Qualitative research practices and family business scholarship: A review and future research agenda

Denise Fletcher, Alfredo De Massis and Mattias Nordqvist

Journal of Family Business Strategy, 2016, vol. 7, issue 1, 8-25

Abstract: In spite of various calls for a wider application of qualitative research in the family business field, it is our contention that the full potential of qualitative inquiry is not being fully realized. Part of the reason for this relates to the tendency to promote methods choice and diversity rather than addressing the foundational questions and processes which underlie qualitative research choices. These tendencies obscure attention to the reasons why researchers choose qualitative methods and the kinds of foundational issues about family businesses that are brought to light through qualitative research. To address this, we undertake an analysis of the most-cited articles using qualitative methods from an annotated bibliography of family business studies. From this, we identify the strengths and weaknesses of extant qualitative studies in family business research and argue for the need to re-orientate calls in family business research towards the foundational questions (rather than methods) that underline qualitative inquiry.

Keywords: Qualitative research; Qualitative methods; Epistemology; Interpretivism; Family business; Future research (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (34)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1877858515000364
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:fambus:v:7:y:2016:i:1:p:8-25

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/719791/bibliographic
http://www.elsevier. ... 719791/bibliographic

DOI: 10.1016/j.jfbs.2015.08.001

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Family Business Strategy is currently edited by J.H. Astrachan

More articles in Journal of Family Business Strategy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().