the experiences of employees. This paper differs in that it explores employees’ constructions of stories, which are analysed using narrative techniques, with specific emphasis on providing further insight into pluralist views of voice by exploring different ways in which it is used and justified by participants. Such studies are important for management practice in providing managers with an understanding of the difference between resistance to change and voice, as well as possible explanations as to why employees respond to change in particular ways. More importantly, qualitative research conducted by independent researchers may enable managers and organisations to access details about the impact of change on employees that would not normally be constructed within the presence of management or the boundaries of the organisation (Bryant and Wolfram Cox, 2003). .

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Methodology: studying employee responses to change Collins (1998), p. 190) argues that researchers who are “committed to making a real contribution to the study and practice of change and its management” should adopt interpretive approaches that highlight relevant “issues surrounding change . . . [and the] attitudes and behaviours . . . of individuals” involved in it. As such, this study adopts a constructivist epistemology, which enables researchers to study the interpretations of participants and reconstruct the “reconstructions that people . . . initially hold, aiming towards consensus but . . . [being] open to new interpretations as information . . . improves[s]” (Guba and Lincoln, 1998, p. 211). A constructivist epistemology highlights the subjective nature of individual realities and assumes that experiences of organisational change are constructed and created between the researcher and the respondent “as the investigation proceeds” (Guba and Lincoln, 1998, p. 207). Schwandt (1998), p. 236) argues that truth according to the constructivist “is the result of perspective” and that “we invent concepts, models, and schemes to make sense of experience . . . [which are constantly tested and modified] in the light of new experience”. Relativist ontology, which supports the constructivist approach, recognises that although respondents may share several common characteristics of organisational change, individual realities are: . . . apprehendable in the form of multiple, intangible mental constructions, socially and experientially based, local and specific in nature . . . and dependable for their form and

content on the individual persons or groups holding the constructions (Guba and Lincoln, 1998, p. 211).

Therefore, information gathered about organisational change following the constructivist paradigm “is the result of [individual] perspective” (Schwandt, 1998, p. 236). Thus, it may be argued that a constructivist approach to research embraces flexibility and maintains a heightened sense of how information can be hypothesised by the researcher and the participant. In this sense, the research is hermeneutical in that the researcher seeks to find meaning in the respondents’ narratives of organisational change, and dialectical since respondents’ constructions of change “can be elicited and refined only through interaction between and among investigator and respondent” (Guba and Lincoln, 1998, p. 207). With such a methodology, the participant and the researcher can make sense of and interpret their shared understanding of organisational change. Furthermore, the flexibility of this research approach, and the emphasis on the individual experience enables the reader to become “clearly aware of the fact that there are different languages being spoken” (Czarniawska, 1997, p. 197) in the organisation. This study adopts a qualitative research approach to ensure that flexibility is maintained and that experiences that may not be shared by all participants are taken into account. Denzin and Lincoln (1998, p. 3) argue that “qualitative researchers study things in their natural settings, attempting to make sense of, or interpret phenomena in terms of the meanings people bring to them”. Qualitative approaches are relevant to studies such as this one as they enable researchers to generate thick description of a scenario or setting, and a richness that is derived from the qualitative researcher’s preoccupation with “detail, context, emotion and the web of . . . relationships that joins one person to another” (Denzin, 1989, p. 83). Not surprisingly, Gherardi and Turner (1999, p. 105) warn that by its very nature, qualitative research can become very messy and convoluted, thus making it a time intensive process. However, it is agreed amongst qualitative researchers (for example, Denzin and Lincoln, 1998; Gherardi and Turner, 1999) that the time taken to collect and analyse data qualitatively is necessary if the finer details and unique features of events such as organisational change, and how employees use voice to respond to it, are to be investigated and understood. A total of 22 participants were recruited for the larger study through snowball sampling (Miller and Chandler, 2002). Of the 22 particpants, 14 of these are featured in this study. Participants were selected from primary employer industries[1] in the Latrobe Valley, an industrial region located in the state of Victoria, Australia, who had been employed in one of the specified industries in the past five years; had been employed for a period of at least five to ten years in a specified industry; had experienced large-scale organisational change[2]; and were employed in jobs ranging from low level supervisory to shop floor positions. As the sample was limited to the geographic boundaries of the Latrobe Valley, it is important to recognise that a potential limitation of the research is that experiences of organisational change may be shaped by the culture of the region, containing unique characteristics of organisational change that are not representative of experiences in other parts of the world. However, participants themselves were the unit of analysis (Yin, 2003) within the study and the Latrobe Valley provided a useful geographic boundary in which to conduct the research.

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Qualitative research interviews were conducted with participants. Kvale (1983, p. 174 as cited in King, 2004, p. 11) defines the qualitative research interview as “an interview, whose purpose is to gather descriptions of the life-world of the interviewee with respect to interpretation of the meaning of the described phenomena”. In other words, the qualitative research interview enables participants to report their stories of organisational change within the context of their personal values and experiences in a way that a more structured interview format may constrain. The qualitative research interview also emphasises the role of the interviewer in the collection of data. For example, the interviewer acts as a participant in the interview in which they co-construct the narrative of organisational change with the interviewee, rather than depersonalizing the interview process (King, 2004). A semi-structured format of interviewing was used (Fontana and Frey, 2000) in which the researcher guided the direction of the interview but used primarily open-ended questions that encouraged the participant to discuss their experiences of organisational change. Each interview lasted approximately one hour and was audio recorded and transcribed for analysis. All interviews were analysed using a thematic narrative analysis, which is explained and demonstrated in the following section of the paper. Narrative analysis and voice Within the interview process, stories were constructed by participants about their broader experiences of organisational change, which were often presented in a non-linear, fragmented and illogical format, which were, at times, difficult for the researcher to follow. Consequently, it was important that stories were analysed in a manner that provided a way of bringing them “into a meaningful whole” (Czarniawska, 1998, p. 2), while preserving the individuality of each participant’s experiences of change and acknowledging common themes across the interviews. Czarniawska and Gagliardi (2003, p. vii) suggest that the imposition of a structure onto “raw and fragmented material” can help researchers make sense of participants” stories. Narratives represent researchers” interpretation and structuring of stories, which are developed through introducing order such as chronology and sequentiality (Czarniawska, 1998), therefore organizing stories into a structure with a clear beginning, middle and ending. This study structured and analysed data using one specific form of analysis: narrative theme analysis, which investigated inductive themes embedded within participants’ stories. Narrative theme analysis is a useful tool in exploring individual employee stories of organisational change as it enables researchers to seek out common patterns that occur across a group of participants, which in this case was the use of voice as a response to organisational change. In addition, it enables researchers to explore experiences of voice that are unique to each participant, thus ensuring that, plural rather than single, interpretations of voice are presented by participants. Thematic analysis of voice Narrative themes explored in the larger study were derived inductively from the data, that is, from analysis of how participants themselves sorted and constructed their stories (Boje, 2001). The use of voice was a primary theme embedded within the narratives of the 14 participants’ featured in this study. Specifically, each participant reported a common experience of using voice in response to organisational change.

However, exploring the narrative theme of voice highlighted that each participant reported different ways in which voice was used. Although Hirschman (1970) suggests that voice can be used to directly signal dissatisfaction to an organisation, only six participants reported using voice through direct signalling to management about dissatisfaction caused by organisational change. In comparison, a further three participants reported using voice through seeking membership of organisations such as unions and employer boards, with five more participants reporting the use of more subtle forms of voice such as directing concerns about change to colleagues. For example: If I had a concern about organisational change I would take it directly to my manager and tell him exactly what I thought the problem was. I felt that he was the best person to know about the effects of change on staff as he was really the only one that could probably do anything (6)[3]. Rather than sitting on my backside I wanted to do something to help staff seek information about change . . . so I joined the union. I’d never been part of a union . . . until I was 39 years old . . . So I started representing staff . . . because I had something to say about the changes (7). I felt a bit intimidated talking to managers about my concerns about change, so I tended to talk to colleagues who would either speak on my behalf or talk confidentially to my union rep (2).

Participants’ responses above suggest that a very basic analysis of the overall theme of voice derived from individuals’ stories can reveal diverse reports of how voice was used to signal concerns about organisational change to management. However, additional analysis of this theme unfolded three narrative sub-themes. These sub-themes provide further understanding of the different justifications for using voice, as well as illustrating the breadth and depth of voice as a response to organisational change. The first and second sub-themes focused specifically on analysis of participants’ reported rationale for using voice. The first sub-theme explored reports of voice used in an attempt to alter post-change work conditions and the second sub-theme explored the use of voice in an attempt to seek information about organisational change. The third sub-theme focused on participant reports of management reactions to voice. All of these sub-themes are briefly discussed below. Using voice to alter post-change work conditions Analysis of the first sub theme suggested that voice was used in an attempt to alter the post-change work environment, which is consistent with Zhou and George (2001) argument that individuals who are dissatisfied with work conditions are likely to use voice as a means to try and change them. Participants’ reports support Zhou and George’s arguments suggesting that attempts to alter the workplace were a consequence of losing control of operations that formed part of participants’ normal roles, or a perception that power held by participants prior to change was altered. For example: I have experienced change many times and don’t have any issues with it . . . the problem that I have at work now is that I can’t make any decisions anymore, I’ve been disempowered there. That’s the thing that concerns me the most and the thing that I want management to know about (16).

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We weren’t really consulted on change and we didn’t protest or anything, just went along with the flow. But I’ve lost the power to do things in my job that I always did, so I have voiced my concerns to managers a few time, not about the change, but about getting some say back into what I do (3).

Comments such as those above are reflective of reports made by other participants who perceived that organisational change altered jobs and work conditions in a way that removed control or power from employees. However, participants’ reports suggest that voice was only used in an attempt to signal dissatisfaction caused by job changes to managers, not the process of organisational change overall. For example, four participants highlighted that they felt they were the best people to make decisions about how their jobs should be performed and commented that managers were probably not aware of the secondary effects that larger organisational change programmes had caused. In addition, three participants added in their reports that voicing concerns to management was not a strategy aimed at providing negative criticism or undermining managers. Rather, as reported by one participant, voice was used “as an honest attempt to tell managers that there were some problems and that we had valid suggestions as to how we could improve” (5). Using voice to seek information Further analysis of participants’ reports of voice unveiled the second sub-theme that indicated voice was used as a strategy to seek information about organisational change in an attempt to find out basic information and to satisfy individual concerns about the effects of change on job functions and job security. All of the 14 participant narratives indicated that employees were consulted about change, but participation in the decision-making process was lacking, therefore, information about change was limited. Of the 14, five participants specifically reported that they were not provided with many details about organisational change, which suggests that they may not have had a thorough understanding of the rationale for change, or the ways in which it would be implemented in the organisation and voice was used as a way of seeking basic information. For example: We were sort of kept in the dark like little mushrooms. Management wouldn’t volunteer any information so we had to constantly harp on and on, asking them how this would affect us and what was going to happen to us. This was probably not all that productive as I think they saw us as a pain in the butt after a while (20). I was told nothing. My work unit was told nothing. If we asked the boss what was happening we were told it didn’t concern us as management were the only ones qualified to make decisions . . . we had no idea what was going on and we were only trying to find out, not to undermine our managers, but to make ourselves feel a bit more secure (12).

A further eight participants suggested that voice was used to find out more specific information about individual employee’s jobs and job security. In comparison to comments made by participants above, this group of participants commented that although participation in the change process was lacking, they had an understanding of the need for change, and how change would be implemented from prior experiences of organisational change within the same organisation, or other organisations they had been employed in previously, or, in the case of four participants, tertiary training and education in organisational change. However attempts to seek more specific

information about job security from management was reported by one participant as being “met with disdain” (18), which is also evident in the following comments: I wanted to know what the effects of change would be on my job. Management would tell us what they thought we should know and were quite okay with our questions usually, but when it came to the tough questions like “what will happen to us”, they either said they didn’t know or became abusive (22). I wanted to know whether or not I had to start looking for a new job, or think about relocating the family . . . While that in itself is a bit nerve-wracking, I just wanted to take a proactive attitude and look after my security . . . but you’d ask and ask and managers would brush you off (15).

The comments made by the participants above and reports from other participants discussed within this section suggest that seeking information about job security could be a way of developing proactive strategies to cope with the possible effects of organisational change. These comments are also consistent with arguments made by Rusbult et al. (1988, p. 601) that individuals often use voice as a means of seeking out information and taking “action to solve problems”. Such findings on their own are probably not surprising as it has been documented elsewhere (for example, Bryant and Wolfram Cox, 2003; De Cock, 1998) that individuals seek information about organisational change, particularly concerning the likely effects that it may have upon their security. However, thematic narrative analysis of participants’ stories clarifies that although strategies of using voice are an attempt to alter post-change work conditions or to seek information about job functions and security, such acts are performed with specific intent and are not the same as resistance to change. For example, participant dialogue analysed within the narrative sub-themes suggests that in this study participants used voice to signal discontent or dissatisfaction to management (Van Dyne and LePine, 1998) rather than in an attempt to slow down or avoid the implementation of organisational change (Pardo del Val and Fuentes, 2003). Furthermore, several comments made by participants featured throughout this section suggest that employees are not resistant to change and have experienced change previously. However, analysis of the third sub-theme focusing on participants’ reports of management reactions to the use of voice, suggests that management confusion between voice and resistance to change was not unusual in the contexts explored in the larger study. While four of the 14 participants reported that management reacted positively to employee responses and concerns about organisational change, the remaining ten participants reported negative reactions from management when voice was used to signal discontent. Such negative reactions ranged from comments from managers such as ‘they were sick of the constant questioning from staff’ (9) to reports of exclusion from decisionbmaking, direct threats or taunts, and bullying: My boss got to the point where he told me he wasn’t prepared to talk to me about change or my job future anymore. It got to the stage that if he saw me coming he’d turn around and walk the other way (1). We had this manager who would taunt us and say things like “none of you will be here in a few months and your kids will be derelicts” . . . comments like that! Just because you dare to ask about your own future in the company! (4).

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I was seen as a troublemaker because I asked management questions and represented staff who were concerned about organisational change, this had been my role for over ten years . . . But this time I was subjected to a lot of bullying and abuse . . . abusive phone calls, snide remarks in the corridors and the like from senior managers, who frankly, should know better (7).

