Convincing Qualitative

Article
Organizational Research Methods

2018, Vol. 21(1) 30-67
ª The Author(s) 2017
Convincing Qualitative Reprints and permission:
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Research: What Constitutes DOI: 10.1177/1094428117706533
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Persuasive Writing?
Karsten Jonsen1, Jacqueline Fendt2

and Sébastien Point3
Abstract
We review ontological, epistemological, and methodological concerns in writing up research, dis-
tilled from selected inductive studies published in leading academic journals. From this analysis of
practices emerges the following categorization, (a) rhetoric, (b) craftsmanship, (c) authenticity, (d)
reflexivity, and (e) imagination, which informs the writing up of appealing and convincing qualitative
research. We give examples and propose actionable writing heuristics. We offer reflections and
recommendations on how qualitative research writing could be improved and its diffusion
accelerated.
Keywords
qualitative research, induction, rhetoric, epistemology, ontology, authenticity, reflexivity,
imagination
Half-convinced writers trying to half-convince readers of their [the writers’] half convictions
would not on the face of it seem an especially favorable situation for the production of works
of very much power.
—Clifford Geertz (1988)
Qualitative research is critical to social sciences and to the understanding of both organizational
behavior and behavior in organizations. Over the past decades, qualitative (exploratory) research has
expanded in management science in hitherto unimaginable ways, paying substantial heed to meth-
odological pluralism (Easterby-Smith, Golden-Biddle, & Locke, 2008; Jehn & Jonsen, 2010;
1
IMD, Lausanne, Switzerland
2
ESCP Europe, Paris, France
3
EM Strasbourg Business School, Université de Strasbourg, Strasburg, France
Corresponding Author:
Karsten Jonsen, IMD, ch. de Bellerive 23, Lausanne, 1001, Switzerland.
Email: [email protected]
Jonsen et al. 31
Johnson & Duberley, 2015; see also Cortina, Aguinis, & DeShon, 2017, regarding methodological
pluralism in psychology).1 Scholarly journals have widened their editorial policies to encourage
social constructionist (Berger & Luckmann, 1966) research endeavors and opened their editorial
boards to experts in ethnographic (Van Maanen, 1988), interpretive (Denzin, 1997), inductive/
abductive (Ketokivi & Mantere, 2010), grounded (Glaser & Strauss, 1967; Strauss & Corbin,
1998), narrative (Goodall, 2010), (post)structural (Giddens, 1984), postmodernist (Richardson &
St. Pierre, 2005), sense-making (Gioia & Chittipeddi, 1991; Weick, 1995), discursive (Barrett,
Thomas, & Hocevar, 1995; Putnam & Fairhurst, 2000), and/or creative (Barrett & Bolt, 2007; Perry,
2007) approaches to inquiry. Moreover, many journals explicitly call for more qualitative contri-
butions (Bansal & Corley, 2011, 2012) and launch special issues for this very purpose.2
Once a chronic victim of institutionalized discrimination (Symon, Buehring, Johnson, & Cassell,
2008), the “poor cousin” of the “red-headed stepchild” of inquiry (see Smith, Madden, & Plowman,
2014) is finally taking her rightful place at the adults’ table, and we are fortunate today to be working
in a climate of relative methodological plurality. Many forms of inquiring, knowing, and sharing
cohabit alongside each other, and increasingly qualified reviewers (Easterby-Smith et al., 2008) are
receptive to “honest subjectivity” and creative craftsmanship (Cunliffe, 2011). Moreover, scholars
can today access a myriad of helpful articles, blogs, books, and studies with recommendations on
implicit and explicit criteria used by editors and reviewers of qualitative manuscripts (e.g., Czar-
niawska, 2008; Geertz, 1988; Gioia, Corley, & Hamilton, 2012; Locke, Golden-Biddle, & Feldman,
2008; McGaughey, 2004; Patton, 1990; Pope, Mays, & Popay, 2007; Savall, Zardet, Bonnet, &
Peron, 2008; Symon, Cassell, & Dickson, 2000; Webb, 2003). Such criteria, namely (a) contribution
to theory, (b) novelty, (c) transparency, (d) well-articulated methods, and (e) good writing, are
mostly shared by both authors and reviewers (Pratt, 2008, pp. 486-488).3
Some challenges and tensions have been pointed out, however, such as (a) how to develop new
theory while staying firmly embedded in extant theory, (b) the need for detail and transparency on
methods, journey, and original data while adhering to standard journal formats, (c) how to provide
enough data to permit readers to draw their own conclusions and yet provide interpretation, and (d)
the reviewers’ evaluation of the story (lessons) authors try to convey (Pratt, 2008). Recommenda-
tions include stylish writing, precise craft and creativity, and the navigation of the tension between
communicating and impressing (Sword, 2012). Rich case stories (Burgelman, 1996) and/or detailed
storytelling (Boje, 2002; Czarniawska, 2004; Czarniawska & Joerges, 1996; Rosile, Boje, Carlon,
Downs, & Saylors, 2013; Weick, 1977, 1995) can help scholars make cognitive and affective sense,
and create a compelling context. Daft (1983) proposes to embrace nonlinearity and dwell in poetry,
emotion, room for error, and surprise. Cloutier (2016) sees academic writing as a social activity
performed at the intersection of several practices: thinking, talking, drawing, and reading. Bansal
and Corley (2012) ask for no less than a “unique and inspiring story” (p. 511), and Cunliffe (2010)
claims that textual validity is also about “imagination as a means of interrogating the relationship
between individuals and the world” (p. 231).
On Writing
Writing is perceived as central to qualitative research: how the story is experienced, (de)constructed,
and proposed—and how it is in turn received and interpreted by the reader. While traditional
quantitative (confirmatory) methods use confidence intervals, significance levels, Cronbach alphas,
bootstrapping, and other psychometric reliability scores as “built-in safeguards for warranting
claims” (Barley, 2006, p. 19), qualitative work often consists of “mere” text. So, what makes good
scientific writing? This is what this study sets out to investigate. Golden-Biddle and Locke (1993), in
their inquiry on what makes ethnographic work appealing, purport that a good criterion to judge
texts is the ability to “convince.” They break down convincing along three dimensions that are
32 Organizational Research Methods 21(1)
authenticity, plausibility, and criticality. Research should convince its audience that it is substantive,
trustworthy, and purposeful, that it will contribute to the advancement of a field of knowledge, but
also that the author is capable of conducting a qualitative inquiry (Lindsay, 2011; Marshall &
Rossman, 1999; Odena, 2013).
Moreover, in a narration from an interpretative perspective of science, writers and readers inter-
act and interpret the proposed accounts. Such interpretations create a “fundamental asymmetry”
(Golden-Biddle & Locke, 1993, p. 596) between reader and text and thus a degree of independence
from the writer. Writing is a way of knowing, a “method of inquiry” (Richardson & St. Pierre, 2005).
Texts are invitations to readers to participate actively in this process of knowing, to combine
propositions and interpretations at hand with separate assertions from their own world (Black,
Freeman, & Johnson-Laird, 1986) and thus come to learn and to grow by questioning many
taken-for-granted ideas and beliefs about that world. Writing is therefore not just “mopping up”
(Richardson, 1994, p. 516) once the research is done. Writing is researching. Such writing practice
can be learned from theorists of fields that have a head start over management science in terms of the
construction and interpretation of texts that deal with contextually grounded social experiences from
the perspective of the actors and their sense making: literary criticism (e.g., Booth, 1961), philoso-
phy (Melles, 2008; Rorty, 1982), anthropology (Geertz, 1973), linguistics (Iser, 1978), and psychol-
ogy (Black et al., 1986). Convincing emerges not only from what message a text conveys, but also
from how it conveys the message, that is, how it is crafted.
In this study, we examine some works of management and organizational scholars who have
published their exploratory research in fine journals. Specifically, we explore the following ques-
tions: How did they convince? How did they deal with the tensions between expanding iterative
methods, daring creative tools, and yet conform to “genre constraints” (Barley, 2006, p. 19)? How
did they share their rich micro moments of insights, playfulness, and logics of action (Holt & den
Hond, 2013), while convincing in terms of scientific rigor? How are their methods, thought pro-
cesses, labels, and assumptions made transparent and plausible to the reader? What can we learn
from them? We strive to make a contribution by illuminating emerging criteria, conventions,
templates, and patterns of qualitative inquiry, and by selecting and examining specific studies from
which we believe many scholars can learn. We purport that qualitative research can be narrated with
creativity and imagination, in line with its epistemological stance, and still be considered meaningful
and academically rigorous by reviewers and scholars.
To substantiate this claim, we first present a synthesis of seminal qualitative scholarly work
published during recent years, and highlight principal stratagems that authors deploy to convince, in
terms of both substance and scientific rigor. Grounded in this synthesis, we frame a categorization
scheme of convincing writing, that is, parameters on which readers can engage with a given research
text. For each of these, we present examples and a set of concrete, actionable writing heuristics and
strategies that scholars might find helpful when they work toward bringing compelling qualitative
studies into the zeitgeist of management and organizational science.
In Search of Meaning, Patterns, and Inspiration

