The acceptance of mixed methods in business and management research

Purpose – The purpose of this study is to examine the prevalence of mixed methods research across several business and management fields and to gauge the level of acceptance of mixed methods within these fields.Design/methodology/approach – The methodology employed for this study involved synthesizing the findings from six large‐scale methodological scans of business and management discipline journals in seven fields: marketing, international business, strategic management, organizational behaviour, operations management, entrepreneurship and human resource management.Findings – The study finds that quantitative studies dominate all seven fields (76 per cent of empirical articles) followed by mixed methods (14 per cent of empirical articles) and qualitative studies (10 per cent of empirical articles). In applying the framework for acceptance levels, it would seem there exists minimal acceptance of mixed methods across these fields.Research limitations/implications – The study has limitations related to th...

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