Although participants’ reports do not specifically state that managers considered employee responses to change to be acts of resistance, analysis of participants’ comments indicate that voice was, in ten cases, met with negative consequences rather than considered as constructive feedback that could be used to improve the organisation post-change. Such findings are consistent with research conducted by Feuille and Delaney (1993), which suggests that the use of voice in response to dissatisfaction has the capacity to inflict negative consequences on an individual within an organisation. More specifically, Feuille and Delaney argue that those who use voice are likely to experience exclusion from promotion opportunities and have lower levels of performance in comparison to their non-voice using colleagues. Bryant and Wolfram Cox (2003) support Feuille and Delaney (1993) findings but add that employees who use voice in response to organisational change are also subjected to bullying, acts of workplace violence, exclusion from decision-making and pressure to exit the organisation. The findings derived from the application of a theme analysis to retrospective narratives of organisational change constructed during qualitative research interviews, although brief, suggest that a gap between employee intentions of using voice as a response to change and managerial perceptions of voice and resistance exists. Theorizing further about this gap requires additional research on both of these areas, which is beyond the scope and aims of this paper. However, this paper has highlighted that employee experiences are rich and varied and voice, as a response to organisational change is complex. In this sense, the in-depth analysis that qualitative approaches provide is important in seeking an understanding of how and why employees respond to change in particular ways. Conclusion This paper has demonstrated that voice is a complex response that warrants further investigation. The application of narrative analysis not only revealed different ways in which participants reported using voice, but also provided an understanding of the rationale for using voice, which was primarily out of concern for ownership and control of jobs, as well as to seek information about job security. Such findings are important in differentiating between voice and resistance to change, which is not widely evident within management literature. The strengths of adopting a qualitative research approach and using narrative analysis to explore employee experiences of organisational change are that participants’ constructions of retrospective narratives guide the research. The constructivist approach enables researchers to explore individual experiences within the unique contexts in which they occur, while the qualitative research interview provides the opportunity for researchers to seek understanding and clarification of participants’ stories through the use of open-ended questions. In this sense, the researcher can guide the direction of the research, but also allow for the exploration of topics that may not have been considered or expected. Such approaches to research and

data collection ensure that unique interpretations of organisational change are not discounted by an external perspective of how employees should experience change, as constructed by researchers or managers. Furthermore, the application of narrative analysis ensures that unique experiences of using voice are not obscured in the process of analysis and that the use of voice is not conflated with resistance. Exploring voice and other employee responses to organisational change through the application of qualitative research approaches has implications for both management research and management practice. From a theoretical perspective, qualitative studies of voice extend management and organisational change theory by providing a bottom-up perspective and unlocking voices of individuals who are often marginalised within management literature. Furthermore, analysis of employee responses to change extends understanding of the difference between voice and resistance and provides insight into why employees use voice as a response to change and what they wish to achieve through using voice. However, further investigation is warranted particularly in exploring intentions to use voice, management perceptions of the use of voice and organisational change activities surrounding the use of voice. Management practitioners can also benefit from using qualitative approaches to exploring organisational events such as change. This paper demonstrated that when exploring voice from a critical perspective, employee concerns and justifications are not reflective of resistance to organisational change programmes, suggesting that further investigation of the impacts of change on individuals would be beneficial in understanding employees responses. Furthermore, using researchers to explore employee experiences enables managers to access data that they themselves may not be successful in collecting from staff as a consequence of intimidation or employment relations. As such, qualitative studies of voice can be used to derive feedback from staff about change and the effects that it has upon individual employees. Such feedback could be used to develop future organisational change strategies, particularly those concerning communication and participation that are tailored to meet the unique needs of management and staff within specific organisational cultures and contexts. Notes 1. Primary employer industries in the Latrobe Valley include the electricity supply, water, education, paper production and healthcare industries. 2. Large-scale organisational change in the form of privatisation, amalgamation, restructuring or downsizing. 3. Each participant was allocated a number to maintain anonymity and participants’ comments are identified by this number throughout the paper. References Boje, D. (1995), “Stories of the storytelling organization: a postmodern analysis of Disney as ‘Tamara-Land’”, Academy of Management Journal, Vol. 38 No. 4, pp. 997-1035. Boje, D. (2001), Narrative Methods for Organizational and Communication Research, Sage, London. Bryant, M. (2003), “Persistence and silence: a narrative analysis of employee responses to organisational change”, Sociological Research Online, Vol. 8 No. 4, available at: www. socresonline.org.uk/8/4/bryant.html

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Bryant, M. and Wolfram Cox, J. (2003), “The telling of violence: organizational change and atrocity tales”, Journal of Organizational Change Management, Vol. 16 No. 5, pp. 567-83. Collins, D. (1998), Organizational Change: Sociological Perspectives, Routledge, London. Czarniawska, B. (1997), Narrating the Organization: Dramas of Institutional Identity, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL. Czarniawska, B. (1998), A Narrative Approach to Organization Studies, Sage, Thousand Oaks, CA. Czarniawska, B. and Gagliardi, P. (2003), “Introduction”, in Czarniawska, B. and Gagliardi, P. (Eds), Narratives We Organize By, John Benjamins, Amsterdam, pp. vii-ix. De Cock, C. (1998), “Organisational change and discourse: hegemony, resistance and reconstitution”, M@n@gement, Vol. 1 No. 1, pp. 1-22. Dent, E. and Goldberg, S. (1999), “Challenging ‘resistance to change’”, Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, Vol. 35 No. 1, pp. 25-41. Denzin, N. (1989), Interpretative Interactionism, Sage, Newbury Park, CA. Denzin, N. and Lincoln, Y. (1998), “Introduction: entering the field of qualitative research”, in Denzin, N. and Lincoln, Y. (Eds), The Landscape of Qualitative Research: Theories and Issues, Sage, Thousand Oaks, CA, pp. 1-34. Farrell, D. (1983), “Exit, voice, loyalty and neglect as responses to job dissatisfaction: a multidimensional scaling study”, Academy of Management Journal, Vol. 26 No. 4, pp. 596-607. Feuille, P. and Delaney, J. (1993), “The individual pursuit of organizational justice: grievance procedures in non-union workplaces”, in Ferris, G. and Rowland, K. (Eds), Research in Personnel and Human Resource Management, Vol. 10, JAI Press, Greenwich, CT, pp. 187-232. Fontana, A. and Frey, J. (2000), “The interview: from structured questions to negotiated text”, in Denzin, N. and Lincoln, Y. (Eds), The Handbook of Qualitative Research, 2nd ed., Sage, Thousand Oaks, CA, pp. 645-72. Gherardi, S. and Turner, B. (1999), “Real men don’t collect soft data”, in Bryman, A. and Burgess, R. (Eds), Qualitative Research: Volume 1, Sage, London, pp. 103-18. Guba, E. and Lincoln, Y. (1998), “Competing paradigms in qualitative research”, in Denzin, N. and Lincoln, Y. (Eds), The Landscape of Qualitative Research: Theories and Issues, Sage, Thousand Oaks, CA, pp. 195-220. Hardy, C., Palmer, I. and Phillips, N. (2000), “Discourse as a strategic resource”, Human Relations, Vol. 53 No. 6, pp. 1227-48. Hirschman, A. (1970), Exit, Voice and Loyalty: Responses to Decline in Firms, Organizations and States, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA. King, N. (2004), “Using interviews in qualitative research”, in Cassell, C. and Symon, G. (Eds), Essential Guide to Qualitative Methods in Organizational Research, Sage, London, pp. 11-22. Krantz, J. (1999), “Comment on ‘Challenging resistance to change’”, Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, Vol. 35 No. 1, pp. 42-44. Kvale, S. (1983), “The qualitative research interview – a phenomenological and a hermeneutical mode of understanding”, Journal of Phenomenological Psychology, Vol. 14 No. 2, pp. 171-96. Mackenzie Davey, K. and Liefooghe, A. (2004), “Critical research and analysis in organizations”, in Cassell, C. and Symon, G. (Eds), Essential Guide to Qualitative Methods in Organizational Research, Sage, London, pp. 180-91.

Miller, A. and Chandler, P. (2002), “Acculturation, resilience, and depression in midlife women from the former Soviet Union”, Nursing Research, Vol. 51 No. 1, pp. 26-32. Pardo del Val, M. and Fuentes, C. (2003), “Resistance to change: a literature review and empirical study”, Management Decision, Vol. 41 No. 2, pp. 148-55. Perren, L. and Megginson, D. (1996), “Resistance to change as a positive force: its dynamics and issues for management development”, Career Development International, Vol. 1 No. 1, pp. 24-8. Piderit, S. (2000), “Rethinking resistance and recognising ambivalence: a multidimensional view of attitudes toward an organizational change”, Academy of Management Review, Vol. 25 No. 4, pp. 783-94. Rusbult, C., Farrell, D., Rogers, G. and Mainous, A. (1988), “Impact of exchange variables on exit, voice, loyalty and neglect: an integrative model of responses to declining job satisfaction”, Academy of Management Journal, Vol. 31 No. 3, pp. 599-627. Schwandt, T. (1998), “Constructivist and interpretivist approaches to human inquiry”, in Denzin, N. and Lincoln, Y. (Eds), The Landscape of Qualitative Research: Theories and Issues, Sage, Thousand Oaks, CA, pp. 221-59. Van Dyne, L. and LePine, J. (1998), “Helping and voice extra-role behaviours: evidence of construct and predictive validity”, Academy of Management Journal, Vol. 41 No. 1, pp. 108-19. Withey, M. and Cooper, W. (1989), “Predicting exit, voice, loyalty and neglect”, Administrative Science Quarterly, Vol. 34 No. 4, pp. 521-39. Yin, R. (2003), Case Study Research: Design and Methods, Sage, Thousand Oaks, CA. Zhou, J. and George, J. (2001), “When job dissatisfaction leads to creativity: encouraging the expression of voice”, Academy of Management Journal, Vol. 44 No. 4, pp. 682-96.

Further reading Bovey, W. and Hede, A. (2001), “Resistance to organizational change: the role of defence mechanisms”, Journal of Managerial Psychology, Vol. 16 Nos 7/8, pp. 534-48. Holstein, J. and Gubrium, J. (1999), “Active interviewing”, in Bryman, A. and Burgess, R. (Eds), Qualitative Research Volume II, Sage, London, pp. 105-31. Janesick, V. (2000), “The choreography of qualitative research design”, in Denzin, N. and Lincoln, Y. (Eds), Handbook of Qualitative Research, Sage, Thousand Oaks, CA, pp. 379-99. Lincoln, Y. and Guba, E. (2000), “Paradigmatic controversies, contradictions, and emerging confluences”, in Denzin, N. and Lincoln, Y. (Eds), Handbook of Qualitative Research, 2nd ed., Sage, London, pp. 163-88. Perakyla, A. (1997), “Reliability and validity in research based on tapes and transcripts”, in Silverman, D. (Ed.), Qualitative Research: Theory, Method and Practice, Sage, London, pp. 201-20. Perrewe, P. and Zellars, K. (1999), “An examination of attributions and emotions in the transactional approach to the organizational stress process”, Journal of Organizational Behavior, Vol. 20 No. 5, pp. 739-52. Salzer-Morling, M. (1998), “As God created the earth . . . a sage that makes sense?”, in Grant, D., Keenoy, T. and Oswick, C. (Eds), Discourse þ Organization, Sage, London, pp. 104-18. Schwartz, H. and Jacobs, J. (1979), Qualitative Sociology: A Method to the Madness, The Free Press, New York, NY.

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Smith, J. and Deemer, D. (2000), “The problem of criteria in the age of relativism”, in Denzin, N. and Lincoln, Y. (Eds), Handbook of Qualitative Research, 2nd ed., Sage, Thousand Oaks, CA, pp. 877-96. Turnley, W. and Feldman, D. (1999), “The impact of psychological contract violations on exit, voice, loyalty and neglect”, Human Relations, Vol. 52 No. 7, pp. 895-922. Vidich, A. and Lyman, S. (2000), “Qualitative methods: their history in sociology and anthropology”, in Denzin, N. and Lincoln, Y. (Eds), Handbook of Qualitative Research, 2nd ed., Sage, Thousand Oaks, CA, pp. 37-84. About the author Melanie Bryant is a Lecturer in the Department of Management and Research Associate with the Institute for Regional Studies at Monash University, Australia, where she teaches in the areas of organisational behaviour and organisational communications. Melanie received her B.Bus (Honours), PhD in Management from Monash University. Her research interests include topics on employee perspectives of organisational change, employee responses to change, work-place violence, qualitative and narrative research. Her work has been published in the Journal of Organizational Change Management and Sociological Research Online. She can be contacted at: [email protected]

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Intransivities of managerial decisions: a grounded theory case David Douglas

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Staffordshire University Business School, Stoke-on-Trent, UK Abstract Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to apply grounded theory methodology to report on an empirical case which develops emergent theories on the human complexities of managerial decision-making and the synonymous task of managing. Design/methodology/approach – A structured research approach was applied in gathering and analysing data from all actors within a small private sector enterprise. The key objective was to discover what the owner-manager and all employees perceived as important issues with regard to the managing of the business during a period of post-takeover. In-depth on-site and off-site interviews were carried out over an extended period. Findings – Emergent theory exposes actors’ disputed perceptions of how the business had been managed and ought to be managed, and, the judgments and decisions that had been made and consequently should be made. Revealed is a complex cognitive and behavioural web of human interactions and deep-seated management-employee discord that whilst threatening the actual survival of the business appears not to impede questionable practices, both by management and staff. Through the application of grounded theory methodology emergent constructs are discussed against existing knowledge that exposes new insights into management decision theory and the managing of an enterprise. Research limitations/implications – The process of theory generation whilst grounded in a substantive inquiry has the capacity to generate further research and tentative explanations at higher levels of understanding. From the research reported, questions beyond the substantive case can develop a broader theoretical and practical agenda – for example, issues of other actors’ involvement in management decision making and the intrinsic part psychological factors play in the structuring of decisions. Practical implications – Based on the finding from an empirical study the paper reveals significant practical managerial issues in the day-to-day and strategic managing of an enterprise. From a researcher’s perspective, the paper critically demonstrates the functionality of grounded theory in management inquiry. Originality/value – This paper advances the theoretical and practical necessity for the enlargement of the stock of qualitatively bounded research that focuses on grounded theory applications, management practice and decision theory. Keywords Strategic management, Decision making, Decision theory, Owner-managers, Employee attitudes, Private sector organizations Paper type Research paper

Introduction The purpose of this paper is threefold. First, to demonstrate and examine inductively derived theory through the application of grounded theory methodology (Glaser and Strauss, 1967). Second, from a wider empirical organisational case study two emergent theoretical categories are illustrated and critically discussed. It is from these emergent conceptual categories and their properties, developed from data collected from all

Management Decision Vol. 44 No. 2, 2006 pp. 259-275 q Emerald Group Publishing Limited 0025-1747 DOI 10.1108/00251740610650238

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actors within the business profiled, that insights into the micro-world of a firm along with some of its important managerial issues are revealed. Third, to contribute to the qualitative and interpretive discussion of what can practically be learned from the application and improved understanding of the grounded theory approach to theory building at substantive and potentially more general levels of knowledge. Addressing the above objectives this paper discusses the depth of individual actor’s perceptual differences when considering the company in which they all operate, and the challenges that such differences inherently impose on managing the organisation. With the dominant theoretical constructs emergent from the research centring on management decisions, contemporary thinking on decision theory and the synonymous task of managing are reviewed against selected literature – with the objective of enhancing management decision theory and practice at least at a substantive level. In sum, the route through this paper reflects traditional grounded theory methodology (Glaser and Strauss, 1967; Glaser, 1978) inasmuch as it introduces grounded theory as a research approach; it discusses case phenomena, data and abstract emergent theory; subsequently reviewing appropriate literature. A discussion of plausible explanations for emergent substantive theory together with existing knowledge concludes. Grounded theory Championing their argument for the inductive discovery of theory sociologists Barney Glaser and Anslem Strauss developed new perspectives on social science research grounded in a systematic approach to data. The practice of grounded theory beyond sociology has experienced application and discussion (if somewhat limitedly) over recent years (for example: Connell and Lowe, 1997 (tourism and hospitality management); Charmaz, 1990 (medical studies); Douglas, 2003a (research supervision); Henwood and Pidgeon, 1995 (psychology)). More specifically, the field of management research has seen some accounts of the application of grounded theory (Andriopolos and Lowe, 2000 (management’s creative practices); Douglas, 2003b (management research); Locke, 2001 (management research); Partington, 2000 (management action)). A paucity of published accounts remains of the application of grounded theory within the multifaceted field of management inquiry. What is pertinent to social research, applying grounded theory, is that it seeks to approximate to the context of that being studied; for example, an enterprise, its actors, their interactions and interrelationships; thus conveying conceptual understanding of issues that make up their’ naturalistic worlds (Van Maanen, 1979). Thus eliciting meaning from data rather than data themselves. Over subsequent years after their original work Glaser and Strauss (1967) tended apart in their views on approaches to grounded theory. Glaser (1992) selects an area for study (for example, an organisation or profession) and allows issues to emerge. He proposes a methodological framework that is flexible in developing disparate and freely emergent phenomenon. Strauss (Strauss and Corbin, 1990) is arguably more detailed, structured and prescriptive – preferring to identify a phenomenon or issue (for example, a manager’s leadership style). Glaser regards such rigidity as forcing, rather than allowing for materialisation of theory, “in grounded theory we do not know, until it emerges” (Glaser, 1992, p. 95). He believes the researcher should enter an organisation with a broad inquisitive brief

and subsequently reduce to deeper levels of understanding as themes inferentially emerge. This was the approach adopted for the management investigation reported herein. Case description and research design Trading for over 30 years, the target organisation was a highly specialised privately owned engineering company, one of only about six in the UK. The present owner-manager (hereafter identified as “manager”) had bought the company four years earlier from the retiring owner-manager whom had established the business. The new manager’s admitted aspiration was for the business to make him wealthy. At the time of the research he employed ten full-time staff – four of which could be described as the business. These “principal engineers” had developed their skills over 25-30 years with the business and without them the company could not offer its unique core service. The remaining six employees (five with general engineering skills and an office administrator) held tenures of between three to nine years. With the exception of the office administrator the workforce was male. The manager, with a background in large service sector corporations, had not previously managed a small enterprise and admittedly knew nothing of the service or industry he had bought into. With orders falling and employee-management discord rising, he realised the firm was in trouble. Data collection and application of the constant comparative method, which shaped conceptual categories and their properties, formed two consecutive phases. Initially, exploratory field investigations were carried out over three months, with the researcher intermittently visiting the company. Visits usually lasted between one and three hours, during which time the researcher engaged in unstructured and semi-structured (shop floor, office, restroom) discussions, complemented with observations. All employees and the manager were met with on a number of occasions during this phase. Field notes were typically written in situ or soon after each visit. The second phase was over a three-week period. Individual in-depth, off-site, semi-structured, open-ended, interviews were carried out with all employees and the manager. Interviews with each employee lasted for between three to four hours, and in excess of six hours for the manager. Only one interview was carried out in any one day – allowing for some initial consideration of the accumulating data prior to the next interview. All interviews were, with respondents’ consent, audio taped and subsequently transcribed. An ethical protocol was applied throughout the research. Interviews over both phases took the form of “informational, reflective and feeling” dialogue (Charmaz, 1990, p. 1167). Phase-one discussions were mostly “informational” in nature and established chronology of the interviewee and subsequent events within that person’s historical reflection of his/her employment with the company. Data gathered were responses to questions of What?, Who?, Where? and When? The “what?” questioning sought identification and description of data and incidents and were the basic building blocks of constructs. The “who? where? and when?” discussions identified the ‘temporal and contextual factors [that] set the boundaries of generalisability, and as such constitute the range of the theory” (Whetten, 1989, p. 492). These questions consequently set the substantive parameters on gathered data, emergent constructs and subsequent theoretical explanations. Phase-two were predominantly “reflective and feeling” discussions in terms of “self” and took the form of How? and Why? and sought to uncover individual’s interpretation of incidents

