I Never Promised You a Rose Garden: When Research Questions Ought to Change

This chapter addresses the common assumption that research questions are fixed at the outset of a study and should remain stable thereafter. We consider field-based organizational research and ask whether and when research questions can legitimately change. We suggest that change can, does, and indeed should occur in response to changes in the context within which the research is being conducted. Using an illustrative example, we identify refinement and reframing as two distinct types of research question development. We conclude that greater transparency over research question evolution would be a healthy development for the field.

[1]  D. Rousseau,et al.  Evidence-Based Practice: The Psychology of EBP Implementation. , 2016, Annual review of psychology.

[2]  R. MacIntosh,et al.  Research Methods for Business and Management , 2015 .

[3]  Robert MacIntosh,et al.  Rethinking dynamic capabilities from a creative action perspective , 2015 .

[4]  Karen Laing.  Constructing research questions: doing interesting research , 2015 .

[5]  Abraham B. Shani,et al.  Creating Action Research Quality in Organization Development: Rigorous, Reflective and Relevant , 2014 .

[6]  Robert Cheng Huat Chia.  Reflections on the distinctiveness of European management scholarship , 2014 .

[7]  Rodolphe Durand,et al.  Moving Forward: Developing Theoretical Contributions in Management Studies , 2014 .

[8]  H. Moschitz,et al.  The challenges of innovation for sustainable agriculture and rural development: Integrating local actions into European policies with the Reflective Learning Methodology , 2014 .

[9]  Barbara Czarniawska,et al.  Social Science Research: From Field to Desk , 2014 .

[10]  James R Cook.  Engaged Scholarship: A Guide for Organizational and Social Research , 2014 .

[11]  Phil Brown,et al.  MOMENTS OF UNCERTAINTY: ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS AND EMERGING CONTAMINANTS. , 2013, Sociological forum.

[12]  D. Bell,et al.  The Sage Encyclopedia of Qualitative Research Methods , 2013 .

[13]  Rachel M. Wasserman,et al.  Ethical Issues and Guidelines for Conducting Data Analysis in Psychological Research , 2013 .

[14]  M. Alvesson,et al.  Has Management Studies Lost its Way? Ideas for More Imaginative and Innovative Research , 2013 .

[15]  Ben Nanfeng Luo,et al.  For Rigour in Organizational Management Theory Research , 2013 .

[16]  J. Wicherts,et al.  The Rules of the Game Called Psychological Science , 2012, Perspectives on psychological science : a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.

[17]  T. Dundon,et al.  Participatory action research with and within community activist groups: Capturing the collective experience of Ireland’s Community and Voluntary Pillar in social partnership , 2012 .

[18]  Robert MacIntosh,et al.  Strategic change as creative action , 2012 .

[19]  Rodolphe Durand,et al.  More than just novelty: conceptual blending and causality , 2012 .

[20]  Leif D. Nelson,et al.  False-Positive Psychology , 2011, Psychological science.

[21]  D. Coghlan.  Action Research: Exploring Perspectives on a Philosophy of Practical Knowing , 2011 .

[22]  Jörgen Sandberg,et al.  Generating Research Questions Through Problematization , 2011 .

[23]  Robert MacIntosh,et al.  Dialogues between Academics and Practitioners: The Role of Generative Dialogic Encounters , 2010 .

[24]  Saku Mantere,et al.  Two Strategies for Inductive Reasoning in Organizational Research , 2010 .

[25]  A. Sasco,et al.  The Challenge of AIDS-Related Malignancies in Sub-Saharan Africa , 2010, PloS one.

[26]  Rodolphe Durand,et al.  Causation, counterfactuals, and competitive advantage , 2009 .

[27]  Tim Haslett,et al.  Action Research: Its History and Relationship to Scientific Methodology , 2009 .

[28]  Krista E. Paulsen.  Ethnography of the ephemeral: studying temporary scenes through individual and collective approaches , 2009 .

[29]  J. Agee,et al.  Developing qualitative research questions: a reflective process , 2009 .

[30]  A. Banerjee,et al.  Hypothesis testing, type I and type II errors , 2009, Industrial psychiatry journal.

[31]  D. Tranfield,et al.  Producing a systematic review. , 2009 .

[32]  M. Pratt.  Fitting Oval Pegs Into Round Holes , 2008 .

