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Evaluative Practices in Qualitative Management Research: A Critical Review
Author(s) -
Symon Gillian,
Cassell Catherine,
Johnson Phil
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
international journal of management reviews
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 4.475
H-Index - 107
eISSN - 1468-2370
pISSN - 1460-8545
DOI - 10.1111/ijmr.12120
Subject(s) - normative , qualitative research , positivism , sociology , promotion (chess) , context (archaeology) , discipline , psychological intervention , epistemology , engineering ethics , social science , psychology , political science , politics , paleontology , philosophy , psychiatry , law , biology , engineering
This paper critically reviews commentaries on the evaluation and promotion of qualitative management research. The review identifies two disjunctures: between methodological prescriptions for epistemologically diverse criteria and management journal prescriptions for standardized criteria; and between the culturally dependent production of criteria and their positioning in editorials and commentaries as normative and objective. The authors’ critical social constructionist analysis surfaces underlying positivist assumptions and institutional processes in these commentaries, which they argue are producing (inappropriate) homogeneous evaluation criteria for qualitative research, marginalizing alternative perspectives, and disciplining individual qualitative researchers into particular normative practices. The authors argue that interventions to encourage more qualitative research need to focus as much on editorial, disciplinary and institutional practices as the practices of individual researchers, and they make recommendations for changes that may allow qualitative management research to develop in a more supportive context by recognizing philosophical diversity as legitimate.