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under consideration. These “how?” and “why?” questions were asked to establish relationships amongst the emergent constructs and to provide theoretical rationales for phenomena through the identifications of “causal relationships” (Whetton, 1989, p. 491) In sum, what was occurring was the accumulation of multiple perspectives of phenomena. As later illustrated, the grounded theory approach sought emergence of topics that appeared to be important in the words and explanations of respondents “. . . due to their ‘density’ regarding both their descriptive strength and richness in referring to various themes” (Lansisalmi et al., 2004, p. 245). The triangulation of multiple perspectives of incidents builds credibility to emergent conceptual claims. And, whilst the grounded theorist must remain “sensitive” to multiple perceptions of phenomena and not “force” theoretical explanations from the data (Glaser, 1978), triangulation offers opportunity “. . . to clarify meaning, verify the repeatability of an observation or interpretation . . . [and] . . . by identifying different ways the phenomenon is being seen” (Stake, 2003, p. 148). Triangulation of data sources (in this case from all actors within the organisation) offered data that were the foundational substance from which conceptual categories and their properties emerged. Through the “informational”, “reflective” and “feeling” questions the research was able to move from the establishment of what could be termed fundamental realities (e.g. the business did move to new premises), to consensual or collectively agreed realities (e.g. all actors in the organisation agreed that relations between the manager and principal engineers had become disharmonious) and ultimately to non-consensual or disputed realities (e.g. staff-management disharmony was (not) solely the consequence of management practices). Data triangulation is usual practice in grounded theory methodology, with the “constant comparative method” (Glaser and Strauss, 1967) of creatively comparing incident-to-incident and informant-to-informant data, and labelling of theoretical categories reflecting how “the theory should fit the data” (Glaser and Strauss, 1967, p. 261). It is through the iterative process of discovery that the analyst “continually checks out his theory as the data pours in” (Glaser and Strauss, 1967, p. 26) and will be constantly seeking verification of emerging conceptual categories and their properties. Applying the precept of “theoretically sensitivity” (Glaser, 1978), where the researcher utilises “both the intellect and intuition without forcing theoretical explanations from the data” (Connell and Lowe, 1997, p. 171), data were annotated, theoretically categorised and re-categorised to connecting patterns and abstract themes. As one “ . . . sees similar instances over and over again, the researcher becomes empirically confident that a category is saturated” (Glaser and Strauss, 1967, p. 61) with data and then moves to develop explanations at conceptual levels through accumulated multiple data sources until they cease to render any fresh understanding. Core conceptual categories tend to be the last to reach saturation as they emerge as central constructs linking other theoretical categories. It is the eventual exhaustion of induced conceptual properties and categories of properties assigned at various levels of abstraction, and the proffering of explanations for phenomena, that theories become established. In defence of their approach to inductive theory building, Glaser and Strauss (1967, p. 3) identify five interrelated jobs of theory – to provide:

(1) (2) (3) (4) (5)

Prediction and explanation of behaviour. Theoretical advancement. Practical applications. A perspective on behaviour. A style guide for research on particular areas of behaviour.

They justify the worthiness of grounded theory as it has the capacity for an “intimate connection with empirical reality” (Eisenhardt, 1989, p. 532). It may be contended that a grounded theory is the “intimate” account of relations among concepts, set within identified constraints and assumptions. Theory building requires the researcher to be mindful and sensitive to what he/she puts in and leaves out, and, how to communicate a theory and its antecedent trail of development from raw data to theoretical explanations of phenomena, thus “the purpose of theoretical statements is twofold: to organise (parsimoniously) and to communicate (clearly)” (Bacharach, 1989, p. 496) – as an addition Dubin (1978) advances “comprehensiveness” beside “parsimony” as factors for judging theory and its development. Naturalistic inquiry is always a matter of degree and the extent to which the researcher influences respondents and imposes categories on data will create uniqueness (Patton, 1990). Theory therefore is not “a perfected product . . . [but is] . . . ever-developing” (Glaser and Strauss, 1967, p. 32). With grounded theory placing “the main researcher in a central role” (Lansisalmi et al., 2004, p. 249), as is often with qualitative methods per se, it is contended that the “usual canons of ‘good science’ . . . require redefinition in order to fit the realities of qualitative research” (Strauss and Corbin, 1990, p. 250). Consequently applying “positivist notions of reliability and validity to judge the quality of a postmodern analysis” (Cassell and Symon, 2004, p. 5) is arguably inappropriate as it will in most cases find qualitative approaches and their emergent theories deficient. In defence of qualitative methods Lincoln and Guba (1985) identified an alternative set of criteria corresponding to those typically employed to judge the validity and reliability of quantitative methods. Positivists’ conventional terminology: “internal and external validity”, “reliability” and “objectivity”; were countered respectively in naturalistic terms of: “credibility”, “transferability”, “dependability” and “confirmability”. It was these contemporary canons that acted as guides in the development of the grounded theory research reported herein. Disputed perspectives of reality Comprehensive reporting of the grounded theory research findings, from which examples are drawn for this paper, would extend to cover the entire range of conceptual categories (of which there were 15) and their properties (in excess of 200) that emerged during the analytical stages of the grounded theory process. Cognisant of a need for parsimony, clarity of communication and comprehensiveness, and for depth of discussion and illustrative purposes, this paper focuses on the two significant core conceptual categories emergent from the manager and employees’ data. The following two sections, “management decisions and consequences – employees” perspectives’ and “self as manager – manager’s perspective” are the central constructs evolving from data of all employees and the manager respectively. The first section describes employees’ perceptions of noteworthy decisions taken by the manager. These decisions were conceptually categorised as “growth decisions”,

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“process decisions” and “reaction decisions”. Following on are the employees’ perceived consequences to management inspired decisions and categorised as: “u-turns”, “drains” and “internalities” – in all depicting employees’ challenges to the management of the business. The second section describes the manager’s perceptual defences and rationales for making the decisions that he did and managing the business and its employees in the way that he did. Two conceptual categories make up this section – “managing self” depicts the manager’s introspection as he reviewed his decisions and how he had generally managed the organisation. Reflecting on his post-decisional position, the category “managing others” poignantly reveals his rationalisation of how and why he needed to manage employees as he did. It is normal practice when reporting grounded theory to support theoretical constructs with examples of respondents’ transcripts, thus illustrating source data and conveying “credence, comprehensibility and verstehen” (Strauss, 1987, p. 219). To this end, selected tracts of transcripts are cited to emphasise data groundedness. Actors’ reported names are fictitious. “Management decisions and consequences – employees’ perspectives” Management decisions Growth decisions. During the first three years of ownership the manager made a number of decisions to develop the business in various ways. He physically moved the business from an established site, which he owned under the original purchase, to new larger industrial units, with large rental costs. He also bought an existing engineering company, against the advice offered to him by the four principal engineers, with the desire to curtail contracting out any work. Tom [Principal Engineer, 26 years with the company] tried everything for him to stop buying this company, and the lads knew that it was a bad buy. But that’s the way he is, that’s the way he wanted to take us. It all went wrong in a very big way. They have sort of withdrawn that advice now (Jennifer, Office Administrator, nine years with the company).

With the new leased site and purchased engineering company the manager believed he had created the potential to do work that the business had not been able to offer previously. He actively pursued work of a different nature, offering more general associated engineering services that could utilise what the larger business perceivably could offer. Four existing engineers that worked for the newly purchased engineering company were also recruited along with two more. Also apprentices were taken on with the desire for them to learn the craft of the principal engineers. With the recruiting of a shop floor supervisor the staff numbers had doubled to 20 within three years of new ownership. Four blokes came with the engineering company. He had a notion that if you take on ten more people you get ten times more work. He didn’t realise you needed ten times more customers (Richard, Principal Engineer, 30 years with the company).

Process decisions As part of the manager’s decisions to change the size and scope of the business came the decision to restructure the business and create different departments, with the desire to have a production-line style of processing work through the factory.

He thought he could set up a production line. It does not work like that. He seemed to think he could improve things. I have to say he has failed (Richard).

A female supervisor was appointed without any forewarning to the employees. She had previously been a supervisor in a food-processing factory. She could not grasp the job. The work is very hard to explain. She had not a chance. You explained to her, she could not grasp it. She did not trust anybody. It was a disaster (George, Principal Engineer, 25 years with the company).

Whilst relinquishing himself of much shop floor duties the manager attempted to discuss technical issues when meeting with existing and new clients as they visited the company. However, having had no previous experience or knowledge of the type of business he presently owned and the services it offered, he was at best limited, and, if what some employees believed, he lost the company business by attempting to be knowledgeable. The owner has had a lot of customers shouting at him, because how he came over. He has a bad attitude towards them. He talks down to them. He has had a few corners knocked off. The old owner was good with customers (Doug, Principal Engineer, 29 years with the company).

The manager adopted a somewhat aloof managerial style, by having limited communication with employees and not discussing issues prior to making independent decisions that affected the business and its employees. He appeared to prefer external help and advice (using consultants) in making decisions rather than utilise that which was in situ (employees). I think we have got commitment to the job. It should be to the company and the owner really. We were probably committed once to him and the company. Decisions need to be made. The owner sees himself as the only decision maker. It’s all on a need to know basis (Doug).

Reaction decisions Some decisions that were taken appeared to be as a reaction to either previous decisions made or due to reactions made by employees to managerial decisions. The abolition of staff meetings after the only one that was called was a reaction to the opportunity taken by some employees to communicate their negative feelings about how they saw the business under its new ownership and the decisions taken so far. We only had one staff meeting. There was an argument and never had any more (Bernie, General Engineer, three years with the company).

The abolishing of the annual wage rise, bonus scheme and Christmas parties could be interpreted as the manager’s reaction to employees not increasing their productivity to a level acceptable to the manager. Having not risen to an acceptable level, such withdrawals may also be a cost-saving reaction to increased income not coming in as forecast to recover some of the costs of previous decisions, such as moving premises and buying an engineering company and employing more staff. Whilst by not rewarding employees as some were used to and therefore saving money, the abolishing of such rewards could have been interpreted as the manager’s reaction to behaviours and attitudes of only some employees he disliked, but consequently penalised all employees en bloc.

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Management decisions consequences Figure 1 depicts employees’ collective perceptions of how the manager’s decisions had impacted both on the business and on them. Constructed from emergent data, decision consequences clustered in to three constructs: “u-turns”, “drains” and “internalities”. U-turns were the result of previous decisions that resulted in other decisions being made which, in turn resulted in reversed consequences to previous decisions, for example, the hiring of more employees then later dismissing them. Drains were the tangible observations that were the direct result of previous decisions that show a net loss, for example, the moving to rented premises from buildings that were owned and retained (unable to sell) but not utilised and resulted in a substantial financial drain. He got the idea of selling the other premises. He’s still got it. We all moved to this new site. Attitudes have now changed (Mike, General Engineer, seven years with the company).

Internalities fell in to two groups: “working practices” and, “personal feelings and emotions”. Working Practices highlighted changes that were believed to be responses to decisions that affected the internal working practices of the business, for example, observable cut backs in an attempt to claw back money lost by deciding to physically expand the business. Personal feelings and emotions, highlighted peoples feelings to decisions made by the manager, for example; demoralising, undermining, upsetting. All employees, but especially the principal engineers, placed considerable store on their personal feelings of the manager’s decisions and perceived consequences. I expected him to look after the business. I expected him not to do silly things. He gets carried away. He needs to sort himself out. He rattles us (Richard).

In summary, a multi-dimensional description of respondents’ meanings, with regards to important (to them) issues, had formed. Consequently individual and collective perceptions, feelings, emotions and behaviours impacted on the business. What appeared to have emerged with reference to the employees’ accounts was a range of, what could be described as challenges to the manager’s decisions and management of the business.

Figure 1.

Self as manager – manager’s pperspective Managing self This construct was a cluster of five conceptual sub-categories: “sought to”, “decided to”, “reality”, “reflections” and “options”. They emerged from the manager focusing on himself in terms of “I”, “me”, “my”.

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I have instigated a lot of change, and a lot of change to people who are not used to a lot of change . . . The negative effect is that it is costing a lot more and that makes the business less profitable to me . . . At the end of the day it’s my company, and that’s what they don’t appreciate.

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On purchasing the company the manager “sought to” make decisions that would result in changes to the company that he believed would increase his wealth. I want to make myself wealthy at the end of the day.

To bring about these changes he “decided to” manage organisational change from an individualistic approach and not in the main seek nor appear to encourage employees’ involvement in decision making. They are terrified about security and the fact that the company will go under if I continued to make these wild decisions and take it in areas its never been before.

The “reality” of the decisions produced perceivable numbers of outcomes that were appropriately described as undesirable. It might have been a very silly thing to have done, going into a business I didn’t understand. I have had to rely on the lads for everything.

His “reflections” on his position and that of the business evoked emotions that highlighted his frustrations of not perceivably realising his desires. I’m feeling pissed-off with them at the moment.

However, his reflections conveyed his naivety to the situation in which he had got himself. There is a big hole on the technical side, I am not capable of filling it, I do not want to fill it. I will never be able to fill it.

With some realisation of his position he pondered more possible decisions that he perceived as potential routes out of the position he was in. Realising that the oppositional power was predominantly from the four principal engineers and their confronting managerial decisions with intransigence, the manager considered future “options”. He contemplated distancing himself from managing the employees directly. I have really come down to the view of getting a guy as the shop manager. If I get the right guy they will probably accept it. I think they see it as I don’t know what I’m talking about.

However, it appeared to be a short lived judgment to distance himself by indirectly managing through an intermediary, as this had been tried before and failed. They took a dislike to her, she was quite aggressive. I found her helpful.

He resigned himself to losing the perceived battle and intimated that getting out of the business could be his ultimate decision option.

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I cannot beat it so I might as well give in. It does not give me any confidence in them . . . If one day I want to sell the business I’ve got to find someone who wants to buy the business and its got to have something to it.

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Managing others This construct was the amalgam of two conceptual sub-categories and their properties: “principal engineers” and “all employees”. They emerged from the manager focusing on the employees in terms of They, Their, Them. I told them this, and they all got upset, especially the four senior guys . . . No one mentioned their pay rise, it all goes to prove something doesn’t it . . . I have not seen a lot of change in them.

