When Qualitative Researchers Meet “Confidently Wrong” Peer Reviewers
Are you aware of the hidden frustrations many qualitative researchers encounter during peer review? A recent article titled “Being Really Confidently Wrong”: Qualitative Researchers’ Experiences of Methodologically Incongruent Peer Review Feedback by Clarke and her coauthors sheds light on how entrenched quantitative mindsets can hamper the publication of robust qualitative studies. Through a survey of 163 qualitative researchers, the authors reveal how reviewers and editors often apply quantitative standards – like sample size “power,” coding reliability statistics, or forced separation of results from discussion – to approaches that require entirely different benchmarks of rigor. Such mismatched expectations generate stress, hinder methodological integrity, and leave early career researchers especially vulnerable. The authors also provide practical strategies for dealing with these issues – ranging from politely rebutting reviewer demands to raising editorial awareness. Ultimately, they urge reviewers and journals to respect the diversity of qualitative approaches and to support, rather than stifle, these important contributions.
Clarke, V., Braun, V., Adams, J., Callaghan, J.E.M., LaMarre, A., & Semlyen, J. (2024). “Being Really Confidently Wrong”: Qualitative Researchers’ Experiences of Methodologically Incongruent Peer Review Feedback. Qualitative Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1037/qup0000322
Process Research Methods for Studying SCM Phenomena
Our discipline is often dominated by propositional theorizing, which understands theories in terms of cause-and-effect relationships. In a previous post, I discussed how pluralism in theorizing styles (propositional, perspectival, and provocative theorizing) can enrich SCM research. A recent article by Julia Grimm, Ann Langley, and Juliane Reinecke (Process Research Methods for Studying Supply Chains and Their Management) introduces process theorizing as an additional option. The article outlines four approaches to studying processes: (1) evolution, which tracks how entities such as supply chains change over time; (2) narrative, which focuses on how people make sense of change; (3) activity, which examines the ongoing practices that constitute supply chains; and (4) withness, which emphasizes the co-evolution of researchers and the phenomena they study. These approaches demonstrate that supply chains are not static systems, but can be described in terms of dynamic, evolving processes. Process theorizing helps researchers better understand phenomena – such as those related to sustainability, resilience, and digitization – by focusing on how changes unfold over time.
Grimm, J., Langley, A., & Reinecke, J. (2024). Process Research Methods for Studying Supply Chains and Their Management. Journal of Supply Chain Management, 60(4), 3-26. https://doi.org/10.1111/jscm.12331
Enhancing Methodological Transparency in SCM Research
Every empirical-quantitative SCM researcher has different ideas about which methodological steps to follow. The article What You See Is What You Get? Enhancing Methodological Transparency in Management Research by Aguinis, Ramani, and Alabduljader examines methodological transparency in management research. The authors emphasize the importance of transparency for the reproducibility of inferences and results, as low transparency can hide errors, dubious practices, or fraud. Their comprehensive review suggests strategies for improving transparency throughout the research process, including theory development, research design, measurement, analysis, and reporting. SCM researchers can benefit from these methodological recommendations because they can help increase the trustworthiness, replicability, validity, and reliability of studies. In addition, journal editors and reviewers in our discipline can use them to set the right standards for submissions. Of course, methodological standards are constantly evolving, and checklists such as the one described here must always be used with caution. However, I believe that the article by Aguinis et al. provides a very good methodological overview.
Aguinis, H., Ramani, R.S., & Alabduljader, N. (2018). What You See Is What You Get? Enhancing Methodological Transparency in Management Research. Academy of Management Annals, 12(1), 83-110. https://doi.org/10.5465/annals.2016.0011
A Guided Tour Through the Qualitative Research City
I am pleased to share with you a new article I co-authored with Wendy L. Tate and Tingting Yan: A Guided Tour Through the Qualitative Research City. This is my first Journal of Supply Chain Management editorial. In this piece, we draw parallels between a city’s less-visited buildings and ten research approaches: (1) grounded theory, (2) interpretive research, (3) sensemaking, (4) sociomateriality, (5) actor–network theory, (6) ethnography, (7) action research, (8) discourse analysis, (9) narrative research, and (10) historical research. Our goal is to inspire our readers to embrace the methodological diversity of our discipline, as we have noticed a tendency for many to focus on a limited set of qualitative approaches, much like tourists flocking to the Eiffel Tower but not visiting other parts of Paris. JSCM is better equipped than ever to support these and other approaches, as we and our predecessors have made great efforts to diversify and expand our team of associate editors and reviewers to ensure that we can treat a manuscript as it deserves.
Wieland, A., Tate, W.L., & Yan, T. (2024). A Guided Tour Through the Qualitative Research City. Journal of Supply Chain Management, 60(1), 3–12. https://doi.org/10.1111/jscm.12315
Practices for the Writing Stages of Qualitative SCM Research
I have often noticed that researchers in our discipline have many questions about what good qualitative SCM research should look like. A new article by Rockmann and Vough, Using Quotes to Present Claims: Practices for the Writing Stages of Qualitative Research, is a great guide for scholars of qualitative management research. It emphasizes the critical fourth stage of qualitative research – the writing of findings – which goes beyond study design, data collection, and analysis. The authors introduce practical tools such as claim tables and storyboarding for organizing and presenting data, especially quotes. These methods help categorize quotes based on vividness and comprehensiveness, ensuring that different perspectives are included. The approach emphasizes the balance between “showing” data and “telling” its meaning, which is critical to creating compelling narratives. This article is definitely useful for SCM researchers, guiding them in transforming complex qualitative data into powerful, coherent findings, thereby increasing the credibility and impact of their research.