Our long-standing passion for qualitative research, our own practical dabbling, some helpful
reviewers, and finally three independent literature reviews on qualitative research in the 1990s and
2000s have yielded our sample of inductive studies that made it—between 2009 and mid-2015—into
the following academic outlets: Academy of Management Journal, Administrative Science Quar-
terly, Organization Science, Journal of Management Studies, Organization Studies, and Strategic
Management Journal. Our sampling rationales were to examine generalist management journals that
accept a variety of research approaches. These journals are considered “leading” both by the
academic community and in terms of the Financial Times ranking of business schools.4
Jonsen et al. 33
How did these studies convince? We set out to understand how these authors articulated their
practices, observations, and insights (Gephart, 2004) in a manner that reassured reviewers of both
the scienticity and the noteworthiness of their contributions. We scanned through their studies for
logics, patterns, perhaps standards, strong stories, and creative, generative, and candid gestures. This
was challenging because what we were looking for could often not be captured in simple keywords.
Ultimately, what inspires, motivates, and triggers insight is in the eyes of the beholder, in this case
ours. We each independently pulled out compelling narratives, research designs, and visualizations.
We organized our findings in different manners, and compared them. We shared, negotiated, and
eventually converged on a “sample within the sample” of 29 studies, which for a variety of reasons
touched us, caught our attention, and could help answer our research questions (Table 1).
The studies at hand represent a broad spectrum of ontological, epistemological, and methodolo-
gical approaches, ranging from ethnographic narratives to grounded, coded aggregations and prag-
matic case study approaches; from personalized to very neutral, “realist” writing styles; from
conservative linear designs to works with large degrees of structural and methodological indepen-
dence. However, they display one common characteristic: a masterly way in which they negotiate
the many fields of tension and the dilemmas of qualitative research (see Pratt, 2008). We believe
most authors, rather than seeing dilemmas or dichotomies (which would imply either/or choices),
perceived opportunities and saw dimensions, continua of possibility on which one could discourse,
negotiate, and navigate, all to progress and to find an optimal balance between different epistemic,
processual, narrative, and/or technical determinants. We reorganized our sample several times,
striving to find a suitable aggregation logic to the emerging writing (and reviewing) conventions.
We took individual notes and memos (some coded, some narrative, some schemata) and shared
them; we asked some of our doctoral students to do the same. We then collectively de-/re-/co-
constructed them and eventually identified five continua that had likely informed the substantive
contributions of the papers at hand—and their acceptance:
A confident, clear, and candid rhetoric. Different narrative styles (from highly personalized
to visual, to realist) that elegantly combine both journey and resulting theory; tangible,
plausible bridges between first-order voices from the field and rigorous second-order con-
ceptualization; enthralling and genuine, albeit “conceptually-mediated” (Van Maanen,
1988) accounts of the social experience at hand.
A solid and transparent methodological craftsmanship. Adhesion to canons (e.g., in the
basic flow from introduction to problem statement, methods, data, discussion, and conclu-
sion) on the one hand, and deviation from them on the other hand; liberties taken with
methods and tools, namely in many creative ways that data and its interpretation is iterated,
framed, and displayed.
A compelling, lively authenticity and energy. Energy in narrating the meanders of (parti-
cularized moments in) the everyday realities encountered in the field and conveying both
the rich cognitive and emotional process of immersion and the synthetically substantiated
theories—and elegantly oscillates between them.
A strong reflexivity. Reflexivity in terms of the writing as a cognitive process designed to
reflect and relate to the readers’ worlds, yet asymmetrical enough to attract the audience’s
full attention and scrutiny, and even go as far as pushing it to self-reflect and reexamine
taken-for-granted assumptions and beliefs.
A touch of imagination, some brave abductive leaps. A trust in one’s mind, instincts, and
intuition to trigger generative, insightful moments; the sagaciousness to understand and
value such moments not merely as introspectively satisfactory, but as data in their own
right, and, conjectured from them, novel sketches of seeing and organizing the world.
34
Table 1. Selective Sample of Qualitative Studies in Leading Journals (2009-2015): Remarkable Characteristics and Actionable Heuristics.
Key Methodology Studies/Scholars