The first category reflected the manager’s skewed perceptions of the four principal engineers as a group. The second category was a general category that didn’t highlight any particular employee or the group and was levelled at all employees. The conceptual properties of the manager’s data conveyed the view that the principal engineers had adopted an oppositional stance against him as a manager of them and of the business. He perceived them feeling under threat or siege by the manager due to his decision-making and change strategies. There have been a number of things that I’ve done that they don’t approve of, I know . . . unless they feel they have been put upon, that they feel the need to fight back.

He was of the mind that the principal engineers displayed feelings and emotions that conveyed their opposition to him. He realised that they had withdrawn from offering support that appeared not to have been requested by the manager and along with it they had instigated their own processes of retaining the status quo, at least in areas that they could exercise their expert power. They got very angry with me because I wanted to change . . . There is no question, they don’t bust their arse.

Considering the employees as a whole, with no specific reference to individuals the data highlighted a number of properties that reflect his perceptions in general terms. Whilst admitting the employees were conscientious to their jobs, they did not meet his desires for more efficient and effective (productive) outcomes. They are not motivated. They are reasonably conscientious. The resources are there but it’s getting the jobs done that’s the problem.

The lack of appreciation and motivation collectivised them all as being guilty of the same crime of wanting more remuneration without having to work more productively. They haven’t mentioned the 5 percent pay rise last April because they are all guilty about it . . . its cushy. There is no time frame, if I hassle them what can I do. That’s the power play.

In summary, “self as manager” grounds the analyses in original data. Like the employees’ data, it creates a multi-dimensional account of the manager’s meanings with regards to important (to him) issues that shape his individual perceptions, feelings, emotions and behaviours, subsequently impacting on the business, employees and him. What appears to have emerged from the manager’s explanation is a range of

defences and rationales to challenges levelled at his decisions and managing of the enterprise. Decision literature When starting out on a grounded theory approach the researcher should avoid conducting any specific literature review. It is expected that emergent theory will influence one’s recourse to relevant literature (Lincoln and Guba, 1985; Stern, 1994; Strauss and Corbin, 1994). Nevertheless, no researcher is devoid of pre-knowledge, be it closely associated or tenuously linked to that under study. Moreover, the grounded theorist is a significant element of the data gathering and analytical processes – everything (including that of the researcher) is data (Glaser, 1978). It would be imprudent for the grounded theorist to embark on any premature reading of literature that may offer anything other than a partial framework of local concepts that possibly aid in identifying basic features of the situation being studied – and “be contaminated by concepts more suited to different areas” (Glaser and Strauss, 1967, p. 37) thus leaving him/her with anything other than “open mindedness” (Connell and Lowe, 1997, p. 172) to emergent theory. Accordingly the illustrative, later stage, literature review on decision theory follows. Management and organisational decision theory, has over the last few decades received the dominant attention of the so-called “psychophysical” researcher (for example, Von Neumann and Morgenstern, 1944; Edwards, 1954; Teger and Pruitt, 1967; Slovic and Lichenstein, 1971; Hammond et al., 1975; Arrow, 1982; Ball and Datta, 1997). Nonetheless, there has been some attention given to decision theory from the less positivistic perspective (for example, Barnard, 1936, 1938; Simon, 1945, 1997; March and Simon, 1958; Weick, 1995, 2001; Bazerman, 1998). It was work by Kahneman and Tversky (1974) that became a notable turning point in contemporary decision research. Despite coming from psychophysical backgrounds, their work focused on decision research using the dominant normative rational approach as their departure point. Kahneman and Tversky contended that traditional axioms and rules are incomplete as behavioural norms in decision making, highlighting the necessity to consider the decision maker as someone who does not necessarily seek (nor expect) utility as being the rational decision outcome. Human behaviour acting in a rational “transitive” manner would expect to observe human choice and judgment preferring A to B and B to C and thus logically preferring A to C. Kahneman and Tversky’s work challenged such logical behaviour evidencing people who on occasions display “intransitive” preferences – preferring in given circumstances C to A. Simon (1945, 1997) and Maule and Hodgkinson (2003) have contended that constraints on the rationality hypothesis in understanding decision making has led to studying decisions from a behavioural perspective. Like Simon, Barnard (1936, 1938) believed that the activity of decision making was, within the context of business organisation, synonymous with managing. It is the making of decisions that differentiates the manager from other actors and their activities within an organisation. The manager makes decisions and manages resources within the naturalistic context of the organisation. A significant contemporary development in decision research has broadly been described as “naturalistic decision theory”. Researchers in naturalistic decision theory have moved to studying decision makers in their natural settings (Beach and Mitchell,

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1990; Klein et al., 1993; Zsambok and Klein, 1997). The contexts studied have been across a range of situations where judgment and elected decisions may often be required within short time scales (for example: military, nuclear power, health). Within business and management contexts there are some reports (Schmitt, 1997; Smith, 1997). This paper also conveys its findings on managerial decisions from a naturalistic perspective. What follows is a discussion of the illustrated literature in conjunction with the grounded theory derived findings. Discussion Biases and heuristics (Kahneman and Tversky, 1979) were predicated on the “intransivity” of human preferences. The manager’s contention of the business needing to change, hence the decisions he made, was posited on his logical argument that the business needed to change to survive. It could be argued that the manager’s decisions to change the business was based on his psychological desire to manage a business that was the product of his accomplishments and not that of others – previous or present. The differences between the employees’ perceptions and those of the manager affected all actors’ behaviours. The manager’s behaviour was affected as a consequence of the affected behaviour of employees, especially the expert power holding principal engineers. The manager’s perceptions of the principal engineers particularly, manifested a negative behaviour towards them, with retributions affecting all employees. The outcomes from individual cognitive differences and perceptions within the small company evoked feelings and emotions, decisions, attitudes, evaluations and actions. It was the emergence of such outcomes across a number of dimensions with which the manager made his decisions and managed the company against the dimensions with which the employees cognitively evaluated the manager’s performance. All actors conveyed many perceptions of situations within which they were inherently entwined, by all being in the same naturalistic organisational environment. For the manager, his managerial perceptions of significant business bound phenomena are arguably linked to his cognitive structuring of decisions and subsequent managerial behaviour. Maule and Hodgkinson (2003) advance such similarities between managerial perceptions and those emanating from the field of behavioural decision making. This theoretical connectedness also appears linked within the reported case. The manager embarked upon growth and process decisions for the business in situations that tended towards risk and uncertainty. His reaction decisions were either reactions to his previous decisions or reactions to (perceived) employees’ behaviours to his previous decisions. Such reaction decisions negatively affected employees’ feelings, emotions and behaviours, with ill-considered effects on the business – thus carrying risks in themselves. Arguably what was being experienced was a contentious mix of “logical” and “non-logical” (not illogical) thought processes (Barnard, 1936). The minds of the logico-deductive principal engineers were clashing with the more intuitive non-logical manager. According to Barnard’s thesis, the framing of decisions will be distinctly different. Logical engineers will frame decisions applying subjective expected utility (SEU) (Von Neumann and Morgenstern, 1944). This cognitive processing would be a

normal structuring process within their jobs. The manager admitting his lack of interest of anything technical, and, the industry he had bought into, framed decisions more non-logically. Because of such human differences between employees generally and the manager, and the principal engineers especially, due to their expertise, any attempt at explaining the restructuring of the organisation by the manager had been avoided. This chasm is naturally filled by recipients’ own “sense making” (Weick, 1995, 2001). The manager may have embarked on decisions that could be argued as being the product of his framing of the situation. However, in retrospect, his framing has been inappropriate and he needed to have “imagined” what would have been necessary to reach his goals (Beach and Mitchell, 1990). Nonetheless, the manager embarked on a series of growth, process and reaction decisions, but appeared not to have applied any “hindsight frame” in pragmatically moving from a failed decision to a successful one. The manager appeared to over use intuition and non-logical decision making (Barnard, 1938; Simon, 1987). Assigning considerable “weight” to winning, the manager’s cognitive framing of issues is intertwined with the weight he places on gains over any loses. Wishing to establish the business as his encourages him to gamble in his decision making, which appears to show him as erring towards making decisions under conditions of high risk or even uncertainty – where outcomes cannot be judged. His elicitation of information required prior to decision making appeared limited as he preferred not to engage in a group structured framing of decisions. Arguably, the manager “gambled” in his decision making (Kahneman and Tversky, 1979) as he placed a higher “value” (rather than ‘utility’) on winning. Being cognitively “intransitive” he sought to gain control through a number of individually contrived strategies that would place him as sole manager and decision maker of the business, not in any de facto partnership. However, as every gambler knows, the game (a term used by the manager) is one where a competitor (or combatant) can lose as well as win. The manager was applying heuristics and biases (Kahneman and Tversky, 1974) in his decision making. Heuristics being trial and error, he appeared to trial a number of decisions that could be interpreted as culminating in failure. He reflectively conveyed a bias that after four years of owning the business the reality was that it had not changed to meet his aspirations. Tacitly or explicitly agreed decisions by the principal engineers not to comply with significant manager’s decisions, arguably gave the principal engineers organisational decision-making capabilities – at least in part. The principal engineers applied their own collective heuristics and biases, particularly the “anchoring” heuristic (Kahneman and Tversky, 1974). The principal engineers’ initial collective starting point from which they evaluated the new manager was “anchored” in historical practices. Such biases were sufficiently powerful to affect strategic and operational management of the business. The principal engineers’ sense making (Weick, 1995, 2001) may hold some attribution to them perceiving themselves as guardians of the company against the exigencies of the manager. Retrospectively they are measuring the manager’s performance over the time of his stewardship, subsequently measured over the time the company has been in existence. The rest of the employees measured him over individual shorter historical perspectives.

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Such sense making is either “belief” or “action” driven (Weick, 1995, 2001). What is occurring is “action-driven” sense manking by the manager clashing with “belief-driven” sense making by the principal engineers. The former is action-based decision making that generates commitments, whilst the latter is founded on arguing and envisioning decision consequences. There was no evidence of reconciliation. Conclusion It is normal practice for the grounded theorist, to either present one’s substantive findings in the form of “a codified set of propositions or as a running theoretical discussion using conceptual categories and their properties” (Glaser and Strauss, 1967, p. 31) – the latter form has been exampled here. As earlier inferred, to give credence to substantive theory generation one would have to account for all data analysed. To advance the epistemological significance of grounded theory in management and decision research, within the qualitative paradigm, this paper has selectively discussed in-depth data with relevant selected literature – accordingly some theory has been reported. The emergent theory has exposed actors’ disputed perceptions of how the business had been managed and should be managed, and, the judgments and decisions that had been made and consequently should be made. The result is deep-seated management-employee discord. This entrenched dissonance threatens the very survival of the business. Nevertheless, such risk to all actors’ livelihoods and especially to those of the new manager and the long serving principal engineers does not appear to deter either side from continuing to be cognitively and behaviourally antagonistic towards each other. Winning the battle for the perceived ownership of the business emerged as being of prime importance, whilst the viability of the business has been eclipsed by the manager’s goal of wanting to singularly control the business without resort to consultation or negotiation with employees. This determination had witnessed the manager engage in decision making under conditions of risk-to-uncertainty as he gambled on decision outcomes and behaved intransitively in the belief that such practices would eventually result in making the business his and his alone. By applying grounded theory methodology the human complexities of managing such an enterprise have been uncovered. The research discussed within this paper adhered to the original guiding principles of The Discovery of Grounded Theory (Glaser and Strauss, 1967). Reflexively, personal values build up and predispose on to a mental map. If one were not to adhere to the precepts of grounded theory in inductive theory building it would naturally allow for an array of personal interpretations of data to explain away events and phenomena. With this in mind the research remained “faithful to the data rather than forcing it to fit a theory” (Glaser and Strauss, 1967, p. 34) and accessed relevant literature only after theoretical categories and their properties had materialised (Glaser, 1978). Consequently recourse to decision theory literature and associated management theory emerged as core literature for this substantive inquiry. However, such essential practice is not to be construed as an abandonment of alternative theoretical perspectives beholding potentially constructive contributions to the discussion. As was applied to the broader research from which this paper was drawn – a number of interpretive lenses offered enriching perspectives to a wider debate (inter alia: “power” (e.g. Weber, 1930; Foucault, 1986; Lukes, 1986), the “psychological contract” (e.g.

Levinson et al., 1962; Schein, 1965; Robinson et al., 1994) and “attribution theory” (e.g. Heider, 1958; Kelley, 1967; Weiner, 1985)). In summary, the primary objectives of this paper have been to establish the worthiness of applying grounded theory to investigating complex management issues, to illustrate what can be theoretically developed, and, in discussing the contribution grounded theory offers to researching within the qualitative paradigm, what rewards for such meticulous attention to detail can be produced. Theory building whilst grounded in a particular inquiry has the capacity to generate further research questions and tentative explanations at more formal levels. Such development is not only inductive (data into theory) but is inherently field based and practice orientated. The original research project’s aims were not seeking to offer management solutions or recommendations but sought to gain deeper ontological and epistemological understanding of organisational management within a naturalistic context. Nevertheless, grounded theory methodology does appear to display the capacity to develop theories for both practical and wider levels of management inquiry. References Andriopolos, C. and Lowe, A. (2000), “Enhancing organisational creativity: the process of perpetual challenging”, Management Decision, Vol. 38 No. 10, pp. 734-42. Arrow, K. (1982), “Risk perception in psychology and economics”, Economic Inquiry, Vol. 20 No. 1, pp. 1-9. Bacharach, S. (1989), “Organizational theories: some criteria for evaluation”, Academy of Management Review, Vol. 14 No. 4, pp. 496-515. Ball, M. and Datta, A. (1997), “Managing operations research models for decision support: systems application in a data base environment”, Annuals of Operations Research, Vol. 72, pp. 151-82. Barnard, C. (1936), “Mind in everyday affairs: an examination into logical and non logical thought processes, Cyrus Fogg Brackett Lectureship Services”, Journal of Management History, Vol. 1 No. 4 (reviewed 1995). Barnard, C. (1938), The Functions of the Executive, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA. Bazerman, M. (1998), Judgement in Managerial Decision Making, 4th ed., Wiley, London. Beach, L. and Mitchell, T. (1990), “Image theory: a behaviorial theory of decision making in organisations”, Research in Organisational Behaviour, Vol. 12, pp. 1-41. Cassell, C. and Symon, G. (2004), Essential Guide to Qualitative Methods in Organizational Research, Sage, London. Charmaz, K. (1990), “Discovering chronic illness: using grounded theory”, Social Science Medical, Vol. 30 No. 11, pp. 1161-72. Connell, J. and Lowe, A. (1997), “Generating grounded theory from qualitative data: the application of inductive methods in tourism and hospitality management research”, Progress in Tourism and Hospitality Research, Vol. 3, pp. 165-73. Douglas, D. (2003a), “Reflections on research supervision: a grounded theory case of reflective practice”, Research in Post-Compulsory Education, Vol. 8 No. 2, pp. 213-29. Douglas, D. (2003b), “Inductive theory generation: a grounded approach to business inquiry”, Electronic Journal of Business Research Methods, Vol. 2 No. 1, pp. 1-9, available at :www. ejbrm.com Dubin, R. (1978), Theory Development, Free Press, New York, NY.

