Looking for what we have a case of

Citation

Locke, K. (2011), "Looking for what we have a case of", Qualitative Research in Organizations and Management, Vol. 6 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/qrom.2011.29806aaa.003

Looking for what we have a case of

Looking for what we have a case of

Article Type: Commentary From: Qualitative Research in Organizations and Management: An International Journal, Volume 6, Issue 1.

Drawing on quantitative analyses, Donde Plowman and Ann Smith have culled through 2,862 articles published in selective mainstream management journals over more than two decades pursuing a hunch that women appear more likely than men to be involved in qualitative research. And, through this empirical exercise they have obtained some statistically significant relationships. In these journals, proportionately more women author qualitative studies and more do so during their early careers. The question is “what are these relationships a case of” – that is, from what class of phenomena are they drawn and what can they tell us about the processes in this class of phenomena. Plowman and Smith submit that their data represent a case of gender-based elective affinity with qualitative research. And they invoke the concept of social identification to describe its possible process: specifically, within the context of the management academy where female authors are in the minority they argue their findings instantiate women seeking membership in a professional group in which gender is positively distinguished. Even so, I am not sure.

The question, “what is this a case of”, is, of course, Howard Becker's, as is the enjoinder that as researchers we should pose this question of what it is that our studies point to again, and again, and again, cycling repeatedly between ideas and expanding data to crystallize and refine our conclusions (see Ragin, 1992, p. 6). At the heart of his point is the relationship between data and the insights that might be drawn from them. Furthermore, as my colleagues and I have argued, understanding is grown over time in a layered process in which observations are made, hunches occur, ideas are developed, tried out, set aside and so on creating not only the opportunity for refinement but also for a shift in perspectives. Productive analytic processes are ones in which prevailing ideas about what might be happening are upended, disrupted and transformed over time (Locke et al., 2008).

So, where are we with respect to what Plowman and Smith's data signifies? We are not sure. Given its narrowness, really all we know is that gender-based patterns do exist in qualitative research publications in management and organization studies journals. After all, their data are the authorship of achieved publications in selective journals. There is thus some distance between achieved publications and the social transactions through which research preferences are developed, studies are shaped and articles are crafted, developed and advanced through the publication process. The data presented in their article do not directly access these phenomena. With respect to the particular data of the current study, then, I wonder if any compelling explanation lies beyond its reach. That said, the obtained relationships are nevertheless intriguing, and they do beg the question of what exactly they express and how that “what” might be accomplished.

To satisfy these questions, and move beyond their bare bones findings, however, we need more data and more cycles of generating and trying out ideas against them. For example, on the issue of what exactly their data express, instead of their data pointing to the development of gendered research preferences, what if we took a different perspective on it and considered it a case of gender-based publication success. For example, Plowman and Smith think about authorship in the context of all empirical publications in their sample, what if, instead, we consider the authorship data against membership in the management and organization studies community? According to AACSB International (2010), in 2009-2010 in US business schools approximately 37 percent of assistant professors were women (and according to Plowman and Smith's data, this career stage is when most of these qualitative publications are achieved). Additionally, membership in the Academy of Management over the last seven years has been at approximately 37 percent women[1].

So, perhaps female and male authorship of successful qualitative publications in management and organization studies is proportionate to their representation in the business school professoriate, whereas female authorship of successful quantitative publications is underrepresented! Perhaps Plowman and Smith have a case of gendered research achievement in quantitative approaches. Again, I am not sure. But, I do know that they do not yet have a satisfying perspective on what their data are a case of, that the quantitative analysis they pursued would befit from more and more refined structural data, and that ongoing transformation of understanding through continued interaction with both quantitative and qualitative data and ideas is central to settling on what their data are a case of.

Recognizing the need for more data, in their article's conclusion, Plowman and Smith call for further interrogation of their study's findings with a qualitative approach setting up a broader research strategy in which qualitative and quantitative data might be used complementarily (Hammersley, 1996). They suggest that it would be useful to conduct “in depth” interviews with highly published qualitative researchers to get closer to what is happening on the ground to generate the patterns expressed in their findings, for example, by exploring differences in socialization, publication advice and career guidance. Certainly, interview qualitative data might be helpful to shed light on the associations indicated by any quantitative data. But, what form of interview data?

One option might involve shaping up their data theoretically. If the authors continue to believe that their findings represent a case of social identity, they might draw on an interview-based approach to generate the data that would allow them to test out this assumption. For example, perhaps they could develop a theoretical sample (cf. Glaser and Strauss, 1967) of early and late career researchers and interview them about their projects. They might compose a structured interview guide whose questions enable responses to be categorized according to predefined codes indicative of their social identity explanation. For instance, they might ask about specific professionally relevant social groups with which their respondents did and did not identify, the presence and gender of mentors (real and symbolic), peer relationships, perceived power and influence and so on. This would be a theoretically constrained qualitative approach in the hypothetico-deductive tradition. And, such heavily theoretically shaped data would provide some insight in to whether or not the gender patterning represents a case of social identity.

A different interview-based approach (and one that Plowman and Smith appear to be signaling they are inclined to pursue) would attempt to bring more understanding to the established gender pattern by organizing data collection in a more open-ended way, working inductively or abductively. Again, pursuing a theoretical sampling strategy, they might invite interview participants to tell the story of how they came to pursue or bring to publication given research projects. For instance, with respect to participants' dissertation research, Plowman and Smith could explore and map out their processes: what were the motivations and considerations involved in their disposition to pursue their projects; who were the people who left their mark on their research enterprise, particular manuscripts and their careers in one way or another and how did they do this; what institutional enablers and barriers did they encounter (such as the range of research methods courses offered, the availability of senior faculty members who themselves use qualitative research) and what actions flowed from them; and so on. By moving forward with less theoretical constraint, Plowman and Smith could obtain data that would enable them to develop a more grounded explanation for what contributes to the gendering of research in the management academy.