Title Cue and Citation Journal Referenced Authors’ Naming of Analysis Remarkable Elements/Heuristics in the Write-up
“Understanding AMJ Agar, 1980; Schwartzman, 1989; Van In-depth qualitative study; Craftsmanship: Consequent timeline/phased approach
Shifting Power Maanen, 1979; Levina, 2001 ethnography; critical genre Authenticity: Generous genre purpose and form tables
Relations . . . ” analysis; structuration theory make a lively introduction for readers unfamiliar with
Levina & Orlikowski the field at hand, management consulting (Tables 1-3)
2009 Reflexivity: The emerging differences (“espoused” and
“enacted”) leading to analytical differentiation are
explained and documented; a model (p. 697): of social
dynamics leading to power change, including
conditions, actions and multilevel consequences
Genre analysis is proposed as a method for studying
power relations
“Exploitation- Org Sci Yin, 1994; Eisenhardt & Graebner, 2007; Comparative case study Rhetoric: The data analysis provides transparency on four
Exploration Eisenhardt, 1989; Forster, 1994; stages coding process, bridging the understanding
Tensions . . . ” Eisenhardt & Bourgeois, 1988; from field to conceptual language
Andriopoulos & Lewis Spradley, 1979; Glaser & Strauss, Craftsmanship: Clear figures detailing first-order
2009 1967; Strauss & Corbin, 1990; Miles & concepts, second-order concepts, and aggregate
Huberman, 1994; Van Maanen, 1979; dimensions (with corresponding paradox)
Cohen, 1960 Imagination: A table (a clever mix of interviews, archival
material, and observation across cases) summarizes
the data structure
“Transitional Identity ASQ Eisenhardt, 1989; Yin, 2003; Glaser & Interpretive, grounded theory; Rhetoric: Findings bridge well between a classic Gioia
as a Facilitator . . . ” Strauss, 1967; Strauss & Corbin, 1990, real-time, longitudinal, overview table and lively supporting quotes from the
Clark et al. 2010 1998;Van Maanen, 1979; Lincoln & exploratory case study; field in which the second-order themes are grounded
Guba, 1985; Gioia et al., 1994 naturalistic inquiry Craftsmanship: Methodology tightly and well described;
an emergent model of identity change (during a
merger) toward an “outcome” of shared identity and
a process model framework make good grounds for
future research
Imagination: Interesting timeline of transitional identity
evolution
(continued)
Table 1. (continued)

“The Role of SMJ Pentland, 1999; Gibbert, Ruigrok & Qualitative longitudinal case Craftsmanship and authenticity: An exciting and
Fairness . . . ” Wicki, 2008; Yin, 2003; Miles & (process study but not labeled refreshingly candid narration explains events and
Ariño & Ring 2010 Huberman, 1994; Eisenhardt, 1989; as such) establishes relationships between events, actions, and
Ring & Van de Ven, 1994 actors in the formation process of partnerships over
time
The integrated framework on the emergent process and
its propositions are particularly well-conceived to
serve for further inquiry
“Micro-Institutional Org St Strauss, 1987; Vaughan, 1992; Locke, Qualitative, inductive approach Craftsmanship: The final aggregation level is very clear
Affordances . . . ” 2001; Eisenhardt, 1989; Strauss & Iterative comparison and (Figure 1); it is the type of tangible integrated
Van Dijk et al. 2011 Corbin, 1998; Glaser & Strauss, 1967; systematic coding along framework that facilitates further research
Huber & Power, 1985; Suchman, innovation trajectories Authenticity: Iteration between concept, empirical quotes
1995; Lincoln & Guba, 1985; and definition (Table 3) is lively and clinically precise.
Pettigrew, 1990 The reader can follow the researcher’s interpretation
logic Idem for the relationship between crises,
affordances, and strategic responses (Table 4).
Reflexivity: Aggregation choices and implementation of
great precision, the reader can engage with, reflect
upon, and trust the proposed theory
“The Dialectical Sense Org St Willis, 2000; Holmes, 2000; Gold, 1958; Participant-observation Rhetoric and authenticity: Permanent and rich iteration
of Humour . . . ” Ditton, 1977 ethnography between respondent quotes, interpretation thereof,
Korczynski 2011 and theory in the write-up
Imagination: Authors have elaborated a taxonomy of
forms of humor at the workplace in discussion form
“How Middle SMJ Bartunek, 1984; Gioia & Chittipedi, None Rhetoric: A no-complex, lively writing style in the first
Managers’ . . . ” 1991; Eisenhardt & Graebner, 2007 person. Rather than explicitly draw on a known
Huy 2011 methodology, this researcher simply tells his story in a
longitudinal case study; very clear and transparent
connection between first-order original quotes and
second-order aggregation steps along three tables
Reflexivity: Why the question at hand needs holistic study,
many epistemological reflections, and how they led to
methodological decisions, triangulations, etc.
35
(continued)
36

“The SMJ Pettigrew, Woodman, & Cameron, Inductive, embedded design with Authenticity and rhetoric: Candid and clear about actual
Implementation . . . ” 2001; Suddaby, 2006; Strauss & three units of analysis; fine- research process (e.g., literature review ex post) and
Moschieri 2011 Corbin, 1998; Miles & Huberman, grained intensive case study write-up (start with literature review)
1994; Coffey & Atkinson, 1996; Craftsmanship: Three precise grids of analysis: within-
Weick, 1979 case, fine-grained, and cross-case; displays that—and
up to where—inductive method can be comparative;
very actionable propositions
Reflexivity: Discussion builds proposition after
proposition, iteratively grounded in the aggregation
process, intertwined by precise original respondent
quotes and extant theory; this makes reflective,
stimulating, and engaged reading
“Rotating ASQ Eisenhardt, 1989; Miles & Huberman, Cross-case analysis Craftsmanship: Precise evidence tables of outcome
Leadership . . . ” 1994 (innovation performance); precision-making pattern
Davis & Eisenhardt 2011 assessment, including time separated phases; clear
theoretical model
Imagination: Creative sampling of types collaborations
between partners with diverse antecedents of
superior collaboration performance
“Transcending ASQ Eisenhardt, 1989; Pettigrew, 1990; Ethnographic case study design Craftsmanship and imagination: Creative within-case
Socialization . . . ” Siggelkow, 2007; Cook & Campbell, contrasting approach; participants drawing diagrams;
Michel 2011 1979; Locke, 2001; Jehn, 1997; actionable evidence tables (also) divided into time
Spradley, 1979; Weiss, 1994; Glaser & periods and a dynamic model that facilitates further
Strauss, 1967 research
“Why and How Will a JMS Eisenhardt, 1989; Siggelkow, 2007; Inductive theory-building Craftsmanship: Precise overview of data analysis and
Group . . . ” Langley, 1999 approach conceptualization
Pandza 2011 Imagination: A graph (p. 1022) makes the researcher at
work very transparent: you see from it the continuous
interplay between emerging concepts and data
(continued)

