Qualitative Research and the Academy of Management Journal
What Is Qualitative Research and Why Is It Important?
Qualitative research is multimethod research that uses an interpretive, naturalistic approach to its
subject matter. Qualitative research emphasizes qualities of entities, the processes of meanings that
occur. Qualitative research often studies phenomena in the environments in which they naturally occur
and questions about how social experience is created and how representations of the world make the
world visible. Qualitative research has a ‘flexible and emerging character’ and is therefor often designed
while it is being executed. Because of depictions of realities, it cannot be reduced to a few variables.
Qualitative research is highly descriptive and emphasizes on situational details unfolding over time. It
describes processes. It seeks to explain observations by conceptual insights on how theories operate in
particular cases.
Qualitative research explains direct experiences in everyday life realities. It uses words, talks and texts as
representations of concepts. An important value of qualitative research is description and understanding
of the actual real-life organizational settings (human interactions, meanings, processes). It is therefore
important to balance humanistic and literary aspect with mathematics and statistical reasoning.
Qualitative research both collects and analyses data. It is important to have a clear line between
qualitative and quantitative research. When quantifying qualitative data, it is not necessarily
quantitative research.
Qualitative research is important for management scholarships. It provides insights that are difficult to
produce with quantitative research. Qualitative research has potential to rehumanize research and
theory by highlighting the human interactions and meanings that underlie phenomena and relationships
among variables that are often addressed in the field.
What Is Qualitative Research and Why Is It Important?
Qualitative research is multimethod research that uses an interpretive, naturalistic approach to its
subject matter. Qualitative research emphasizes qualities of entities, the processes of meanings that
occur. Qualitative research often studies phenomena in the environments in which they naturally occur
and questions about how social experience is created and how representations of the world make the
world visible. Qualitative research has a ‘flexible and emerging character’ and is therefor often designed
while it is being executed. Because of depictions of realities, it cannot be reduced to a few variables.
Qualitative research is highly descriptive and emphasizes on situational details unfolding over time. It
describes processes. It seeks to explain observations by conceptual insights on how theories operate in
particular cases.
Qualitative research explains direct experiences in everyday life realities. It uses words, talks and texts as
representations of concepts. An important value of qualitative research is description and understanding
of the actual real-life organizational settings (human interactions, meanings, processes). It is therefore
important to balance humanistic and literary aspect with mathematics and statistical reasoning.
Qualitative research both collects and analyses data. It is important to have a clear line between
qualitative and quantitative research. When quantifying qualitative data, it is not necessarily
quantitative research.
Qualitative research is important for management scholarships. It provides insights that are difficult to
produce with quantitative research. Qualitative research has potential to rehumanize research and
theory by highlighting the human interactions and meanings that underlie phenomena and relationships
among variables that are often addressed in the field.