[33]  J. Amis,et al.  The Philosophy and Politics of Quality in Qualitative Organizational Research , 2008 .

[34]  Lotte S. Luscher,et al.  Organizational Change and Managerial Sensemaking: Working Through Paradox , 2008 .

[35]  J. Shotter.  Dialogism and Polyphony in Organizing Theorizing in Organization Studies: Action Guiding Anticipations and the Continuous Creation of Novelty , 2008 .

[36]  Jean M. Bartunek,et al.  Insider/Outsider Team Research: The Development of the Approach and its Meanings , 2008 .

[37]  Laura B. Cardinal,et al.  Making a life in the field of organization science , 2007 .

[38]  A. Tsui,et al.  What to Study in China? Choosing and Crafting Important Research Questions , 2007, Management and Organization Review.

[39]  R. MacIntosh,et al.  International perspectives on action research: introduction to the special issue , 2007 .

[40]  Robert MacIntosh,et al.  International perspectives on validity in action research: introduction to the special issue , 2007 .

[41]  C. Clark,et al.  The Messy Process of Research: Dilemmas, Process, and Critique , 2007 .

[42]  Misconduct in the Analysis and Reporting of Data: Bridging Methodological and Ethical Agendas for Change , 2006 .

[43]  On the edge of social constructionism , 2006 .

[44]  P. Reason.  Choice and Quality in Action Research Practice , 2006 .

[45]  J. Chaitin,et al.  "The Times They are a Changing" 1 : Undertaking Qualitative Research in Ambiguous, Conflictual, and Changing Contexts , 2006 .

[46]  John Shotter,et al.  Understanding Process From Within: An Argument for ‘Withness’-Thinking , 2006 .

[47]  Margaret McAllister,et al.  Coming to Autoethnography: A Mental Health Nurse's Experience , 2005 .

[48]  J. Lapum,et al.  A Poetical Journey: The Evolution of a Research Question , 2005 .

[49]  Richard Jones,et al.  The times they are a changing , 2005 .

[50]  Mike W. Peng.  Identifying the big question in international business research , 2004 .

[51]  D. Tranfield,et al.  Towards a Methodology for Developing Evidence-Informed Management Knowledge by Means of Systematic Review , 2003 .

[52]  John M. Mezias,et al.  Studying the Accuracy of Managers' Perceptions: A Research Odyssey , 2003 .

[53]  Kimberly H. Kim.  Code Green: Money-Driven Hospitals and the Dismantling of Nursing , 2003 .

[54]  Robert MacIntosh,et al.  Conditioned emergence: researching change and changing research , 2001 .

[55]  Anne Sigismund Huff,et al.  Citigroup's John Reed and Stanford's James March on management research and practice , 2000 .

[56]  Robert Folger,et al.  Theorizing as the Thickness of Thin Abstraction , 1999 .

[57]  A. Elzinga.  The New Production of Knowledge. The Dynamics of Science and Research in Contemporary Societies , 1997 .

[58]  Robert I. Sutton,et al.  Crossroads—The Virtues of Closet Qualitative Research , 1997 .

[59]  D. S. Sivia,et al.  Data Analysis , 1996, Encyclopedia of Evolutionary Psychological Science.

[60]  C. Eden,et al.  Action Research for Management Research , 1996 .

[61]  J. Bartunek,et al.  Insider/outsider team research , 1996 .

[62]  H. Joas,et al.  The Creativity of Action , 1996 .

[63]  K. Weick.  Theory Construction as Disciplined Imagination , 1989 .

[64]  Catherine C. Marshall,et al.  Designing Qualitative Research , 1996 .

[65]  R. Rohwer.  Order out of Chaos: Man's New Dialogue with Nature , 1986 .

[66]  I. Prigogine,et al.  Order out of chaos , 1984 .

[67]  R. Evered,et al.  Alternative Perspectives in the Organizational Sciences: “Inquiry from the Inside” and “Inquiry from the Outside” , 1981 .

[68]  G. Susman,et al.  An Assessment of the Scientific Merits of Action Research. , 1978 .

[69]  Craig C. Lundberg.  Hypothesis Creation in Organizational Behavior Research , 1976 .

[70]  K. Popper.  Unended Quest: An Intellectual Autobiography , 1976 .

[71]  C. Geertz,et al.  The Interpretation of Cultures , 1973 .

[72]  R. Rapoport.  Three Dilemmas in Action Research , 1970 .