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Simon, H. (1945), Administrative Behavior: A Study of Decision Making Processes in Administrative Organization, 1st ed., Macmillan, New York, NY. Simon, H. (1987), “Making management decisions: the role of intuition and emotion”, Academy of Management Executive, February, pp. 57-64. Simon, H. (1997), Administrative Behavior: A Study of Decision Making Processes in Administrative Organization, 5th ed., Macmillan, New York, NY. Slovic, P. and Lichenstein, S. (1971), “Comparison of Bayesian and regression approaches to the study of human information processing in judgment”, Organizational Behavior and Human Performance, Vol. 6, pp. 649-744. Smith, G. (1997), “Managerial problem solving: a problem-centered approach”, in Zsambok, C. and Klein, G. (Eds), Naturalistic Decision Making, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Hillsdale, NJ, pp. 371-82. Stake, R. (2003), “Case studies”, in Denzin, N. and Lincoln, Y. (Eds), Strategies of Qualitative Inquiry, Sage, Thousand Oaks, CA, pp. 134-64. Stern, P.N. (1994), “Eroding grounded theory”, in Morse, J.M. (Ed.), Critical Issues in Qualitative Research Methods, Sage, London, pp. 210-23. Strauss, A. (1987), Qualitative Analysis for Social Scientists, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Strauss, A. and Corbin, J. (1994), “Grounded theory methodology: an overview”, in Denzin, N.K. and Lincoln, Y.S. (Eds), Handbook of Qualitative Research, Sage, London, pp. 273-85. Teger, A. and Pruitt, D. (1967), “Components of group risk taking”, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol. 3, pp. 189-205. Van Maanen, J. (1979), “Reclaiming qualitative methods for organizational research: a preface”, Administrative Science Quarterly, p. 24. Von Neumann, J. and Morgenstern, O. (1944), Theory of Games and Economic Behavior, Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ. Weber, M. (1930), The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, Scribner, New York, NY. Weick, K. (1995), Sensemaking in Organizations, Sage, Newbury Park, CA. Weick, K. (2001), Making Sense of the Organization, Blackwell, Oxford. Weiner, B. (1985), “An attributional theory of achievement, motivation and emotion”, Psychological Review, Vol. 92, pp. 548-73. Whetten, D. (1989), “What contributes a theoretical contribution”, Academy of Management Review, Vol. 14 No. 4, pp. 490-5. Zsambok, C. and Klein, G. (1997), Naturalistic Decision Making, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Hillsdale, NJ.

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Erna Szabo Institute for International Management Studies, Johannes Kepler University, Linz, Austria Abstract Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to summarise the findings of a qualitative cross-cultural study of participation in managerial decision making. Design/methodology/approach – In this paper theme-focused interviews were conducted with middle managers in five European countries and the transcripts were analysed using elements of the grounded theory method. In the context of the current study, grounded theory served as a suitable method for detecting both general patterns and country-specific particularities. Findings – The findings of the present study suggest that country-specific models of participation exist which is embedded in broader country- and culture-specific concepts. In addition, decision type, time-related issues and conflict emerge from the study as the main general context factors influencing managerial choices on the use of participation. The comparison of the current qualitative findings with earlier quantitative research suggests a good match with two of the studies (that investigated participatory behaviour in context) but not the third (that investigated participatory values). Research limitations/implications – The exploratory character of the study imposes certain limitations on its findings which could be addressed in future research by studying other countries and cohorts and possibly by employing additional or different types of methodology. Practical implications – The qualitative study findings are of interest to organisations engaging in business relations abroad as well as to individual expatriates in each of the five European countries included in the study. Originality/value – In contrast to earlier quantitative studies with a similar focus, this research initiative explores the meaning and enactment of participation from a holistic perspective, taking context factors into account and integrating the findings into earlier research. Keywords Decision making, Employee participation, Cross-cultural management, Middle managers, Europe Paper type Research paper

Introduction Rational models of decision-making characteristically include problem definition, generating and evaluating alternatives, selecting one alternative and implementing it. In reality, decisions are rarely made in such a rational manner for a variety of reasons such as incomplete information, complexity of the problem, time constraints or conflicting preferences among the decision makers. March and Simon (1958) termed Management Decision Vol. 44 No. 2, 2006 pp. 276-289 q Emerald Group Publishing Limited 0025-1747 DOI 10.1108/00251740610650247

The research described in this article was made possible by a “Habilitation Stipendium” of the Austrian “Fonds zur Fo¨rderung wissenschaftlicher Forschung”. The author thanks Gerhard Reber, Iris Fischlmayr and Sonja Holm for their valuable suggestions in the writing of the article. The author also wishes to express gratitude to two anonymous reviewers for their critical comments on an earlier draft of the article.

this phenomenon “bounded rationality”. Giving subordinates a “voice” (Hirschman, 1970), or more specifically, enabling subordinates to participate in decision making is one way to alleviate some of the problems that exist due to bounded rationality. When subordinates are allowed to participate in the decision-making process, they are frequently able to provide valuable information, which would otherwise be lacking. Also, group discussions can lead to consensus decisions if the participants have the opportunity to gain understanding and appreciation for the other parties’ views. Cross-cultural management research suggests that participation of subordinates varies among countries. This difference is shown in general studies of cultural variation, such as in Hofstede’s (1980) work, e.g. power distance (i.e. the degree to which members of a society expect power to be unequally shared among its members) serves as a predictive factor for the degree of subordinate involvement. Cross-cultural variation in participative managerial behaviour has also been studied directly, e.g. Tannenbaum et al. (1974); Jago et al. (1993); Dorfman et al. (1997) and Gill and Krieger (2000). With regard to methodology, most research initiatives follow the quantitative paradigm and use standardised questionnaires and statistical analysis methods as tools for comparison. In the majority of these studies, the quantitative results form the basis for ex-post explanations by the researchers with regard to similarities or differences among countries. In contrast to ex-post explanations, qualitative methodology aims at finding explanations directly in the field, by employing such methods as interviews or observations. Qualitative research is well suited for the exploration of participation from a holistic perspective because it places an “emphasis on people’s lived experience” (Miles and Huberman, 1994, p. 10), masters complexity (Usunier, 1998) and leads to new theoretical insights (Glaser and Strauss, 1967). For these reasons, qualitative methodology constitutes an addition to the body of cross-cultural knowledge on participation built through quantitative inquiry. However, qualitative methodology has traditionally been criticised for not being well suited for cross-cultural research, one of the main reasons being the difficulty of comparing findings across cultural settings (Berry, 1969). However, qualitative approaches differ significantly with regard to this criterion. One qualitative method found to be well suited for cross-cultural research is grounded theory (Glaser and Strauss, 1967; Strauss and Corbin, 1998). This article demonstrates how a qualitative study using elements of the grounded theory approach can generate country-specific models of participation, allow comparison between countries, as well as enrich and clarify the results of quantitative inquiry. It is also of some importance to introduce and situate myself, the researcher, within the framework and issues of the current study. I was born and raised in Austria, yet I have extensive experience with working and living in other cultures and languages. In terms of epistemological position, I adhere to the interpretive paradigm. Overview and purpose of the study A review of earlier cross-cultural studies into participation provided the springboard for the current research initiative. In a first step, 18 studies were reviewed and categorised according to the main aspects of participation they examine, such as level of participation, enactment/form of participation, prerequisites and mediating factors. The review

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suggested that the results of the various studies do not lend themselves easily to direct comparison. For example, a number of studies focus on the level of participation, yet they measure different intra-personal constructs such as attitudes (e.g. Haire et al., 1966), reflections of one’s own participative behaviour (e.g. Dorfman et al., 1997), behavioural intentions (e.g. Jago et al., 1993) or perceptions of the ideal level of participation (e.g. House et al., 2004). Furthermore, participation is treated as a broad behavioural pattern by some researchers, while other studies explore specific behaviours. The review also showed that some aspects of participation that have repeatedly been discussed in the theoretical participation literature (Heller et al., 1998), such as meaning underlying participative behaviour, range of participants, context factors and possible outcomes of participation have not yet been covered by cross-cultural studies. Using the review as a base, the current study aims at answering two research questions: (1) The meaning and enactment of participation from a cross-cultural perspective. (2) General context factors. Additional goals of the study concern the enhancement of theoretical and practical knowledge on participation and the integration of the findings with earlier research, in particular, with three large-scale quantitative research programmes: (1) Empirical research based on the Vroom and Yetton (1973) decision-making model, which studies participation on a continuum ranging from autocratic to consultative, group decision making and which takes context factors into account (e.g. Jago et al., 1993; Szabo et al., 1997; Reber et al., 2000). (2) Studies based on the Event Management model (Smith and Peterson, 1988) which focuses on the factors (e.g. formal rules, subordinates) a manager uses as guidance sources whenever faced with “typical” managerial events, such as hiring a new employee (e.g. Smith et al., 2002). (3) The GLOBE project (House et al., 2004), which studies, among other areas, universal and culture-specific leadership ideals (e.g. Brodbeck et al., 2000; Weibler et al., 2000; Szabo et al., 2001) and provides country scales related to aspects such as participative leadership. The following five countries, the Czech Republic, Finland, Germany, Poland and Sweden, were selected for the current study based on: . Representation of different cultural clusters (Ronen and Shenkar, 1985) as well as geographical areas with differing historical and economic backgrounds. . The possibility of integration because all three quantitative studies report findings on these countries. Method Given its aims, the current study takes a methodological approach with a qualitative core, yet it aims at integrating the qualitative findings with the results of quantitative research. First, participation was explored in each of the five countries separately, and subsequently, the country-specific findings were compared with each other and related back to the quantitative studies.

Sampling strategy Within each country, data were collected from middle managers. However, the country samples were not only defined with regard to national boundaries; the respondents in each country sample were born and raised in that country and were native speakers of the “main language group”. Defining the sample in these terms goes beyond a pure equation of country and culture, which is frequently criticised in the cross-cultural literature (Schaffer and Riordan, 2003). The sample consisted of middle managers, which allows for comparison with the three quantitative studies (integration perspective). However, this focus also placed limitations on the findings (see discussion section). It was further decided to work with a small number of interviewees per country, applying the principle of maximal differentiation as a sampling strategy (Agar, 1996). Maximising differences means that within each country, the interviewees are as different as possible in as many aspects as possible, e.g. in age, gender and functional area. Miles and Huberman (1994) argue that the data from a small number of respondents sampled according to this strategy reveals patterns of common understanding shared by the majority of the members of the wider population. Sample size Sample size was determined after a pilot test in the Czech Republic. Data resulting from interviews with no more than five managers turned out to be rich enough to detect stable patterns and build a country-specific model of participation. As a conservative estimate for the main study, it was decided to sample data from at least six managers per country. The final sample exceeded this number and totalled 35 middle managers, counting seven Czechs, eight Finns, eight Germans, six Poles and six Swedes. The different numbers in the various countries resulted from a larger number of managers initially approached, assuming that some might withdraw from participating in the study, which only a few did. Procedures Data were collected from interviews, following the collection of some quantitative data required for reflection purposes during the last part of the interviews (see below). As the research represents an initial exploratory project, other qualitative methods such as observations, or alternative samples such as subordinates, were excluded to reduce complexity. Access was facilitated by contact persons, in most cases colleagues of mine at academic institutions situated in the five countries. Most interviews took place at the interviewees’ workplace, with no additional people present in the room. In some cases, it was agreed to meet in a different location following the interviewees’ suggestions. The interviews were between one and two hours in duration and were recorded on audiotape with the permission of the interviewees. Language and cultural meanings The interviews were conducted in either German or English, depending on the mother tongue and language skills of the interviewee. Language issues make up a serious challenge to cross-cultural research in general (Usunier, 1998; Tayeb, 2001) and to this study in particular because most of the interviews were conducted in a second language. Additionally, language and culture are strongly related (Agar, 1994) and

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possibly, this results in meaning differences across languages. Furthermore, researchers “are perfectly human and as culturally biased as other mortals” (Hofstede, 1994, p. 8) and it is necessary to minimise the “ethnocentric bias” (Usunier, 1998). Therefore, before data collection took place, I thoroughly reflected upon my own understanding of participation, for example by defining participation to myself and examining the definition for theoretical and cultural influences. The interviews were characterised by posing probing questions, mirroring back statements to the interviewees, requests for elaboration and attempts to clarify the cultural meaning of words and concepts. Interview styles I took the role of a sympathetic and interested outsider and foreigner and refrained from expressing my own opinion on the study topic. The interviews were theme-focused in order to structure the data to ensure comparability across respondents and countries. Interviewees were asked to bring in their own experience in order to obtain rich personal descriptions. Detailed attention was paid to the “courtesy bias” (Usunier, 1998, p. 121), the risk of shaping answers to please the interviewer. Due to my professional background and the exclusive use of interview-based data, this was a potential concern. To address this issue, each part of the interview looked at participation from a different angle thus allowing me to evaluate each interviewee’s data for internal consistency. Furthermore, asking for personal experiences rather than abstract statements also helped minimise the bias. Interview topics The interviews consisted of four parts: (1) A brief introduction to myself, and the project (overt research role). To minimise researcher effects on the respondents (Miles and Huberman, 1994), the interviewees were informed in a corresponding fashion about the interview and study purposes. Since it was the first face-to-face encounter with the interviewee, this phase also served the purpose of establishing rapport (Agar, 1996; Schaffer and Riordan, 2003). (2) Personal definition of participation: respondents were asked to define in their own words what participation meant to them and relate this definition to their own managerial practice. (3) Description by interviewee of areas and problems that qualify particularly well or particularly poorly for participation, giving examples from own experience. (4) Reflection about quantitative research results: in preparation for the interviews, the managers had completed the instruments of the three quantitative studies and had received detailed written feedback. During the interviews, the managers were asked to comment on the quantitative results, provide examples from their own experience and elaborate on emerging country-specific themes. There was little risk that the initial quantitative data collection ‘contaminated’ the qualitative data because neither questionnaires nor written feedback stressed the concept of participation. Rather, the documents related to leadership styles, leader attributes and guidance sources. Thus, while setting

the stage for the interviews, no preconditioning of the interviewees with regard to participation had taken place. Grounded theory adopted The current study poses questions with regard to analysis method that do not usually surface in quantitatively oriented cross-cultural studies or in studies of single settings. These questions concern the attention to country-specific particularities while simultaneously ensuring cross-cultural comparison. Grounded theory (Glaser and Strauss, 1967; Strauss and Corbin, 1998) was found to be an appropriate analysis method, although some elements of the original method required adaptation to suit the study’s specific needs. In general, grounded theory provides rather structured strategies to arrive at theoretical, yet empirically grounded, statements about social phenomena. In other words, it supports the translation of data into abstract concepts of explanation. Following the grounded theory approach, data are systematically analysed for relevant concepts and links between concepts, such as conditions and consequences (Strauss and Corbin, 1994). With regard to the current study, data coding of the interview transcripts resulted in descriptive codes, which were aggregated to more general categories and abstract country-specific concepts, as exemplified in Figure 1. In grounded theory, data collection, data analysis and evolving theory are closely related (Strauss and Corbin, 1994). According to the original method, data collection is based on the principle of theoretical sampling, i.e. “directed by the emerging theory” (Goulding, 2002, p. 170) and continues until theoretical saturation is achieved i.e. new data provide no new insights. For the current study, the sample was defined based on theoretical criteria (see above). A full overlap of data collection and analysis did not take place, as an extended stay in each of the five countries was not feasible due to time and financial constraints. However, themes emerging from prior interviews influenced subsequent data collection, in the form of probing questions and requests to elaborate on emerging country-specific themes. Theoretical saturation was controlled in two ways: the first criterion concerned the number of new codes per interview, whereas the second was related to open questions about concepts and their relationships. Both criteria were expected to decrease considerably as the analysis unfolded and eventually

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Figure 1. From codes to concepts in the analysis of the Polish data

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amount to zero, after all interviews of a country had been analysed. As it turned out, both criteria were met in the analysis for all five countries. In grounded theory, asking questions and constant comparison are the two main procedures throughout the complete analysis process. Questions and comparisons increase the likelihood that “analysts will discover both variation and general patterns” (Strauss and Corbin, 1998, p. 85) and support the generation of abstract concepts. Furthermore, these procedures ensure that validation of the findings is incorporated into every step of the analysis (Strauss and Corbin, 1998). The current study utilised the two procedures extensively. Moreover, questions and emerging concepts were stored in “memos” to facilitate the analysis process. Using memos also helped detect possible blind spots resulting from my own cultural conditioning. Further validation was sought by presenting the emerging country-specific models of participation to local research colleagues for their feedback. Country-specific models of participation This section and the following provide a summary and overview of some of the key findings, whereas the detailed analysis is presented elsewhere (Szabo, forthcoming). The first research question concerned the meaning and enactment of participation in five European countries. The data suggest strong variation between the Czech, Finnish, German, Polish and Swedish samples. Most notably, the meaning of participation is embedded in broader country and culture-specific concepts, and the enactment of participation is naturally determined to a great extent by this more or less implicit understanding. The managers in the Czech sample speak about participation highly positively, yet their seemingly positive attitude toward participation is frequently contrasted by descriptions of autocratic managerial practice. This discrepancy is illustrated in the following quotes from Czech managers: I’m convinced that participation is good for most situations. “It’s common that the boss has the final say”, I said to them. “So please, it does not matter whether you have comments or not. You have to follow this decision. Without any discussion.”

