What’s Different About Qualitative Research?
Academy of Management Journal 2012, Vol. 55, No. 3, 509–513. http://dx.doi.org/10.5465/amj.2012.4003
FROM THE EDITORS PUBLISHING IN AMJ—PART 7: WHAT’S DIFFERENT ABOUT QUALITATIVE RESEARCH?
This editorial concludes a seven-part series, “Publishing in AMJ,” in which the editors give suggestions and advice for improving the quality of submissions to the Journal. The series offers “bumper-to-bumper” coverage, with installments ranging from topic choice to crafting a Discussion section. -J.A.C. I’m comfortable with my knowledge of qualitative work—and my ability to give some insight on a specific piece— but for whatever reason, this quantitative-to-qualitative comparison is hard for me to make. And I don’t understand the reasons that is hard! -Panelist
Over the past six issues, our editorial team has presented a series on how to write effective AMJ submissions. Much of what this series has covered is relevant to both quantitative and qualitative papers. For example, the five criteria that Colquitt and George (June 2011 “From the Editors” [vol. 54: 432– 435]) identify for choosing topics—significance, novelty, curiosity, scope, and actionability—apply equally well to qualitative work. However, there are also key differences. For example, qualitative work does not typically suffer from the measurement, operationalization and model specification problems identified by Bono and McNamara (August 2011 “From the Editors” [vol. 54: 657– 660]). As our opening quote illustrates, these differences are not always easy to articulate or explain. In this final FTE for the “Publishing in AMJ” series, we provide our perspective on the key differences. To do this, we focus our thoughts around this provocative question: If a colleague who has only ever published quantitative papers before asked you to identify the main differences between qualitative and quantitative papers (besides the type of data presented), how would you respond? We put this question to a panel of some of AMJ’s
FROM THE EDITORS PUBLISHING IN AMJ—PART 7: WHAT’S DIFFERENT ABOUT QUALITATIVE RESEARCH?
This editorial concludes a seven-part series, “Publishing in AMJ,” in which the editors give suggestions and advice for improving the quality of submissions to the Journal. The series offers “bumper-to-bumper” coverage, with installments ranging from topic choice to crafting a Discussion section. -J.A.C. I’m comfortable with my knowledge of qualitative work—and my ability to give some insight on a specific piece— but for whatever reason, this quantitative-to-qualitative comparison is hard for me to make. And I don’t understand the reasons that is hard! -Panelist
Over the past six issues, our editorial team has presented a series on how to write effective AMJ submissions. Much of what this series has covered is relevant to both quantitative and qualitative papers. For example, the five criteria that Colquitt and George (June 2011 “From the Editors” [vol. 54: 432– 435]) identify for choosing topics—significance, novelty, curiosity, scope, and actionability—apply equally well to qualitative work. However, there are also key differences. For example, qualitative work does not typically suffer from the measurement, operationalization and model specification problems identified by Bono and McNamara (August 2011 “From the Editors” [vol. 54: 657– 660]). As our opening quote illustrates, these differences are not always easy to articulate or explain. In this final FTE for the “Publishing in AMJ” series, we provide our perspective on the key differences. To do this, we focus our thoughts around this provocative question: If a colleague who has only ever published quantitative papers before asked you to identify the main differences between qualitative and quantitative papers (besides the type of data presented), how would you respond? We put this question to a panel of some of AMJ’s
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