Rockmann, K.W., & Vough, H.C. (2023). Using Quotes to Present Claims: Practices for the Writing Stages of Qualitative Research. Organizational Research Methods, 27(4), 621-649. https://doi.org/10.1177/10944281231210558
Tackling the Replication Crisis in Supply Chain Management
The replication crisis that has deeply affected neighboring disciplines is now under scrutiny in operations management. Eight scholars (Davis et al.: A Replication Study of Operations Management Experiments in Management Science) took the initiative to examine the replicability of ten influential experimental articles. Their results were disturbing: only six articles were fully replicated, two were partially replicated, and two completely missed the mark. Such results raise questions about the robustness of our basic research. In light of these findings, a pressing question arises: Does supply chain management, a closely related discipline, face a similar challenge? As we chart the course forward, it is imperative that both operations and supply chain management embrace transparency, rigor, and accountability. Addressing this crisis head-on will ensure that our disciplines maintain credibility, relevance, and trustworthiness in the academic and business communities. It is clear that there is a need for more replication studies that can challenge existing work.
Davis, A.M., Flicker, B., Hyndman, K., Katok, E., Keppler, S., Leider, S., Long, X., & Tong, J.D. (2023). A Replication Study of Operations Management Experiments in Management Science. Management Science, 69(9), _-_. https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2023.4866
Gap-Spotting or Problematization
How should researchers construct research questions for their academic work? One intuitive answer is by spotting a gap in the existing academic literature. This is certainly an effective approach that follows the Popperian scientific method. In addition to gap-spotting, there is a second approach that deserves a little more attention: problematization. Alvesson and Sandberg (2011) describe this approach in their famous article Generating Research Questions Through Problematization (a must read!). They write that “[t]he dominance of gap-spotting is surprising, given it is increasingly recognized that theory is made interesting and influential when it challenges assumptions that underlie existing literature.” This is what problematization does: it is about identifying and challenging assumptions that underlie existing theories and generating research questions that lead to the development of more interesting and influential theories. Of course, we will still need gap-spotting in the future. But I do believe that SCM research could benefit from more problematization.
Alvesson, M., & Sandberg, J. (2011). Generating Research Questions Through Problematization. Academy of Management Review, 36(2), 247–271. https://doi.org/10.5465/amr.2009.0188
Using Supply Chain Databases in Academic Research
In recent years, academic articles that use supply chain databases have become more and more common in SCM-related journals. Such databases (e.g., Bloomberg SPLC, FactSet Supply Chain Relationships, and Mergent Supply Chain) were originally not developed for use in academic research, but for use in business practice. However, they offer great potential for a better understanding of supply chains (or more precisely supply networks) and supply chain management and are therefore also very interesting for researchers. A recent article by Culot and her coauthors (2023) discusses these potentials and points out pitfalls for using supply chain databases in SCM research. The article is entitled Using Supply Chain Databases in Academic Research: A Methodological Critique and based on a review of previous studies using such databases, publicly available materials, interviews with information service providers, and the direct experience of the authors. I am sure this long-awaited article will serve as a reference for quantitative research relying on such databases for years to come.
Culot, G., Podrecca, M., Nassimbeni, G., Orzes, G., & Sartor, M. (2023). Using Supply Chain Databases in Academic Research: A Methodological Critique. Journal of Supply Chain Management, 59(1), 3–25. https://doi.org/10.1111/jscm.12294
What the 2021 Nobel Prize Means to SCM Research
This year’s Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics goes to David Card “for his empirical contributions to labour economics” and Joshua D. Angrist and Guido W. Imbens “for their methodological contributions to the analysis of causal relationships”. The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences writes in a comprehensive article about the scientific background of this prize (PDF): “Taken together, […] the Laureates’ contributions have played a central role in establishing the so-called design-based approach in economics. This approach – aimed at emulating a randomized experiment to answer a causal question using observational data – has transformed applied work and improved researchers’ ability to answer causal questions of great importance for economic and social policy using observational data.” Similar to what is still widespread in SCM research today, the traditional approach to causal inference in economics relied on structural equation models at least until the 1980s, but, based on the laureates’ work on the local average treatment effect, natural experiments have become increasingly popular in economics. Unfortunately, almost no corresponding research exists in our discipline, but a certain number of natural experiments were carried out in related disciplines (e.g.; Lee & Puranam, 2017; Li & Zhu, 2021; Huang et al., 2021). Perhaps this Nobel Prize can serve as an inspiration for more natural experiments also in the SCM discipline?
Interpretive Supply Chain Management Research
Our discipline is still almost exclusively shaped by positivism. This is very surprising in view of the very complex social phenomena with which the discipline deals. However, recently I have noticed a (slowly) growing trend toward interpretivism. For example, Darby and her coauthors (2019) have discussed the set of questions interpretive research can address in SCM. Many SCM researchers may still be unsure of how best to conduct an interpretive study. Used to the structured approaches of positivist studies (e.g., Yin), we often would like to have a template in hand that shows us how to conduct an interpretive study. A new article by Mees-Buss and her coauthors (2021) argues that the inductive route to theory that templates (e.g., Gioia) offer do not address the challenges of interpretation. They argue that “a return to a hermeneutic orientation opens the way to more plausible and insightful theories based on interpretive rather than procedural rigor” and they offer “a set of heuristics to guide both researchers and reviewers along this path”.
Mees-Buss, J., Welch, C., & Piekkari, R. (2021), From Templates to Heuristics: How and Why to Move Beyond the Gioia Methodology. Organizational Research Methods, 25(2), 405-429. https://doi.org/10.1177/1094428120967716