“From Common to AMJ Strauss & Corbin, 1990; Lee, 1999; Interpretive research approach Craftsmanship: In-depth pathway analysis (Figure 3, A, B,
Uncommon Glaser & Strauss, 1967; Lincoln & Grounded model C) and explication of the linkages gravitating around
Knowledge . . . ” Guba, 1985; Patton, 1980; Van Naturalistic inquiry the last and most interesting aggregated dimension
Nag & Gioia 2012 Maanen, 1988; Miles & Huberman, Constant comparison techniques (uncommon knowledge use) from data structure table
1984; Glaser & Strauss, 1967; Corley and the dynamic framework
& Gioia, 2011; Dubin, 1978 Reflexivity: A precise processual view of how structured
managerial knowledge is linked to subsequent
cognitive and behavioral activities that constitute
micro-processes underlying organizational
competencies; post hoc analysis of pathways’ effects
on innovation outcomes
“‘Hippies on the Third Org St Holstein & Gubrium, 2000; Cunliffe, Qualitative social constructivist Rhetoric: Clear description of emergence of narrative
Floor’ . . . ” Luhman, & Boje, 2004; Grant, Putnam, method identity genres: achievement, transformation,
Wright et al. 2012 & Hardy, 2011; Wetherell & Potter, epiphany, and sacrifice
1989; Miles & Huberman, 1994; Authenticity: Constant narrative interplay between
Strauss & Corbin, 1998; Brown, 2001; respondent quotes and interpretation leading to a
Gergen, 1994 typology of identities: green change agent, rational
manager, heroic self, and committed activist, and to
evidence of dynamic shifts between identities to craft
a coherent sense of self
“Wielding the AMJ Eisenhardt, 1989; Miles & Huberman, Longitudinal archival study Craftsmanship: Process-based understanding of
Willow . . . ” 1994; Lincoln and Guba, 2000; Jick, Single case study institutional change by integrating bottom-up and top-
Wright & Zammuto 1979 down processual mechanisms; actionable multilevel
2013 process model of institutional change, combined with
a timeline
Reflexivity: Detailed and precise narrative of institutional
mechanisms and contrasting logics
Imagination: A (rare) example of a creative desk study
without field work
“Coerced Practice AMJ Huber & Power, 1985; Miller et al., 1997; Longitudinal case study Craftsmanship: Precise temporal structure of data
Implementation . . . ” Pettigrew, 1990; Langley, 1999; Stake, (phases)
Canato et al. 2013 1995; Yin, 1994; Ansari et al., 2010 Authenticity: Historic context well described; data
collection and coding builds on existing knowledge,
well-adapted during the process
Imagination: Many diverse sources of practices used for
37
model(s) of cultural change (pp. 1744, 1746)
(continued)
38
“Collective ASQ Glaser & Strauss, 1967; Van de Ven & Inductive qualitative Craftsmanship: Strong staged analysis using a “Gioia
Engagement in Poole, 1995; Langley, 1999; Mohr, Process analysis boilerplate” overview table in Stage 1; visual (meeting)
Creative Tasks . . . ” 1982; Rescher, 1996 maps for Stages 2 and 3
Harvey & Kou 2013 Reflexivity: Modes and sequences, tied to the “outcome”
of ideas; a well-argued model of idea generation in
group creative processes, alternative to existing
conceptions
“Commodifying the JMS Strauss & Corbin, 1994; Suddaby, 2006; Qualitative, grounded theory Rhetoric and craftsmanship: The reader is led through the
Commodifiers . . . ” Suddaby & Greenwood, 2001; Van approach aggregation process in a very transparent way: text
O’Mahoney et al. 2013 Maanen et al., 2007; Glaser & Strauss, and a table detail open coding process leading
1967; Ketokivi & Mantere, 2010 descriptive coding scheme, second-order themes
analysis, flows into a theory selection approach
The “codification-abstraction-translation” process is
detailed within the table
“Blind Dates and Org St Yin, 2009; Halinen & Törnroos, 2005; Embedded case design Authenticity: Network level, growth, structure,
Arranged Parkhe et al., 2006; Langley, 1999; Longitudinal observation composition, and size are measured and combined
Marriages . . . ” Eisenhardt, 1989; Patton, 2001 Process study with the user observation data to yield:
Paquin & Howard- A landscape of network orchestration actions,
Grenville 2013 outcomes and evolution over time
The interplay of network orchestration to shape
structures and outcomes and in turn further
network orchestration
Imagination: This study innovates in that it combines
longitudinal qualitative process observation with
(partly quantitative) network analysis tools (mapping,
snapshots)
“Let’s Dance! AMJ Charmaz, 2006; Strauss & Corbin, 1990; Inductive, qualitative study using Imagination: A prime example of creative use of an
Elastic . . . ” Creswell, 1998; Yin, 2009; Amabile, grounded theory extreme case (setting), where emerging findings
Harrison & Rouse 2014 1982; Pettigrew, 1990 generate insights and theoretical interpretations can
speak to other areas and situations (e.g., innovation
teams); data collection and analysis precisely depicted
in table (p. 1263); visually appealing “outcome” model
of elastic coordination in creative work
(continued)

