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Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
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TY - JOUR
T1 - Something Borrowed Something New
T2 - Challenges in using Qualitative Methods to Study Under-Researched International Business Phenomena
AU - Reuber, Becky
AU - Alkhaled, Sophie
AU - Barnard, Helena
AU - Couper, Carole
AU - Sasaki, Innan
PY - 2022/12/31
Y1 - 2022/12/31
N2 - This article responds to calls for IB researchers to study a greater diversity of international business (IB) phenomena in order to generate theoretical insights about empirical settings that are under-represented in the scholarly IB literature. While this objective is consistent with the strengths of qualitative research methods, novel empirical settings are not always well aligned with methods that have been developed in better-researched and thus more familiar settings. In this article, we explore three methods-related challenges of studying under-researched empirical settings, in terms of gathering and analyzing qualitative data. The challenges are: managing researcher identities, navigating unfamiliar data gathering conditions, and theorizing the uniqueness of novel empirical settings. These challenges are integral to the process of contextualization, which involves linking observations from an empirical setting to the categories of the theoretical research context. We provide a toolkit of recommended practices to manage them, by drawing on published accounts of research by others, and on our own experiences in the field.
AB - This article responds to calls for IB researchers to study a greater diversity of international business (IB) phenomena in order to generate theoretical insights about empirical settings that are under-represented in the scholarly IB literature. While this objective is consistent with the strengths of qualitative research methods, novel empirical settings are not always well aligned with methods that have been developed in better-researched and thus more familiar settings. In this article, we explore three methods-related challenges of studying under-researched empirical settings, in terms of gathering and analyzing qualitative data. The challenges are: managing researcher identities, navigating unfamiliar data gathering conditions, and theorizing the uniqueness of novel empirical settings. These challenges are integral to the process of contextualization, which involves linking observations from an empirical setting to the categories of the theoretical research context. We provide a toolkit of recommended practices to manage them, by drawing on published accounts of research by others, and on our own experiences in the field.
KW - case theoretic approaches
KW - context
KW - contextualization
KW - qualitative methods
KW - theory-method intersection
U2 - 10.1057/s41267-022-00555-1
DO - 10.1057/s41267-022-00555-1
M3 - Journal article
VL - 53
SP - 2147
EP - 2166
JO - Journal of International Business Studies
JF - Journal of International Business Studies
SN - 0047-2506
ER -