While data from any one of the above qualitative approaches will bring in a broader range of data to interact with and take the researchers further in understanding what is going on in the gendering of research, such data would be limited in a number of ways. First, none of the data generated through the above projects would take into account the interpretive dimension of social reality. Actions are meaningful and we need to appreciate the webs of significance (Geertz, 1973) in which the gender patterning of research occurs. What meaning do actors assign to their own and others' actions that are consequential to successfully pursuing research? Are there different frames and meaning structures that men and women bring to bear in their conversations and deliberations about their possible research projects? And if so, what might they be? What feelings are associated with these frames? What institutional meanings relevant to the choice and prosecution of research approaches operate in the management academy?

Second, the above potential qualitative projects rely on interview data whereas explanations of how social action comes to be patterned in particular ways often expand beyond and lie outside the accounts that research participants themselves provide (Hammersley, 1989). Indeed one of the major warrants for generating data through the ethnographic mode of participant observation is to be able to learn things that insiders do not themselves see – often because they are so taken for granted (Stewart, 1998). Without also gathering observations of everyday interactions, then, it is difficult to identify ordering elements and dynamics outside participants' focal awareness.

Third, related to this, while the above proposed data gathering designs will certainly identify factors that contribute to gendering, they likely will not help us to understand how such factors work on the ground to accomplish the observed gendered patterns. They will not help us understand how they work in practice.

In order to generate data that will yield “thick descriptions” to use the phrase Geertz invoked – and which appears ubiquitously in published qualitative studies – Plowman and Smith would need to learn the particulars of scholars “constructions of what they and their compatriots are up to” in the contexts in which they were made (Geertz, 1973, p. 9). They would need data that describe action within the institutional and cultural context in which it takes place and that relates the thoughts, emotions and intentions associated with those actions. Such data would bring together both cultural and institutional context and also the everyday talk and interaction (which both draws on and produces that context), to describe the gendering of research both from the top down and bottom up (Holstein and Gubrium, 2004).

From the top, then, in order to gather data on the cultural and institutional context, Plowman and Smith might want focus on the discursive elements that build and shape prevailing orientations to qualitative and quantitative research in the academy. As an illustration, Gehrardi and Turner (1987) have argued that language patterns in the social sciences have linked quantitative approaches to inquiry and data collection with a “hard” view of the world while qualitative approaches have been connected with a “soft” view and that such distinctions connote the former as masculine and the latter as feminine – and a lower order of social science activity. They reflected this argument in their monograph's title “Real men don't collect soft data”. The point is that examining gendering in how methodological approaches are shaped in the management academy will require data on the language patterns – often unexamined – and their associated codes which shape the meaning of particular research approaches, supporting the institutionalization of particular patterns of research activity. So what are the discursive elements constituting qualitative and quantitative research that permeate the various settings making up the management and organization studies academy – courses and seminars, conferences, colloquia, department social events, job interviews, etc.? What are the terms in which qualitative research is discussed … “hard” … “soft” … “relevance” … “rigor” … “exploratory” … “thick description” … “valid” … “in depth” … “generalizable” … etc. – and what are the taken for granted and accepted cultural meanings they signify?

From the bottom up, we would need to have the data that distinguish how such terms are formulated, used and responded to in scenes of interaction that are consequential to the shaping of research sensibilities. For example, within the setting of a PhD class on, say, organizational ethics in which both qualitative and quantitative studies are examined, how do participants interact with and respond to the studies and to each other. What sentiments are operative in the discussion? This would provide us the data that describe how various constructions enter into everyday interactions and anchor and order consideration, selection and prosecution of research approaches.

This top-down/bottom-up approach to generate data from where the action is is really what is needed to understand the processes through which methodological orientations are built up and find success. Plowman and Smith have an opportunity to move beyond the received view of combining qualitative and quantitative data (that is where the latter is used to validate propositions indicated by the former) to work complementarily to understand the gender pattern in their data. It may center on the processes though which research affinities are developed. It may center on the processes through which women achieve more or less publication success. It may center on something else. We simply need more cycles of more data, and more ideas.

Karen LockeMason School of Business, College of William and Mary, Williamsburg, Virginia, USA

This is among members who choose to report demographic data. I am grateful to AOM membership services office for sharing these statistics.

About the author

Karen Locke, PhD, is W. Brooks George Professor of Business Administration at the College of William and Mary's School of Business. She joined the faculty there in 1989 after earning her PhD in Organizational Behavior from Case Western Reserve University. Dr Locke's work focuses on developing a sociology of knowledge in organizational studies and on the use of qualitative research for the investigation of organizational phenomena. Her work appears in journals such as Academy of Management Journal, Organization Science, Organizational Research Methods, Journal of Organizational Behavior, Journal of Management Inquiry and Studies in Organization, Culture and Society. She has also authored Grounded Theory In Management Research and co-authored Composing Qualitative Research, both books published by Sage. She is recipient of the 2003 Robert McDonald she has also Advancement of Research Methodology from the Academy of Management Research Methods Division. Her current work continues her interest in the processes of qualitative researching and focuses on exploring and explicating their creative and imaginative dimensions. Dr Locke has served as an Associate Action Editor for Organizational Research Methods and is a member of the editorial board for the Academy of Management Journal. She recently served on the Academy of Management Board of Governors. Karen Locke can be contacted at: karen.locke@mason.wm.edu