“Functions of ASQ Locke, 2001; Charmaz, 2006; Arnould & Ethnography Craftsmanship and reflexivity: Intriguing process model
Dysfunction . . . ” Wallendorf, 1994; Glaser & Strauss, Qualitative inquiry (for organizational duality) entailing:
Ashforth & Reingen 1967; Miles & Huberman, 1994 Constant comparative method Three interrelated boxes labeled by the research
2014 questions;
Three distinct interrelated levels: individual, group,
and organizational
“Gender in Academic JMS Van Maanen et al., 2007; Silverman, 2006; Abductive reasoning Craftsmanship: Clear and detailed visualization (Figure 1,
Networking . . . ” Eisenhardt & Graebner, 2007 p. 470) of the coding scheme in the vein of Gioia et al.
Brink & Benschop 2014 (2013)
Authenticity: The authors explain with great precision
how they went back and forth from their empirical
data to the literature
“Local Venturing as JMS Gersick, 1988; Glaser & Strauss, 1967; Inductive theory-building research Rhetoric: The methodology is rolled out in a concise and
Compassion . . . ” Locke, 2001; Miles & Huberman, coherent manner
Shepherd & Williams 1994; Strauss & Corbin, 1998; Craftsmanship: Data collection over a long period of time
2014 Eisenhardt & Graebner, 2007; Dey, is well presented in text and coherent graphs; data
2007; Gioia et al., 1994, 2013; Lincoln table (p. 961) is well-conceived: within four different
& Guba, 1985; Pratt et al., 2006; columns over one page, the authors detail and argue
Geertz, 1973; Van Maanen, 1979; their aggregation levels
Isabella, 1990 Authenticity: Rich data analysis section, with step-by-step
process description (first-order codes and theoretical
dimensions well detailed)
“The Mutual Org Sci Eisenhardt, 1989; Jick, 1979; Yin, 1984; Grounded theory-building Authenticity: Full details about the coding procedure: with
Constitution of Strauss & Corbin, 1996; Locke, 2001; approach triangulated data, the author first identified “themes,”
Persons and Spradley, 1979; Glaser, 1978; Miles & Ethnography analyzing data, and writing memos to understand the
Organizations . . . ” Huberman, 1994 data abstractly; triangulation is richly and clearly
Michel 2014 described in table form (p. 1089)
“The Temporality of Org St Silverman, 2006; Spradley, 1979 Exploratory empirical study Rhetoric: A long and precise theoretical introduction,
Power . . . ” Participant observation nearly half the paper; little structure throughout the
Costas & Grey 2014 paper; generally a strong emphasis on compelling
narrative, with rich, regular respondent quotes. No
tables, figures, objectivization, or other organization
of data to prove rigorousness; a “pure” narrative
theory
Reflexivity: A conceptual discussion dissects relationship
between temporality and power
39
(continued)
40
“Discourse SMJ Grant, 2003; Sandberg & Tsoukas, 2011; Exploratory-oriented method; Craftsmanship: A savvy mix of different qualitative tools/
Revisited . . . ” Smith, Flowers, & Larkin, 2009; phenomenology; hermeneutics; methods; focused, 2-step phases: changing emphasis
Paroutis & Heracleous Jarzabkowsli et al., 2009; Laamanen & grounded theory over time, and institutional work performed during
2013 Wallin, 2009: Pettigrew, 2009; Glaser that time, these two lines of analysis are then
& Strauss, 1967; Strauss & Corbin, connected for patterns to emerge. Visualized in tables
1990 that connect precisely with the discussion
Authenticity: Rationale for tools at every step is very well
chiseled out
Imagination: Methods are intertwined in a smart way to
respond, at every aggregation level, to the emerging
research interrogation: interviews, a longitudinal
within-firm case study (extreme situation), archives,
ethnographic observation
“From Core to SMJ Eisenhardt, 1989; Santos & Eisenhardt, Multiple case inductive study (a Rhetoric: Well-narrated large-scale and detailed highly
Periphery . . . ” 2005; Kumar, Stern, & Anderson, process study [Langley] not recursive process approach to investigate knowledge
Lipparini et al. 2014 1993; Leonard-Barton, 1990; Langley, described as such) emergence and dynamics in an industry setting
1999 Craftsmanship: Move from single case, in pairs, to cross-
cases to challenge identified patterns and render them
robust
Imagination: Excellent, unusual graphics to display
knowledge flows between firms
“Weathering a Meta- AMJ Strauss & Corbin, 2008; Glaser, 1978; Longitudinal Craftsmanship: Methodology parsimoniously and
Level Identity Spradley, 1979; Edmondson & Grounded theory precisely positioned
Crisis . . . ” McManus, 2007; Langley, 1999; Burrell Authenticity: Good timeline overview of events; clear
Patvardhan et al. 2015 & Morgan, 1979; Burgelman, 2011; distinction between crisis and its prologue throughout
Lincoln & Guba, 1985 the paper
Imagination: Grounded model interacts smartly between
the dynamics of collective and member level
“When Times AMJ Zilber, 2002; Van Maanen, 1979; Langley Inductive, qualitative process Reflexivity: Clear and rich discussion that touches upon a
Collide . . . ” et al., 2013; Gephart, 1978, 2004; approach wide multilevel context
Reinecke & Ansari 2015 Eisenhardt, 1989; Pratt et al., 2006; Ethnography Imagination: A time-view perspective (clock time and
Fine & Deegan, 1996; Blumer, 1954; process time) grounded in culture used consequently
Hernes, 2007; Corbin & Strauss, 2008; throughout the paper, including how they contrast
Hammersley & Atkinson, 1989; and consolidate in a well-drawn theorizing process-
Lincoln & Guba, 1985; Denzin, 1997; model of ambi-temporality (p. 637)
Lok & de Rond, 2013
(continued)

“Dynamic Decision AMJ Eisenhardt & Graebner, 2007; Yin, 1984; Case comparisons Rhetoric: Bold use of terms (e.g., “bitch”, respondent
Making . . . ” Leonard-Barton, 1990; Eisenhardt, Analytical techniques (stages from quote, first line) gets attention and transmits energy
Smith 2014 1989; Jick, 1979; Miller et al., 1997; Gioia et al., 2013) and authenticity
Miles & Huberman, 1994; Gioia et al., Craftsmanship: Data analysis is rich and trust-building,
2013; Langley, 1999, 2007; Locke with highly precise overview table (p. 1598); the
et al., 2008; Maitlis, 2005; Huff, 1990; overview table and data supporting interpretations (of
Feldman & Orlikowski, 2011; second-order themes) flow logically and plausibly into
Jarzabkowski, 2005; Lincoln & Guba, a dynamic decision-making model (p. 1606)
1985
41
The common denominator in our sample is thus an ability to communicate beyond a fundamen-
talist either–or logic in the evoked qualitative research writing. To perceive and express these fields
of tension not as constraints, but as spaces of possibility on which to oscillate and find a purposeful
hermeneutic balance between objectivity and subjectivity; conformity to formal research standards
and structures and creativity faithfulness to the real, iterative process; process and theory; persona-
lized narration and more neutral, realist posture, and so forth. These five writing practices—and the
interplay inside and across them—were the essence from which the authors built their substantive
contribution—and gained the engagement, and ultimately the conviction of reviewers and readers.
We now briefly comment on our sample as a whole. We then address the aforementioned
categorization scheme of convincing writing, sharing findings for each, and follow up with a set
of actionable heuristics in dedicated tables. These practices, while presented separately, are not
mutually exclusive. They have a distinctive conceptual character, but they are also overlapping and
interrelated, and authors may use similar writing tactics to gain in authenticity, reflexivity, or
novelty. For example, the transparent and precise way some scholars deal with their translation
of field (first-order) voices into theoretical (second-order) language, is a matter of rhetoric, but also
of authenticity, in that the reader will or will not engage with proposed aggregation and translation
and consider them plausible, and finally of methodological craftsmanship. A lively account of a field
situation helps to convince in terms of authenticity, of “having been there,” but of course that same
disarming “conceptually-mediated” (Van Maanen, 1988) liveliness, is a testimony of and call for
reflexivity—and imagination. What incites reflexivity is in turn only a small step away from
imagining new, other possible selves, futures, and realities. Our understanding for now is that the
practices might be interconnected by epistemological and methodological craftsmanship. We frame
these and their principal relationships in Figure 1.
Convincing Writing: How Those Who Made It, Did It