Mainly, the Czech managers’ attitudes toward subordinates defines whether they take participation into account or not: managers portraying their subordinates as “trustworthy experts” involve them in decision making. In contrast, subordinates described as “irresponsible children” are excluded from decision making. In both cases, the manager is responsible for making the final decision. Outside specialists are frequently included in decision making, with a tendency of some managers to delegate responsibility and blindly follow the specialists’ recommendations. This pattern may be a legacy of the communist regime. In contrast, the “trustworthy expert” view of subordinates by some of the managers suggests potential changes in the Czech way of thinking about management and participation, seemingly influenced by increasing experiences with Western executive education and business practice after the Velvet Revolution. The Finnish sample is characterised by values of autonomy and concern for quality. Independent work of empowered employees defines work life. Consequently,

participation is viewed as a tool for the integration of independent work and opinions. The manager’s role is that of a facilitator who prepares the ground for the empowered subordinates to contribute effectively to decision making. The manager is also the one officially responsible for a decision and for its outcomes. The following quotes by Finnish managers emphasise the integration aspect:

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I think good leaders are good at synthesising different opinions

The data of the German managers suggest a pattern of thinking in terms of effectiveness and an overall aim to optimise work and management. Participation is an integral part of managerial decision making, used as a highly effective tool to achieve sound decisions and ensure employee motivation: I try to let decisions emerge from among the group of subordinates. And there are teambuilding processes going on, for sure. It’s not satisfactory that everyone just defends his own opinion, you have to take a few steps to reach the others.

German subordinates are considered “valuable human capital”, who can contribute effectively to decision making. External specialists are frequently used for consultation but the final decisions stays within the organisation. Some of the interviewed managers were in favour of sharing responsibility between manager and subordinates. Participation often takes place in structured forms, such as weekly unit meetings, which ties in with the German preference for structural rather than improvised arrangements (i.e. high uncertainty avoidance (Hofstede (1980)). The Polish data are characterised by economic efficiency, with organisational survival and prosperity predominantly on the managers’ minds. Participation is limited to providing information to the manager rather than consultation, as is illustrated by the following quote: If we have to implement a new plan, step by step, it is always good to get some information from the subordinates.

The subordinates primarily deliver the required information, but external specialists may also be used for input. It is the manager’s task to collect and integrate all the information and then make the decision. Additionally, managers are a highly valued group within Polish society and it is considered a valuable contribution to societal “stability” when their decision making boosts the success of the organisation. Providing stability was described as a particularly crucial issue during the current highly instable times, characterised by high unemployment and numerous reforms in progress. The Swedish managers value equality and fairness and act on the premise of “smooth interpersonal relations”. Participation is a “natural ingredient” of managerial decision making and emerged from the data as related to Swedish consensus orientation and communication style. Managers seek consultation with “everyone who may be able to provide valid input”, including subordinates, colleagues, the manager’s own superior and specialists inside and outside the organisation: Participation is to be able to affect something, to be within the decision process and to be a part of the decision [. . .] from the manager’s standpoint it is basically to collect, to get input and to get help in the decision process.

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On the one hand, the act of participating ensures smooth relations because subordinates and other parties expect to be involved. On the other hand, all participants are expected to contribute to a smooth decision-making process with as little tension and conflict as possible. Decisions often directly emerge from a group discussion. In summary, the meaning and enactment of participation in the five countries emerged from the data as related to broader concepts such as history, economic situation, communication, uncertainty avoidance and view on managers and subordinates. General context factors The second research question dealt with the main common context factors that constitute the meaning and enactment of participation. As the above section suggests, there are many country-specific particularities. Across countries, three context factors emerged from the data, namely decision type, time-related issues and conflict. Decision type revealed the strongest impact on whether or not managers make use of participation and to what extent. The two categories most frequently referred to relate to major (strategic/large/important) versus minor (operational/small/ unimportant) decisions. Participatory decision making is preferred for major decisions by the managers in Finland and Sweden, whereas minor decisions are solved with less subordinate involvement in Sweden and a preference for delegation in Finland. The main argument for the Swedish solution to minor problems is not to bother subordinates with unimportant issues, whereas major issues deserve as many opinions as possible. In Finland, empowerment and delegation are highly valued and practiced and consequently, only decisions requiring integration (i.e. major decisions) call for participation: Of course, the more operative decision making is, the less participation you need in a way, I think. But the more vague or uncertain, the more participation you need, just in principal, and, overall (Finnish manager). I think participation is to be involved in any decision and also to some degree in strategy, in formal strategy. I think it’s really very important (Swedish manager).

The Czech and Polish data suggest a reversed pattern. Participation is “tolerated” for minor issues, whereas major decisions are solved at the managerial level: When you need to do restructuring, or deep change, this should be done autocratically, with only a few people behind you. [. . .] And then you try to spread the information to the company. If you use a very open approach, you fail (Czech manager). [Deciding about parking space] is just a simple case, it’s not very serious for the company’s field in general, and that’s why I think they can take care of it on their own (Polish manager).

In the case of Polish managers, this pattern originates from two forces: (1) High individualism (Hofstede, 1980) is combined with an image of managers being strong authoritarian figures and also with the pressure to achieve economic success.

(2) Overt autocratic managerial behaviour tends to be equated with the former communist system and is viewed somehow negatively. Consequently, allowing subordinates to participate on minor decisions is a compromise to satisfy the two positions. In the Czech case, mental and organisational structures in the workplace seem to serve as barriers to a more extensive use of participation: many subordinates and some of the managers still seem to maintain the opinion that participation reflects managerial weakness and indecisiveness. In Germany, both major and minor decisions qualify equally well for subordinate involvement in decision making, mainly based on the assumption that participation can improve decision quality and commitment independent of the decision’s importance. Time-related issues constitute the second main factor influencing the use of participation. These include time pressure and the efficient use of time. Managers across country samples tend to behave in a less participatory manner when facing time constraints, compared to cases with little time pressure: Depends on how much time you’ve got. If it’s a crisis or something like that, participation just takes too long (Czech manager). The decision had to be made quickly (Swedish manager).

Sometimes, regardless of country origin, participation is considered a waste of time. However, the issues and time spans that are considered a “waste of time” vary across country samples. For example, for the Polish managers the tolerated time span is fairly short, resulting in quick autocratic decisions. In contrast, the German data suggest a common acknowledgement that participation takes time. However, when a decision-making process drags on beyond the tolerated time span, managers try to reach a quick decision, but not necessarily by autocratic means as is the case for the Polish managers. Conflict is the third main factor influencing managerial use of participation. The data suggest differences between the five countries. Even the general meaning of the concept of “conflict” varies. Among the Swedes, a mere difference in opinion qualifies as “conflict”. Taking the Swedish preference for smooth interpersonal relations into account, conflict might threaten intact relations and has to be avoided at all costs, even if this means less participation. In contrast to the Swedes, the German managers view conflict as natural and a learning opportunity and only worry about it when it seems to get out of hand. Consequently, participatory behaviour is hardly influenced by potential conflict: In times when individuals are highly educated, it is only normal that people have different views and opinions. That’s not necessarily negative. I even think that’s useful, because you get to know other viewpoints (German manager).

The Finnish managers, with their preference for independent work within an integrative framework, similarly assume that different opinions will be voiced in decision-making processes. For the Czech Republic, the data suggest no conflict avoidance per se, but pressure on managers to prevent conflict, since dealing with conflict represents an unproductive use of time. Whenever a participatory setting

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seems to breed conflict, the Czech data suggest a tendency to switch to more autocratic forms of decision making. In a similar vein, the Polish managers view conflict as an obstacle to efficient and fast decision making. Integration The qualitative study resulted in country-specific models of participation. How do these findings fit with the results of the three quantitative studies? The country indices originating from the Vroom/Yetton studies are in line with the qualitative data: for example, the MLP (mean level of participation) score suggests that Swedish and German managers are highly participative, whereas Czech and Polish managers are significantly less participative. Additional indices (e.g. reaction to conflict) are also reflected in the qualitative data. The findings of the current study enrich the quantitative results by providing information about the meaning underlying participatory behaviour, the range of participants and the influence of the ascribed managerial and subordinate roles on the decision-making process. The Event Management study’s index “guidance factor subordinates” tends to fit with the country-specific models of participation detected by the current study. The qualitative data add to this result by pointing out the reasons that motivate managers to consult subordinates and by demonstrating that decision making for “typical” events, as studied by the Event Management programme, need not necessarily follow the same patterns as strategic decisions. Participative leadership ideals (GLOBE study) show little variation among the five countries and are, therefore, rather incongruent with the current study. The GLOBE results also differ from the outcome of the other two quantitative studies. A likely explanation is that leadership ideals influence behaviour only indirectly and in combination with other intra-personal factors, such as habits, and exogenous factors, such as forces of the situation (Szabo et al., 2001). In conclusion, the good match with the Vroom/Yetton and Event Management studies and the weak link with the GLOBE study point out the relevance of context factors as explored by the current study. Discussion This qualitative study is an exploratory first step into the meaning, enactment and context of participation across countries. The study also represents a step toward the integration of studies in the field of participative management. Following the grounded theory approach, data analysis resulted in a number of theoretical propositions (Szabo, forthcoming), such as the sample proposition included below, which may serve as basis for further exploration and testing in subsequent (quantitative and/or qualitative) research: Sample proposition: decision type influences participatory decision making, yet is country-specific in possibly different directions: “the more important a decision, the more participation” versus “the more important a decision, the less participation”.

With regard to methodology, the rich findings of the study imply that grounded theory can be a useful analysis tool for several areas in management research, in particular when the aim is to address questions about the meaning and context of social

phenomena. Furthermore, such projects need not be limited to single settings, but can also include a cross-cultural perspective, as demonstrated in the study described here. Future research may also combine self-reports with other qualitative methods, such as participant observation because replies to interview questions may not have a stable relationship to actual behaviour in naturally occurring situations (Silverman, 2001). In terms of its practical relevance, the findings of the current study contribute to a better understanding of the causes underlying managerial behaviour, which is becoming increasingly important within Europe as a consequence of continuing integration. Frequently, managers find themselves interacting with business partners, colleagues and subordinates from other cultural backgrounds. For successful interaction to take place, it is essential to understand the dynamics that shape ones’ own and the partner’s behaviour. However, the comparison perspective of the current study can only be a first step to be followed up because behavioural patterns detected in intra-cultural settings may not fully overlap with those of inter-cultural settings (Adler and Graham, 1989). This issue leads us to additional limitations of the current study, such as the small size of the sample. However, the sample is built based on theoretical considerations, maximising differences ensures generalisation across different types of middle managers, and the integration with earlier quantitative studies strengthens the validity of the findings for this very cohort. Moreover, the detected patterns likely apply to other managerial groups because the issues emerging from the current study reflect deeply ingrained ways of thinking (e.g. with regard to the managerial role or concepts such as conflict) which are likely to converge across hierarchical levels and organisational settings. Also related to the generalisation issue is the following observation: “Whereas mainstream approaches tend to generalise across frequencies, grounded theory tends to generalise in the direction of theoretical ideas” (Hunt and Ropo, 1995, p. 381). In this sense, the current study informs us about a wide range of possible variations in the meaning and enactment of participation and its context factors across countries and cultures. The managers represented in the current study all belong to “European” countries and cultures. Findings may turn out differently if the respondents’ cultural background is more diverse. Consequently, future research could concentrate on other countries or expand the current five-country sample for a more inclusive comparison process. Furthermore, the exclusive use of managerial data is an additional issue to be addressed. Managers represent a very specific cohort of society since managers worldwide face similar challenges, which may reflect upon their values, attitudes and behaviour. Future studies could, for example, explore participation from a subordinate perspective. This would add further complexity to the country-specific models of participation summarised in this paper. References Adler, N.J. and Graham, J.L. (1989), “Cross-cultural interaction: the international comparison fallacy?”, Journal of International Business Studies, Vol. 20 No. 3, pp. 515-37. Agar, M.H. (1994), Language Shock: Understanding the Culture of Conversation, Morrow, New York, NY.

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Agar, M.H. (1996), The Professional Stranger: An Informal Introduction to Ethnography, 2nd ed., Academic Press, San Diego, CA. Berry, J.W. (1969), “On cross-cultural comparability”, International Journal of Psychology, Vol. 4 No. 1, pp. 119-28. Brodbeck, F.C., Frese, M. and 44 co-authors (2000), “Cultural variation of leadership prototypes across 22 European countries”, Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, Vol. 73 No. 1, pp. 1-29. Dorfman, P.W., Howell, J.P., Hibino, S., Lee, J.K., Tate, U. and Bautista, A. (1997), “Leadership in Western and Asian countries: commonalities and differences in effective leadership processes across cultures”, Leadership Quarterly, Vol. 8 No. 3, pp. 233-74. Gill, C. and Krieger, H. (2000), “Recent survey evidence on participation in Europe: towards a European model?”, European Journal of Industrial Relations, Vol. 6 No. 1, pp. 109-32. Glaser, B.G. and Strauss, A.L. (1967), The Discovery of Grounded Theory: Strategies for Qualitative Research, Aldine, New York, NY. Goulding, C. (2002), Grounded Theory: A Practical Guide for Management, Business and Market Researchers, Sage, Thousand Oaks, CA. Haire, M., Ghiselli, E.E. and Porter, L.W. (1966), Managerial Thinking: An International Study, Wiley, New York, NY. Heller, F., Pusic, E., Strauss, G. and Wilpert, B. (1998), Organizational Participation: Myth and Reality, Oxford University Press, Oxford. Hirschman, A.O. (1970), Exit, Voice and Loyalty: Responses to Decline in Firms, Organizations, and States, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA. Hofstede, G. (1980), Culture’s Consequences: International Differences in Work Related Values, Sage, Beverly Hills, CA. Hofstede, G. (1994), “Management scientists are human”, Management Science, Vol. 40 No. 1, pp. 4-13. House, R.J., Hanges, P.J., Javidan, M., Dorfman, P.W. and Gupta, V. (2004), Culture, Leadership, and Organizations: The GLOBE Study of 62 Societies, Sage, Thousand Oaks, CA. Hunt, J.G. and Ropo, A. (1995), “Multi-level leadership: grounded theory and mainstream theory applied to the case of General Motors”, Leadership Quarterly, Vol. 6 No. 3, pp. 379-412. Jago, A.G., Reber, G., Bo¨hnisch, W., Maczynski, J., Zavrel, J. and Dudorkin, J. (1993), “Culture’s consequence? A seven nation study of participation”, in Rogers, D.F. and Raturi, A.S. (Eds), Proceedings of the 24th Annual Meeting of the Decision Sciences Institute, Decision Sciences Institute, Washington, DC, pp. 451-4. March, J.G. and Simon, H.A. (1958), Organizations, Wiley, New York, NY. Miles, M.B. and Huberman, A.M. (1994), Qualitative Data Analysis, 2nd ed., Sage, Thousand Oaks, CA. Reber, G., Jago, A.G., Auer-Rizzi, W. and Szabo, E. (2000), “Fu¨hrungsstile in sieben La¨ndern Europas – Ein interkultureller Vergleich”, in Regnet, E. and Hofmann, L.M. (Eds), Personalmanagement in Europa, Verlag fu¨r Angewandte Psychologie, Go¨ttingen, pp. 154-73. Ronen, S. and Shenkar, O. (1985), “Clustering countries on attitudinal dimensions: a review and synthesis”, Academy of Management Review, Vol. 10 No. 3, pp. 435-54. Schaffer, B.S. and Riordan, C.M. (2003), “A review of cross-cultural methodologies for organizational research: a best practices approach”, Organizational Research Methods, Vol. 6 No. 2, pp. 169-215. Silverman, D. (2001), Interpreting Qualitative Data: Methods for Analysing Talk, Text and Interaction, 2nd ed., Sage, Thousand Oaks, CA.

