Commentary: exposing a research bias or a relic of research practice

This paper aims to represent a response to issues raised in the continuing quantitative-qualitative debate by Valtakoski (2020). Which appeared in a Journal of Services Marketing (JSM) special issue on qualitative research in service-oriented research.

The authors performed a content analysis of 1,268 papers that were published in JSM (1987-2019). In addition, the authors had data that is held in JSM’s manuscript central submission portal.

The analysis shows that while there is a dominance of quantitative methods in the journal, the proportion of qualitative papers is growing. During 2014-2019, 83.4 per cent of submitted papers to JSM represented quantitative research and 14 per cent represented qualitative research; however, 75 per cent of accepted papers were quantitative and 25 per cent were qualitative/mixed methods. Thus, the proportion of published qualitative studies are increasing and have a higher chance of receiving an acceptance decision compared to quantitative studies. Additionally, the largest percentage of qualitative papers published in JSM derive from corresponding authors outside of North America.

Service researchers who opt to use inductive research methods, which tend to use qualitative research, will not confront discrimination based solely upon the use of a research methodology among editors or reviewers at JSM.

JSM welcomes qualitative research that has rich practical implications.

This study is one of the first to provide authors with a detailed analysis and responses to the qualitative-quantitative debate in marketing.