Approaches in our sample vary greatly to include many forms of narratives, process models, itera-
tions (between concepts, quotes, and definitions), temporal perspectives, aggregation levels,
decision-making patterns, further research instigators, pathway analyses, taxonomies, theorizing
and framing, contrasting logics, historic contexts, network analyses, a wide array of graphic dis-
plays, mixing of tools and methods, extreme cases, multilevel analyses, diverse forms of triangula-
tions, data tables, textual theory building, and well-documented coding and data structuring
procedures. Many authors adopted a classical linear design, along a description of field, research
interest, and theoretical foundations, then explicit or implicit references of methods, data collection
practice and analytical steps, and some form of theory, illustrated through framing figures and tables.
Constructivist articles are distinctly longer: They contain extensive explanations (legitimizations) of
philosophical underpinning and process and propose many original quotes when linking raw data to
constructs, concepts, and contexts. Many studies do not expatiate on their epistemological or the-
oretical underpinning at all. Only few authors explicitly position themselves as performing their
analysis from a constructivist stance. We now present the five categories of persuasive writing
practices, each with some examples, and substantiate some of the observed tactics and heuristics
in an actionable way. We noticed that many of the papers in our sample (Table 1) excelled in several
of these five categories.
Rhetoric
All published studies convince through their rhetoric. Rhetoric is the expertise of discourse, the
capability to inform, persuade, and engage one’s audience. Whenever scholars frame ideas for a
dedicated readership, they engage in rhetoric. Techniques to use and understand rhetoric are
Jonsen et al. 43
Imagination
Pursue and voice generative moments Authenticity
Abduction Having “been there,” coherence
Holistic perspective Rapport with actors in the ield
Leverage contingency Vitality, energy, detail
Trust instincts and intuition Plausibility
Reviewers,
Field(s),
Readers, Craftsmanship
Actors,
Community, Epistemo-method. savoir-faire
Tools, materials, immaterial Phenomena
Humanity
Independence, probity
Conidence, self-eficacy
Rhetoric Relexivity
Build authorial authority Author(s), Share own relections, doubts, criticality
Stance, voice, style, word choice Researcher(s) Connect to readers’ mental models
Focus, rhythm, metaphors Shake beliefs and ideas
Attitude: conidence, humility Openness, candor
Convincing, in terms of:

Substantive Contribution (relevance)
Appeal, stimulus (actionability)
Scienticity (rigor)
Figure 1. Five characteristics of convincing writing and their interplay.
manifold and include speech analysis, persuasive appeals (e.g., pathos), puns, canons, tropes, figures
of speech, and medium (McLuhan, 1964). One key tension seems to be between the rigorous
“normalized” way of writing (e.g., second-order or aggregated themes), and a conscious narrative
personal identity that may persuade the reader that there is a real foundation for what was written, as
opposed to simple manipulation or paralogizing of the data or not mentioning deviant cases or
crucial information.
In our sample, heuristic choices of convincing through rhetoric include the following:
1. An explicit awareness of the centrality of rhetoric. This includes a conscious and explicated
writing effort in terms of storytelling, vocabulary, syntax, style, rhythm, energy, attitude, and
so on. Also, titles and subtitles go well beyond the mere identification of subject and content:
Every word is handpicked to convey—as a tag line in an advertisement—the phenomena
under study in their full richness, complexity, and cultural identity. Dealing with length
emerges as a key competency. The authors have managed to be lively, while synthesizing
the data to minimize the repetitions and redundancies that can come with iteration.
2. A coherent posture and engagement. This coherence emerges in terms of a chosen episte-
mological stance, role of the researcher, and/or corresponding voice, style, vocabulary,
visualization choices, and methodological and theoretical claims. Paradigmatic awareness
also concerns all interactions with the actors in the field and understanding the paradigms
embedded in the empirical conversations and texts (Rostron, 2014). Both Paquin and
Howard-Grenville (2013), in their network orchestration study, and C. Wright, Nyberg, and
Grant (2012), on identity genres, convince (despite their picturesque, emotional titles) with a
radically conceptual style, using traditional language, such as “we analyze,” “we focus on,”
precise methodological indications “embedded case design,” “theoretical sampling,” and a
factual presentation of findings, albeit peppered with vivid and precise field quotes. In
contrast, Costas and Grey (2014), on the temporality of power, use a more conversational
narrative, like “what if, instead, they are imagining . . . ” and “our ideas are inspired by . . . .”
All studies deploy strong quantification heuristics, such as “amounting to over 1,000 pages
of transcript,” “37 days in the field,” interviews “between 50-120 minutes,” and “transcribed
within two weeks,” to convey rigor and process control.
3. Specific techniques and heuristics that bridge between conflicting and opposing goals. These
techniques include novelty and familiarity, journey and theorizing, qualitative phrasing to the
fullest and concessions to perceived-to-be traditional, nonexploratory, reviewers. For exam-
ple, both Michel (2011, organizational change) and W. K. Smith (2014, dynamic decision
making) combine a refreshingly noncomplex, bold, and energetic first-person narrative on
the one hand, with many pages of highly detailed, matter-of-fact, clinically argued explana-
tions on the methodology adopted on the other.5
4. A presentation of theory in a coherent, plausible, and practical manner. This presentation
stimulates readers to build and/or test it further. Theories can be narratives or framed and
visualized. In either case, the reader engages and adds to the theorizing process (Berger &
Luckmann, 1966; Geertz, 1973) and through this engagement decides whether to trust it,
even though “how, precisely, . . . and in what fashion are far from clear” (Van Maanen,
Sørensen, & Mitchell, 2007, p. 1153). But, we conjecture with some confidence that writers
benefit from simulating this virtual conversation, or co-construction with the reader, in that
they anticipate it. Noninvolved peers (or other stakeholders, e.g., practitioners) could read
their texts and discuss them. Many authors report on such tactics under the overall terms of
triangulation and member checking. Narratives have strong sense-making power and convey
authenticity; visually framed theoretical contributions (integrated frameworks, process mod-
els, figures, maps, etc.) act as boundary objects (Thompson, 2005) that fit into the epistemic
parameters of a larger audience. Many studies have paid great attention to the visual pre-
sentation of their theories in an actionable, usable way. The medium is also the message
(McLuhan, 1964). Some opportunism is not only allowed but also imperative if one has
something of relevance to say.
The authors’ vocabulary implies an exploratory approach (since the sample was chosen on these
grounds), but diverse rhetorical concessions to the mainstream order of writing are illuminated:
reassuring adjectives such as “tangible,” “robust,” “grounded” to demonstrate rigor; “surprising,”
“remarkable” to show noteworthy deviation from extant theory; presence in the field “extended to,”
“more than” n months, to express the intensity of the field immersion; and quantifying terms like
“nearly all,” “mostly,” “significantly,” “exhaustive,” “correlate” to address the statistical mind (see
also Brannen, Piekkari, & Tietze, 2014; Golden-Biddle & Locke, 1993). Up to eight pages of
clinically detailed explanation and quantification of method (number of hours, transcript pages)
and abundant use of known terms such as “theoretical saturation,” “open/axial coding,”
“triangulation” (Star & Griesemer, 1989) were used to bridge between their abductive approach
Jonsen et al. 45
and a context perceived as essentially positivist. Authors did include the self in their interpretative
accounts, but none went as far as the strongly personal styles and nonlinearity of journeys in earlier
seminal studies, such as Dutton and Dukerich’s (1991) account of the homeless or Van Maanen’s
(1988) tales of the field. Further common grounds are a compelling introductory section and a
capacity to sustain a narrative tension as they build up a plot with their data, derive from it an
explanation, and conclude with a powerful theoretical narrative (e.g., see how Ariño & Ring’s, 2010,
storytelling intertwines data, process contingencies, and theory narratives in an enthralling and
precise manner).
There are key moments when the scholar needs to establish authority for the reviewer, and later
the reader. This authority is not established through measurable validity and reliability parameters,
but by sharing one’s analysis of the many research and rhetorical decisions all along the process
(e.g., Jonsen et al., 2013), starting with the discovery of the research story. This is a both a skill, and a
very personal process and validation of choices where peers can bring clarity to the writing and
monitor bias. Narrative researchers must make such precise choices. They need to determine
whether storytelling is an appropriate ontology, to find out what they seek to know, and which,
among available generic storytelling paradigms, narrativist, living story, materialist, interpretivist,
abstractionist, and practice (Rosile et al., 2013, p. 560), best fits the research interest and context.
Narratives in our sample were essentially of two, mostly intertwined paradigms: practice and
interpretivist.
For practical referencing, we have summarized the most powerful rhetorical heuristics of con-
vincing in a table (Table 2).
Craftsmanship
By epistemological and methodological craftsmanship, we mean first and foremost the conceptual
and technical expertise of the methods and tools applied, and their interplay, as they are presented to
the reader. Trust in methodological soundness and rigor is typically intimated through compliance
with defined validity and reliability criteria and a design along structures such as introduction,
theoretical underpinning, methods, data aggregation, theoretical discussion, and so on. In qualitative
research, more subtly and for lack of objectively measurable criteria, the work needs to convince
more holistically, as a balanced ensemble of method, epistemological stance, research intent, jour-
ney sharing, rhythm, and language, but also empathy, honesty, criticality, and independence. One
key tension seems to be between reassuring the reader that the process is properly executed (Knorr-
Cetina, 1981) and the methodology mastered and the relatively small text space “allowed” to explain
this convincingly. In other words, how much space should be dedicated to describing the methodol-
ogy and process? This varies from journal to journal, and it is perhaps driven more by journal norms
than author choices. See also the previous section on rhetoric, items 3 and 4.
The studies that we examined could not be more different, and yet they all have this tight fit and
inner coherence between culture, structure, process, and substance. Elements of convincing through
craftsmanship include the following:
1. A masterly epistemological and methodological savoir faire. Paroutis and Heracleous’s