Smith, P.B. and Peterson, M.F. (1988), Leadership, Organizations and Culture, Sage, London. Smith, P.B., Peterson, M.F., Schwartz, S.H. and 43 co-authors (2002), “Cultural values, sources of guidance, and their relevance to managerial behavior: a 47-nation study”, Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, Vol. 33 No. 2, pp. 188-208. Strauss, A. and Corbin, J. (1994), “Grounded theory methodology: an overview”, in Denzin, N.K. and Lincoln, Y.S. (Eds), Handbook of Qualitative Research, Sage, Thousand Oaks, CA. Strauss, A. and Corbin, J. (1998), Basics of Qualitative Research: Techniques and Procedures for Developing Grounded Theory, 2nd ed., Sage, Thousand Oaks, CA. Szabo, E. (forthcoming), Participative Management in Five European Countries. Szabo, E., Jarmuz, S., Maczynski, J. and Reber, G. (1997), “Autocratic Polish versus participative Austrian leaders: more than a cliche´?”, Polish Psychological Bulletin, Vol. 28 No. 3, pp. 279-91. Szabo, E., Reber, G., Weibler, J., Brodbeck, F.C. and Wunderer, R. (2001), “Values and behavior orientation in leadership studies: reflections based on findings in three German-speaking countries”, Leadership Quarterly, Vol. 12 No. 2, pp. 219-44. Tannenbaum, A.S., Kavcic, B., Rosner, M., Vianello, M. and Wieser, G. (1974), Hierarchy in Organizations, Jossey-Bass, San Francisco, CA. Tayeb, M. (2001), “Conducting research across cultures: overcoming drawbacks and obstacles”, International Journal of Cross Cultural Management, Vol. 1 No. 1, pp. 91-108. Usunier, J.-C. (1998), International and Cross-cultural Management Research, Sage, Thousand Oaks, CA. Vroom, V.H. and Yetton, P.W. (1973), Leadership and Decision-making, University of Pittsburgh Press, Pittsburgh, PA. Weibler, J., Brodbeck, F.C., Szabo, E., Reber, G., Wunderer, R. and Moosmann, O. (2000), “Fu¨hrung in kulturverwandten Regionen: Gemeinsamkeiten und Unterschiede bei Fu¨hrungsidealen in Deutschland, O¨sterreich und der Schweiz”, Die Betriebswirtschaft, Vol. 60 No. 5, pp. 588-606. Further reading Bryman, A. and Bell, E. (2003), Business Research Methods, Oxford University Press, Oxford. Corresponding author Erna Szabo can be contacted at: [email protected]

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Catherine Cassell Manchester Business School, University of Manchester, Manchester, UK

Gillian Symon Department of Organizational Psychology, Birkbeck, University of London, London, UK

Anna Buehring Business School, Manchester Metropolitan University, Manchester, UK, and

Phil Johnson Management School, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK Abstract Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to present a piece of empirical work that investigates the current role and status of qualitative research within the management field. Design/methodology/approach – The research is based on 45 in-depth qualitative interviews with members of a range of different stakeholder groups, including: journal editors; qualitative researchers; Doctoral Programme Leaders; practitioners; and those who fund qualitative management research. Findings – The findings suggest that there is considerable variety in definitions of qualitative research; that there are still a number of issues surrounding the status and credibility of qualitative research within the field; and there is a need for greater access to researcher training in this area. Practical implications – The paper is of practical interest to qualitative researchers in that it details some of the issues surrounding publishing qualitative work. Originality/value – The paper presents original empirical work in this field. Keywords Management research, Qualitative methods, Training Paper type Research paper

Management Decision Vol. 44 No. 2, 2006 pp. 290-303 q Emerald Group Publishing Limited 0025-1747 DOI 10.1108/00251740610650256

Introduction Qualitative methods have a long history and tradition within business and management research, and have a well-established pedigree. For example, early ethnographies of managerial work have led to considerable insights into managerial experience and practice (e.g. Dalton, 1959; Mintzberg, 1973; Watson, 1977; Jackall, 1988; Watson, 1994). Qualitative methods have permeated all aspects of the management research field, ranging from the “softer” areas such as organizational analysis (Cassell and Symon, 2004), to the traditionally more quantitative areas of finance and accounting (see Lee and Humphrey, this edition). A wide variety of authors have highlighted the considerable contribution that qualitative research can make to the This research was funded by ESRC grant number H33250006 “Benchmarking good practice in qualitative management research”.

field, suggesting that research utilising qualitative techniques can provide rich insights in to the issues that interest both management practitioners and researchers (Boje, 2001; Crompton and Jones, 1988, Prasad and Prasad, 2002; Reason and Rowan, 1981; Van Maanen, 1979). Despite these plaudits from a variety of writers, it seems that research reporting qualitative data is still not as prevalent within the field as that which emanates from traditional positivist approaches, where the emphasis is upon the quantification of data. The most prestigious journals within the field continue to be viewed as hostile to qualitative research, despite the protestations of their editors (Cassell et al., 2005). This raises the interesting question of how qualitative research is perceived more generally within the management research community, and its role and status within that community. Clearly qualitative methods have much to offer the management researcher in enabling access to the subjective experiences of organizational life, but more recent discussions and debates about the future of management research have focused more on its purpose, rather than the methods and techniques by which it is conducted (e.g. Tranfield and Starkey, 1998; Starkey and Madan, 2001). The aim of this paper is to investigate the current role and status of qualitative research in the management field. In the paper we seek to address the key issues surrounding qualitative research in the field by drawing on a research project that was designed to assess current perceptions of qualitative research within the business and management area. Firstly we discuss some of the issues surrounding the visibility of qualitative research in the field, in order to set the context for the study outlined. We then outline the methodology of the study and present the findings of the research. Finally we draw out some of the implications of our findings for researchers in the management area, with a focus on highlighting the potential ways in which change can be brought about in this domain. Positioning qualitative research Despite the alleged benefits of qualitative research, it is clear that within some areas reading many of the “prestigious” journals in the management discipline gives the impression that most research is guided by a positivist approach and is dominated by quantitative techniques of analysis. Larsson and Lowendahl (1996) conducted a meta-analytic review of the espoused and actual applications of qualitative methods in management research. The journals that formed the basis of their review were Academy of Management Journal, Administrative Science Quarterly, Organization Science and Strategic Management Journal. When assessing the articles published between 1984 and 1994 they concluded that just 12 studies during that period could be classed as qualitative. Bearing in mind the length of the period, and the number of journals covered, it would seem that qualitative methods have not been particularly prevalent in the management field. It could be, however, that things have progressed somewhat since 1994, though more recent research has suggested that this may not be the case (Buehring et al., 2003). Symon and Cassell (1999) argue that this lack of visibility for qualitative methods arises from difficulties in opposing current dominant practice. They identify a number of barriers to the publication of qualitative research, including: . Getting research past epistemological gatekeepers (journal editors and reviewers, conference committees).

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Conforming to journal editorial criteria and constraints of other presentations, which have probably been set up with quantitative studies in mind. The pressure to justify research methods according to (sometimes) inappropriate (positivist) criteria. The lack of exposure to alternatives in management publications and on management courses.

Taking each of these in turn, we can see they may interact to impact upon the visibility of qualitative management research. Journal editors and reviewers have a key impact on what kind of research is selected for inclusion within their journals. A number of editors have recently suggested that although they would like to see an increased amount of qualitative research in their journals, there are difficulties with qualitative submissions (e.g. Lee, 2001; Gephart and Rynes, 2004). For example Gephart points out that few qualitative pieces succeed in being accepted for the Academy of Management Journal, and identifies what he defines as a number of “challenges and opportunities” (2004, p. 459), regarding qualitative work that need to be addressed. These include reviewing the literature thoroughly; stating the explicit goals of the research; and adequately specifying the methodological processes that lead to the creation of a particular piece of work. This links into the second issue of conforming to journal editorial formats. Some have argued that in order to make a persuasive case more words are needed to do justice to qualitative reporting. Yet increasingly journals are short of space and limited word counts are enforced by editors regardless of the methodological approach of the piece. The third issue concerns the criteria through which we assess the quality of management research. Several writers have argued that one of the key barriers to the use and publication of qualitative research in the management sciences is the application of inappropriate assessment criteria (e.g. Symon et al., 2000). This is a key issue because whereas there is considerable consensus amongst management researchers about quality criteria for empirical research within a positivist framework, there is far more debate about what makes “good” research within alternative epistemological approaches (Symon and Cassell, 2004). Even writers who promote qualitative research (e.g. Miles and Huberman, 1994; Strauss and Corbin, 1990) may evaluate it in terms of positivist concepts of objectivity, validity and reliability (Alvesson and Skoldberg, 2000). Therefore if reviewers are evaluating qualitative research using criteria from a different epistemological perspective, it is clearly less likely to pass through the increasing demands of high status journals. Despite the creation of alternative sets of criteria by qualitative researchers (e.g. Lincoln and Guba, 2003; Morse, 1994), there is little evidence of these criteria being used in practice (Cassell et al., 2005). Yet the call for a set of universal criteria for assessing qualitative research continues to be made (e.g. Sandberg, 2005). The fourth issue relates to the extent to which management researchers are exposed to qualitative techniques through their research training programmes. It could be that there is a lack of knowledge and expertise that surrounds the use of qualitative methods in the management arena. There is some evidence to suggest that this is the case. For example PhD training courses within the field can over-emphasize the quantitative at the expense of the qualitative (Boje, 2001); and management practitioners may not have received any training in qualitative methodologies (Skinner

et al., 2000). Therefore researchers may simply not be aware of what is good practice in this field, and how to access the skills required to enable them to produce high quality publishable work. These factors in combination can serve to undermine the potential contribution of qualitative research. The lack of visibility may be an indication that there are issues regarding the credibility and status of qualitative research in this area. This could therefore discourage researchers from conducting qualitative research and create a vicious circle of events where researchers are reluctant to direct their attentions towards an undervalued area of research activity. In summary it would appear that there are some mixed messages about the role and impact of qualitative research within the management field. One the one hand it is clearly evident that qualitative research has a contribution to make that warrants a higher visibility, whereas on the other hand writers are still doubtful about the potential contribution that qualitative research can make. The study reported here aimed to address this issue directly by examining the current role and status of qualitative research within the area. Aims and methodology The overall aim of the study was to conduct a systematic investigation into current perceptions of qualitative methods in management research, including perceived barriers to their use. A total of 45 in-depth interviews were conducted with individuals from different stakeholder groups. We identified four major groups of interested parties (the “panels”) and recruited individuals to each of these. In practice panel membership was sometimes overlapping (i.e. individuals could be said to be members of several panels, although recruited with one particular panel in mind). Therefore, for the most part, we did not analyse the data from each panel separately. Rather the notion of “panel membership” was a useful heuristic device for us in the collection and reporting of the data. Composition of the panels Membership of the four panels is outlined below: (1) Panel A: Academic disseminators. This panel included editors of key management journals from the USA, the UK and Europe; chairs of relevant professional associations; and those responsible for funding management research. The aim was to explore the views of those who have to regularly assess the quality of qualitative research, and who may be considered “epistemological gatekeepers” (Symon and Cassell, 1999), in the sense of controlling access to the desirable inputs and outputs of research. (2) Panel B: Practitioners. This panel included those from the public and private sector who conduct or commission qualitative research, or are consumers of management research outputs (e.g. management consultants; senior members of relevant government organizations; and those from organizations which specialize in survey and other research work). (3) Panel C: Doctoral. This panel consisted of those who currently manage university PhD and research methodology Master’s programmes in business and management schools. Such individuals are closely involved in the training

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and assessment of junior management researchers and may most benefit from the outputs of this project. An even spread of pre- and post-1992 institutions was included in this panel. (4) Panel D: Qualitative researchers. This panel included those who have published within the area of qualitative methods in management research, or who use qualitative methods regularly as part of their substantive research. This group can be considered experts in the subject matter of the research and also have a direct interest in criteria for the assessment of qualitative research. Data collection Although focused on qualitative management research, the interviews were quite wide ranging and, over a period of one or two hours, thoroughly explored the topics at hand. Individuals were initially contacted by e-mail or telephone. We outlined the nature of the project and the contribution we felt the individual could make to this. We explained that all interviews would be taped but that the material gathered would be considered confidential within the research team. Interviewees are only identified in the text that follows by their panel membership. Most of the individuals we approached were happy to contribute to the project, many suggesting that this was an important area, which needed some investigation. The majority of interviews were conducted at the interviewee’s work place, however the practicalities of the situation sometimes necessitated telephone interviews (i.e. when the panel member lived in a different country). Additionally a small number of interviews were conducted at the 2003 US Academy of Management Conference in Seattle. Interviewees were asked a range of questions about the subject area including their views about the role and purpose of qualitative research; what good qualitative research looked like; and potential barriers that existed to the dissemination of qualitative management research. Data analysis All interviews were tape recorded and transcribed for analysis. The overall analytical approach adopted largely followed the conventions of template analysis, where the researcher produces a list of codes (template) representing themes identified in the textual data (King, 2004). The qualitative data analysis package NVivo was used for the initial stages of coding. One member of the research team, trained in the use of NVivo, was primarily responsible for this initial coding of the interview material. Using template analysis (King, 2004), the transcripts were coded into broad themes based on the research objectives and interview questions to create an initial template. This template was further discussed and modified within the research group. Each broad theme was then subjected to a more detailed analysis by two members of the research team, which led to the formation of more specific categories within each theme. When conducting the analysis it was apparent that not all the data fitted neatly into one precise category or another, therefore in both interpreting and writing up the findings there was the need to often cut across the different categories. Additionally our analysis does not seek to make grand claims concerning the state-of-the art in this area. Rather we have been concerned with identifying issues in the areas of interest rather than drawing conclusions about the strength or generalizability of such views.

Our aim was to use the research findings to stimulate discussion and debate about the role and status of qualitative research in the management field. Findings The interviews provided a rich source of data concerning current perceptions of management research. In this paper we summarize the outcomes of the analysis of five sections of the data that link in with our research objectives: definitions of qualitative research; perceived status and credibility; difficulties in disseminating qualitative research; assessment criteria; and training. Where appropriate, illustrative quotes from the interviewees are given. Defining the role of qualitative research One of the interesting findings that emerged, that provides an important context in which to consider other findings, was that the term “qualitative management research” was open to multiple interpretations. Therefore it would seem that “qualitative research” in itself is a problematic term. Analysis of the interviewees’ accounts of qualitative research suggested an array of definitions. There were many different views. Often, but by no means always, these definitions were intimately bound up with their conceptions of the role of qualitative research. These definitions range from those indicating that qualitative research has a central concern with the subjectivity of research practice, to those, which suggest qualitative research barely constitutes research at all. For example, there was one view that qualitative research could be most appropriately seen as taking an interpretivist stance, therefore it was about “trying to understand meaning”, or “accessing and understanding how meaning is constructed through social interaction”. Thus qualitative research entails taking “an interpretivist perspective where one is particularly interested in being able to . . . investigate the perspectives that subjects have and to interpret their view of the world”. Others were more dismissive with the suggestion, for example, that qualitative research could only ever be legitimate as a precursor to a more sophisticated quantitative piece of analysis: What I would say is qualitative; in so far as it means anything, can only ever be a preliminary piece of work . . . to me any research that is worth doing must be replicable or at least produce predictions (Panel A: Academic disseminators).

Another view was that qualitative research was just another bag of tools available for the management researcher, or a set of specific data collection techniques such as case studies, interviews or focus groups. Such a range of definitions indicates the diversity of work in this area, and makes problematic any generalized prescriptions for the field more generally. Status and credibility of qualitative research One of the main issues that emerged from the analysis related to the perceived current status of qualitative research within the business and management field. A general perception identified by the interviewees, though not necessarily shared by them, was that the quantification of data and associated statistical analysis conveys credibility. In a management environment, with an organizational emphasis on the “bottom line”, numbers may be especially convincing:

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I suppose a lot of people in business (I don’t want to put them down), but they may not have a very strong research background and, if they look at a piece of quantitative research, they might focus on the figures rather than the design. So they may be taking on board something that hasn’t been terribly well designed and might say: “Oh yeah, this is really good and we should adopt this because we can get X percent improvement” (Panel B: Practitioners).

