Timely methods: a methodological agenda for researching the temporal in organizing
Qualitative Research in Organizations and Management
ISSN: 1746-5648
Article publication date: 23 September 2022
Issue publication date: 22 March 2023
Abstract
Purpose
This paper stimulates methodological debates and advances the research agenda for qualitative research about time and temporality in organizing processes. It develops a framework for studying the temporal in organizing that contributes by: (1) providing an overview to prepare for and navigate various methodological challenges in this regard, (2) offering inspiration for relevant solutions to those challenges and (3) posing timely questions to facilitate temporal reflexivity in scholarly work.
Design/methodology/approach
Based on a literature review of studies about temporality in organizing processes, the authors develop a framework of well-acknowledged methodological challenges, dilemmas and paradoxes, and pose timely questions with which to develop potential solutions for research about organization and time.
Findings
The framework of this study offers a synthesis of methodological challenges and potential solutions acknowledged in the organization studies literature. It consists of three interrelated dimensions of methodological challenges to studying temporality in organizing processes, namely: empirical, analytical and representational challenges. These manifests in six subcategories: empirical cases, empirical methods, analytical concepts, analytical processes and coding, representing researchers’ temporal embeddedness and representing multiple temporalities.
Originality/value
This paper allows scholars to undertake a more ambitious, collective methodological discussion and sets an agenda for studying the temporal in organizing. The framework developed stimulates researchers’ temporal reflexivity and inspires them to develop solutions to specific methodological challenges that may emerge in their study of the temporal in organizing.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank the editor Christopher Hartt and the anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments and support throughout the process. The authors are also grateful to the participants of the EGOS Standing Working Group on Organization and Time and our colleagues from the Centre for Organization and Time, CBS, as well as Ann Langley for constructive feedback on earlier versions of this paper. Finally, the authors would like to thank the VELUX FONDEN (00021807) for financial support.
Citation
Feuls, M., Plotnikof, M. and Stjerne, I.S. (2023), "Timely methods: a methodological agenda for researching the temporal in organizing", Qualitative Research in Organizations and Management, Vol. 18 No. 1, pp. 102-122. https://doi.org/10.1108/QROM-05-2021-2141
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2022, Emerald Publishing Limited