(2013) study on discourse in our sample displays such savoir faire. Following a self-
designed four-stage approach that draws from exploratory research, phenomenology, and
hermeneutics, and intertwining it creatively with a savvy mix of tools in a double-loop
parallel analysis that is eventually connected for patterns to emerge, they manage to knit a
cloth of precision, beauty, and substance. In a sense, they demonstrate the need to master
methodologies to juggle them, to deviate from them, with such confidence, and end up with
something the reader experiences as “right,” as convincing. The rhetoric is finely chiseled,
Table 2. Convincing with Rhetoric.
Rhetorical
Choices What Emerges From Our Sample Pragmatic, Actionable Heuristics
Awareness of Huy (2011) tells a story in a Tell a substantiated story, i.e., to

rhetoric as longitudinal case study. combine both the journey and the
central to Costas and Grey (2014) explore the substance (result); choice of
convincing story of the existing literature on storytelling paradigm (Rosile, Boje
disciplinary power in professional et al., 2009).
service firms. Create a “conceptually-mediated
analysis of social experience.
Build “authorial authority” (Geertz,
1988) to show that you have been
there, have gotten your hands dirty,
and therefore can be trusted.
Stance choice, Some papers raise the Address explicitly the
researcher epistemological and ontological epistemological stance and develop a
posture stance in line with the research intent narrative identity (C. Wright et al.,
(identity) (see Reinecke & Ansari, 2015). 2012) that fits your stance, your
personality, and the research intent.
Formulate precisely and coherently
the style, vocabulary, methods, and
theoretical claims.
Voice choice Most papers in our sample use Use the passive voice to externalize
passive voice to focus on the action. the author, imply neutrality,
Some papers offer a clear and visual anonymity, standardization; use the
representations through mapping active voice to get more personal as
(Harvey & Kou, 2013) or snapshots a narrator and be more engaging.
(Paquin & Howard-Grenville, 2013). Develop strongly visual style.
Bridging Research is not timeless, and almost Unmask dichotomies: “rather than
techniques and all the papers in our sample use either-or, it is oscillation between ‘it,
heuristics words such as “years” or “decades” and the contrary of it.’”
to objectivize. Objectivize, relativize with adjectives
18 studies relativize their results such as “tangible,” “robust,” to show
using words such as robust or rigor, “surprisingly,” to show
surprisingly. Davis and Eisenhardt deviation from extant theory.
(2011) and Michel (2011) are good Quantify, “nearly all,” “xxx pages of
examples. transcript,” to reassure the statistical
Most studies reveal quantitatively the mind.
volume of their data, e.g., “Detailed “Next-step,” i.e., “our framework
observations of activities, events, and shares many concepts with the field
discourse were recorded in a field of . . . ,” or create lacunae “while we
diary, which extends to 400 pages” know a and b, we lack data on c.”
(Reinecke & Ansari, 2015, p. 624) or Explain/render comprehensible the
“Observations were documented as translation from first-order to
field notes and typed up daily (an second-order language.
average of 20 typed pages per day)” Show evolution, work with
(Levina & Orlikowski, 2009, p. 678). temporality: “for many decades,” “in
A majority of papers underline and recent years.”
offer a clear transparency of the
evolution from first-order to
second-order coding (see Clark
et al., 2010; Nag & Gioia, 2012).
(continued)
Jonsen et al. 47
Rhetorical
Choices What Emerges From Our Sample Pragmatic, Actionable Heuristics
Attitude Most of the studies use “might” or Clearly and plausibly argue and, at
“maybe” to share their cautiousness. the same time, relativize
Harrison and Rouse (2014) provide a propositions.
fine example. Express doubt, which is not hidden
away, but expressed, so as to invite
the reader to engage and reflect.
Citation Most of the studies in our sample cite Cite leading methodology scholars to
Eisenhardt (1989)—19 times; Glaser describe overall method, or
and Strauss (1967)—11 times; elements/steps, if a mix of methods is
Lincoln and Guba (1985)—11 times; applied.
Locke (2001)—8 times; Miles and Explicitly rely on and reference a role
Huberman (1994)—12 times; Strauss model study.
and Corbin (1998)—12 times; Van
Maanen (1979; 1988)—19 times; and
Yin (1984)—12 times. Most of them
argue and explain every step of the
methodological approach, such as
Gioia and Thomas (1996)—15 times;
and Isabella (1990)—2 times.
and the tables and figures are in harmony with the text. Everything is precise and detailed,
and yet extremely parsimonious.
2. A strong independence and intellectual probity. Ariño and Ring’s (2010) study on fairness in
alliance formation is a noteworthy example of a candid narration of how field expectations
(they thought they would be observing a successful alliance formation in real time) are
proven wrong (the alliance was eventually aborted), how researchers adapt and objectives
shift (trust in alliances became an issue), and how data access and collection intentions are
renegotiated (lively accounts of tactics and ruses to get and keep field access). Michel’s
(2014) monumental 10-year ethnography among investment bankers is written in a much
more controlled, result-oriented manner. Rather than sharing contingencies, she explains her
research field and analytic strategies in a radically matter-of-fact, parsimonious manner.
3. A logic of theory presentation with the reader in mind (customer orientation). Writing is also
being smart about wanting to be read: appealing storytelling with a touch of emotion,
impeccable conceptualization, rhetorically built and argued, engaging the reader’s reflection,
actionably packaged in smart tables and/or helpful figures and/or graphs, integrated models,
and hypotheses, effectively connected back with original quotes and with the literature. Such
concrete visualizations of process steps and theory stimulate readers to build and/or test it
further. Clark, Gioia, Ketchen, and Thomas (2010) provide two tangible models that can be
built on by other researchers, a process model on identity change (p. 426) and a framework
destined for testing propositions on transitional identity (p. 433). Moschieri (2011) also
delivers a palpable process model (p. 387) and a set of propositions ready for testing.
Michel’s (2011) well-designed integrated framework of organizational control and body
action roles (p. 352) is easily adoptable for testing, as is A. L. Wright and Zammuto’s
(2013) model on institutional change processes in cricket.
Data coding is not a necessary part of the procedure in exploratory research. Good narratives are
powerful sense makers. But coding, though it neither interprets nor builds theory, seems popular, as
indicated by our sample: Scholars appreciate the efficiency of coding when faced with vast amounts
of narrative data in which they hope to find what their respondents’ “real world” is like. The same
goes for overview tables, frequently required by reviewers and thus probably a smart write-up
strategy to enhance publication chances, despite occasional voices that regret such standardization
and call for more pluralism (e.g., Bansal & Corley, 2011). Barley (2006) purports that methods are
particularly interesting when they get “close enough to behavior to show how people wittingly and
unwittingly build and maintain their social worlds” (p. 17). Such closeness, and a smart writing
strategy to handle the myriad of data (over 20 pages of notes per day), can be observed in Levina and
Orlikowski’s (2009) study of shifting power relations in a fast-growing strategic alliance context,
where, on the basis of their highly detailed every day observations, they
then performed a critical genre analysis to untangle and explain how the power relation among
participants on the project were being reproduced or challenged. This analysis involved
examining how control over genre enactment was exercised (e.g., who set the time and
location of a meeting, who was responsible for the agenda, etc.), as well as who had compe-
tence in and participated in the various genre enactments, and how. For each of the genres
identified in our genre analysis, we specified the status distinctions implicated in its enact-
ment. (p. 678)
For practical referencing, we have summarized the heuristics of good craftsmanship in a