Without measurement, data cannot be transformed into research but remains a “story”: . . . but until he [postgraduate student] starts to do a comparative study between us and other organizations and actually gets some measures in place, then all it is, is an interesting story. That’s my view (Panel B: Practitioners).

While it could be recognized that qualitative research may draw its credibility from sources other than quantification (e.g. richness of the language), those other sources themselves may not be regarded as credible: ... my own philosophical inclination is I have somewhat more confidence in them [statistical studies using large data sets] than I would in studies which depended upon, you know, the richness of the language or the understanding of one’s interviewee where, you know, how well does he or she understand the question, the lack of facility with the language, a lack of intelligence perhaps and all of those things seem to me to run the risk of in a way of dirtying the data and making it, from my point of view, less reliable (Panel A: Academic disseminators).

The phrase “dirtying the data” implies that the qualitative research process in some way contaminates the research product. The scientific status that may be associated with quantification also conveys credibility: Well, I think the problem is that to be seen to be credible you’ve got to be bulging, overflowing with stats otherwise it’s like, “Oh, you’re not a scientist!” It’s not scientific (Panel D: Qualitative researchers).

Within the interviews then, claims were made that quantification, statistical analysis, rigour, systematization, were indicators of credibility. In this conceptualization, qualitative research is by definition, not credible because it does not adopt many of these processes and measures. However, credibility was also presented as a judgement made by assessors – and it is argued that such assessors may not have the skills or knowledge to make a proper judgement of the credibility of qualitative research. Given these perceptions, it was claimed that qualitative researchers had to be more careful about the way they present themselves and their data. I guess it’s an issue of credibility in terms of whether the person feels that you have got your act together and you know what you’re looking for . . . you know, I entirely accept that if I have to provide an account of what I’m doing, then something reasonably coherent has to be presented (Panel D: Qualitative researchers).

In this case credibility is in addition to impression management. Credibility is therefore also presented as an achieved status – not intrinsic to the research process but accomplished by presenting the research report in particular ways. Judgements of credibility, are also seen, to be influenced, by particular (political) contexts and what constitutes credible research may change from period to period, being something of a cultural artefact.

This therefore has implications for qualitative researchers in that they have to actively learn appropriate skills of impression management with regard to how they present their qualitative research. Whereas quantitative pieces of work are often presented in a standardized format there is more variety in the presentational style of qualitative work, but the key issue seems to be that it is presented in such a way that it appears credible. This in itself is complex, given the factors that influence judgements of credibility as outlined above. Barriers to disseminating qualitative management research In the introduction we suggested that the formats of journal outputs might be restrictive for qualitative authors. Within the interviews, the length of journal articles and how to present these within the confines of journal space was identified as problematic for publishing qualitative work. Barriers were identified such as: how to “condense it down to 25 sides” without reducing the “richness”; how to present the “labour process” of doing the research itself “when editors really want that to be cut down to the bone”; and that there is a trade off between quality and quantity where “I would not be averse to taking a paper that was twice the length if it really was exemplary”. This “trade off” was illustrated in terms of the number of slots a journal might have as opposed to the quality or importance of a longer piece: I’ve talked to the editor of [a top American] journal . . . and he says the biggest problem with the qualitative work is the length. But he has published some very long ones because they have to spend more time describing what they do and he said that just because . . . you’re given a fixed number of pages, it essentially means you have to take [fewer] articles altogether. It increases your rejection rate . . . And the question is: Is this as important as two other papers? If it’s taking as much space as two papers, then he has to ask is this as important as two papers because it’s essentially kicking somebody else out (Panel A: Academic disseminators).

Such constraints on writing qualitative papers for journal articles, meant that the opportunities to write in a less restrictive environment were appreciated much more: I really, really enjoyed the chapter that I wrote for the international qualitative management book, because there was a story to be told and it wasn’t a story I could tell very readily in the sort of squashed up methods bit at the beginning of a chapter where I’m really principally talking about findings (Panel D: Qualitative researchers).

Clearly there are problematic issues related to publishing qualitative work, which may impact upon its visibility. Other issues related to the nature of the academic labour process, and the increased pressure on individuals to publish in what are considered as the “elite” journals. For example: A very, very serious issue facing us in this country [UK] with interpretive or, if you like, qualitative research . . . is with the pressure to meet global criteria . . . the American criteria of what is good research, is what counts . . . well even case study stuff now they tell me it just gets sent back if it isn’t big survey. So a whole lot of the American journals are operating in that way and people are being pressured (Panel D: Qualitative researchers).

All of these issue highlight that publishing qualitative work is a challenging process that can create frustrations for the qualitative researcher. However despite these problems, it is evident that examples of good qualitative research do sometimes get published in the top journals, and a number of well-established European journals such

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as the Journal of Management Studies and Organization Studies regularly publish qualitative work. The interviewees did not seem to be suggesting that publishing qualitative work is impossible, but rather highlighting some of the difficulties that researchers might encounter when they pursue that route. Defining “quality” research and research assessment criteria in use Previously we suggested that qualitative research might be evaluated against inappropriate criteria, by which we meant those traditionally associated with positivist approaches. The interview questions focused particularly on how interviewees recognized quality in qualitative research, and how “gatekeepers” perceived their own and others judgements through the peer review process. From the data it was apparent that interviewees were using a variety of criteria to define quality in the field, and that these criteria were influenced by a range of paradigmatic assumptions. One thing that was seen as important was that research was seen to be making a contribution although the nature of “contribution” may be evaluated in different ways, according to the underlying epistemological assumptions of the evaluator. Examples of what constitutes a contribution are that a piece of research provides “new insights”, told something that was “not just common sense” or “added to management knowledge”. Some of the interviewees expressed concern that the focus on assessing qualitative research against criteria derived from a positivist perspective had led to an obsession with procedural correctness that was inappropriate for qualitative research. For example: It’s kind of dressing up qualitative research in quantitative clothes, isn’t it? That you’re making a big deal out of the procedures and steps that you go through in the research process . . . in the same way as you would if you were reporting . . . “I did this T test and I found R-squared” . . . It’s that search for rigour, isn’t it? The appearance of rigour. But having said that I think it’s a good thing. It’s got to be a good thing to be more systematic and at least force people to think more about why they’re doing things the way they are even if it’s a bit finicky at times (Panel B: Practitioners).

A further interesting finding was that, while some broad areas of agreement about quality criteria could be identified, the interviewees were not consistently applying a specific and invariable set of criteria to assess qualitative research (in contrast, to the criteria of validity and reliability in use in quantitative research). Rather, the assessment of quality was seen as intuitive decision-making, “you know it when you see it”. The implication of this is that defining the criteria used to assess quality in this context is difficult, and may be informed by a range of different factors, including the methodological preferences of the assessor. Training in qualitative research Another issue highlighted in the introduction related to access to training in qualitative research techniques. Interviewees identified a number of issues with the type and standard of training in qualitative management research currently available. The provision of qualitative research training was seen as important yet “patchy” or not widespread. For some this was a concern: I’m really concerned about the quality of training that occurs in a lot of universities because I don’t think it’s good enough. I don’t think that the people necessarily training them have the breadth of understanding in methods to really, really impart the importance of it . . . and if

you get that building block wrong, you’re already on catch up or correction, and it is correction sometimes . . . but, I think it is throughout particularly the early years of researchers’ lives, post-doc. Too many get thrown in without any proper training or supervision. They’re working as researchers supporting people on projects, but aren’t getting the training and supervision that would help them develop as researchers (Panel A: Academic disseminators).

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The point here is that there are training issues throughout the academic career and that not enough attention is currently paid to them, particularly at the early stage. Comparisons were made by interviewees regarding the amount of training available for qualitative and quantitative techniques. These comparisons were particularly made with regard to doctoral programmes. From a North American perspective one interviewee suggested that:

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So, for example, every doctorate in management will include several courses in quantitative methods. Everywhere! That has to be. Whereas . . . you will get a qualitative course only if there happens to be somebody in your particular institution who’s really a champion of qualitative methods and wants to make sure that their students have a balance (Panel A: Academic disseminators).

Within UK doctoral programmes, the views of interviewees varied, ranging from “a bit more on qualitative methods”, and “a fairly identifiable balance between the two approaches” to “biased to the quantitative”. The rationale behind the weighting given to the various approaches in doctoral training programmes was located within the methodological preferences of supervisors, an existing “interest [with]in the school” or the extent to which “there’s provision outside the school” or “we’ve got people interested in it”, with one interviewee suggesting that their School had a “reputation” for a particular approach. It would seem therefore that there are a number of issues that need to be addressed with regard to the provision of training in qualitative methods more generally, particularly with regard to the type of training available, and how it can be accessed. Conclusions The data presented provides an informative interpretation of the current role and status of qualitative research in the business and management field. There is considerable variety in definitions of qualitative research. The way in which individuals define qualitative research is important in that it influences their perceptions about who does it; what it should look like; and, ultimately, how it is judged. From this research, it is clear that there are a variety of definitions in use, and that there is no general consensus about the nature of qualitative management research. This variety of definitions in use is could be considered a credit to the rich diversity of research that can be included under the banner “qualitative management research”. Rather than being a restrictive, or indeed exclusionary term, there is room for a variety of perspectives and interpretations, which could encourage innovation in the area. Our conclusion here is that there is no one correct definition, but when assessing qualitative research, we need to take varieties of definitions into account. Clearly there are still a number of issues surrounding the status and credibility of qualitative research within the field. From some of the interviewees’ accounts, although they may not agree with this conceptualization themselves, there is clearly a perception

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that credibility is associated with quantification and scientific status. Therefore those engaging with qualitative research methods may not even be starting from a level playing field when their research is considered alongside that of researchers using more traditional positivist perspectives. It is evident that some of the difficulties around credibility in relation to qualitative research may dissuade researchers from conducting qualitative research. Additionally there are other barriers such as the problems identified with disseminating qualitative research, particularly with regard to journal formats. At the start of this paper we suggested that reviewers might be using inappropriate criteria from a positivist perspective to evaluate qualitative work. However the findings suggest rather that evaluators use a variety of criteria to assess the quality of qualitative work. That researchers do not refer to explicit sets of quality criteria for qualitative research within the field is interesting given the existence of numerous published works which provide advice in this direction (Lincoln and Guba, 1985; Morse, 1994; Seale, 1999; Lee et al., 1999). It may be that as a reviewer becomes very experienced, they develop their own list of criteria, which are used as a heuristic device in a more systematic sense. It would seem then that the key issue is that when evaluating a piece of research it is important to be explicit about the criteria in use, and the underlying assumptions in choosing those criteria. Even though researchers and writers may presume that they are talking about the same thing, clearly they may be singing from different hymn sheets. It is apparent that there is scope for some development in the area of training in qualitative research. In considering training needs, of particular interest is the underlying assumptions about the career of the management researcher and the life stages they go through with regard to training. The notion of the PhD as an apprenticeship was present in the interviewees’ accounts, however there was less certainty about what research methodology training was available, or indeed pursued, once the PhD had been achieved. Interviewees suggested however that there is a need for both academic and practitioner researchers to engage in continuous professional development in this area. In particular there are concerns about the lack of appropriately trained reviewers and concern about where the future trainers of students in this area will come from. It is interesting to speculate about the impact that any training within this area may have. Given the political context, and the status and credibility issue previously outlined, although training may go some way to enhance the quality of qualitative research, these type of interventions on their own, may not be able to go far enough. So what are the implications of our findings for qualitative researchers in this area? If we are arguing, for example, that qualitative research still has little status in the field of management research, and that there is still little of it published in the top management journals, does this mean that we are indirectly discouraging qualitative researchers from submitting their work to the top journals? Could it be that we are then guilty of creating a self-fulfilling prophecy about the lack of qualitative research in this context? Clearly this is not our intention. It is also evident that some qualitative work does get published in the top US-based journals such as Academy of Management Review, and that some researchers have successfully established careers along this route. As we suggested earlier, qualitative research is also published regularly in such esteemed European journals as Journal of Management Studies and Organization

Studies, therefore our intention is not to present a picture that damns qualitative researchers to less “prestigious” or “alternative” outlets, though some researchers may choose to go down this route. We also recognize that terms such as “top journals” and “prestigious” are in themselves value laden, and that, as our data indicates, there are many different interpretations of what is high quality work. Our intention is, rather, that our findings will help stimulate debate about the current role and status of qualitative management research. Additionally we would propose a change agenda to address some of these issues. First, our findings suggest that there is a need for greater awareness amongst management researchers more generally of the rich diversity of techniques that are available under the banner of “qualitative” research and the various roles that such research can have. Despite the rise in texts designed to inform researchers about techniques available (e.g. Cassell and Symon, 2004; Denzin and Lincoln, 2000; Flick et al., 2004; Seale et al., 2004, Silverman, 2004), and the variety of approaches in which qualitative methods can be used (e.g. postmodernism, critical theory, constructivism), it would seem that there is still a view in some quarters that qualitative research is only suitable as a prelude to a more quantitative design. Profiling qualitative research in a themed issue such as this is one way forward. Second, given that our findings highlight that credibility can be viewed amongst other things as a subjective judgement, there are potentially ways in which we can influence the judgements that people make. We may be able to influence the perceived credibility of qualitative research, not just by training qualitative researchers in particular methods or processes, but also by highlighting appropriate methods of assessment, and the problematic nature of assessing qualitative research through universal pre-determined criteria associated with the positivist paradigm. Third, our findings suggest a need for more comprehensive training generally within the field of qualitative management research. As our interviewees suggested, current provision within the field may be somewhat patchy. Access to training and continuous professional development is important if researchers are to have confidence in using qualitative techniques. Fourthly, and perhaps more challenging, is addressing the dominant perception in the field that high quality research is associated with quantification. At the heart of this issue is the underlying presumption that the natural and the social sciences may be united by one methodological approach located in the hypothetico-deductive model. Qualitative methodologies with their commitment to induction and verstehen are inevitably undermined in such an approach. The consideration and recognition of different philosophical positions and their different commitments, highlights the contexts in which qualitative methods can have much to contribute to the business and management field, and the appropriate assessment criteria through which high quality research can be evaluated.

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Seale, C., Gobo, G., Gubrium, J.F.. and Silverman, D. (2004), Qualitative Research Practice, Sage, London. Silverman, D. (2004), Qualitative Research: Theory, Method and Practice, 2nd ed., Sage, London. Skinner, D., Tagg, C. and Holloway, J. (2000), “Managers and research: the pros and cons of qualitative research”, Management Learning, Vol. 31 No. 2, pp. 163-79. Starkey, K. and Madan, P. (2001), “Bridging the relevance gap: aligning stakeholders in the future of management research”, British Journal of Management, Vol. 12, special issue, pp. S3-S26. Strauss, A. and Corbin, J. (1990), Basics of Qualitative Research, Sage, London. Symon, G. and Cassell, C.M. (1999), “Barriers to innovation in research practice”, in Pina e Cunha, M. and Marques, C.A. (Eds), Readings in Organization Science: Organizational Change in a Changing Context, ISPA, Lisbon, pp. 387-98. Symon, G. and Cassell, C. (2004), “Promoting new research practices in organizational research”, in Cassell, C.M. and Symon, G. (Eds), Essential Guide to Qualitative Methods in Organizational Research, Sage, London. Symon, G., Cassell, C. and Dickson, R. (2000), “Expanding our research and practice through innovative research methods”, European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology, Vol. 9 No. 4, pp. 1-6. Tranfield, D. and Starkey, K. (1998), “The nature, social organization and promotion of management research: towards policy”, British Journal of Management, Vol. 9, pp. 341-53. Van Maanen, J. (1979), “Reclaiming qualitative methods for organizational research: a preface”, Administrative Science Quarterly, Vol. 24, pp. 520-6. Watson, T.J. (1977), The Personnel Managers: A Study in the Sociology of Work and Employment, Routledge, London. Watson, T.J. (1994), In Search of Management: Culture, Chaos and Control in Managerial Work, Routledge, London. Further reading Dey, I. (2003), Qualitative Data Analysis, Sage Publications, London. Johnson, P., Buehring, A., Cassell, C.M. and Symon, G. (2005), “Evaluating qualitative management research: towards a contingent criteriology”, working paper. Corresponding author Catherine Cassell can be contacted at: [email protected]

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