table (Table 3).
Authenticity
The dimension of authenticity is principally about the process, that is, the researcher’s journey.
Convincing, here, comes from truthfulness to the field: trust in his or her engagement and empathy
that he or she has truly “been there,” with an open mind-set, gotten his or her hands dirty, and hung
around a long while, developed a deep and detailed understanding of the setting at hand, and so forth,
so as to be trusted as a legitimate ambassador, translator, and interpreter of the setting under study.
Also included is the notion of plausibility. Even though authenticity and plausibility are not the
same, they are related. We found that when we as readers had established trust in the researcher’s
competency and probity, we were willing to engage, to be receptive to propositions, even if these
were a priori exotic or contestable (see also Fox-Wolfgramm, Boal, & Hunt, 1998, for an excellent
example of this).
One main tension seems to be between how the study really developed and writing it in a way that
captures the attention of the reader and is publishable. Richard P. Feynman (1965) phrased it bluntly
in his 1965 Nobel Prize lecture:
We have a habit of writing articles in scientific journals to make the work as finished as
possible, to cover up all the tracks, not to worry about the blind alleys or describe how you had
the wrong idea first, and so on. So there isn’t any place to publish, in a dignified manner, what
you actually did in order to get to do the work.
Studies that go further in the qualitative paradigm, taking the logic of narrative as research to the
fullest, candidly share the meandering (e.g., Larson’s, 1992, legendary narrative on how the research
question changed through the process) the iteration (e.g., Gioia and Chittipeddi’s footnote 1 in their
1991 SMJ article), the doubts (e.g., the extent to which informants are telling the truth; see Hatch &
Jonsen et al. 49
Table 3. Convincing with Craftsmanship.
Issues of
Craftsmanship What Emerges From Our Sample Some Pragmatic, Actionable Heuristics
Methodological Most papers put the emphasis on a Explain your method clearly and yet
savoir faire very clear methodological section (see parsimoniously; embed it in the
Clark et al., 2010, for a well-detailed general stance.
section). Andriopoulos and Lewis Dare to deviate from it if/when
(2009), Van Dijk et al. (2011), Nag and needed and explain the rationale for
Gioia (2012), and Brink and Benschop the deviation: Why is your approach
(2014) also provide clear details about better? What forces you to go a
first- and second-order concepts. Still, different path? How can you get
Moschieri (2011) and Harvey and Kou closest to the field (Barley, 2006)?
(2013) provide a well-detailed grid of Reflect on the type of theory that this
analysis. Most papers provide a step- research will/can (or cannot) produce
by-step process description about the and state the appropriate claims (and
coding procedure (see Michel, 2014; only those).
Paroutis & Heracleous, 2013;
Shepherd & Williams, 2014),
Independence, Michel (2014) fully details the coding Explain candidly:
probity procedure, detailing candidly the Any hiccups, e.g., difficult field access,
triangulated data; triangulation is richly contingency in the middle of a process
and clearly described in a table. Any insights, new ideas, changing
Clark et al. (2010) describe the research question, etc.
methodology tightly and well and the Explain how it impacted the research
emerging model framework leads to design, and generally how you dealt
good grounds for future research. with it.
Tools and Some papers provide a mix of different Be coherent in the type of tools
materials qualitative tools/methods (see, e.g., chosen for different steps and justify
Paroutis & Heracleous, 2013). the choice.
Dare to invent new tools and
approaches, especially in terms of the
possibilities the Internet and mobile
devices (especially smartphones) offer;
the complete qualitative methodological
toolbox is not yet written.
Substantiation When data analysis is rich and well Give a generous amount of space to
heuristics documented, an effort is made to the results; they are of equal
present overview tables and data importance to the journey.
supporting interpretations (of second- Take the reader by the hand when you
order themes; see Smith, 2014). build your conceptual framework so
that the building blocks, the
architecture, and the relationships (or
propositions) can be understood and
the reader can engage with it.
Schultz, 2017), and the exact generative moments, potential personal biases, and preconceptions are
thus still rare. This is understandable, perhaps because this requires authors to express lack of
knowledge and risk their reputations (MacIntosh et al., 2017).
Elements of convincing in our sample through authenticity include the following:
1. A lively, honest, detailed, and engaging narration of the field. This includes the actors, their
realities, and the relations that the researchers were able to build with them to build trust and
deeply engage the reader and an understanding of narrative types and levels: macro level,
holistic; micro level in situ; individual practices, praxis, or practitioner narrative; and so on
(Fenton & Langley, 2008).
2. A clear (honest) explanation of the research design steps and procedures. All tables display
forms of stepwise data aggregation and contain some deeper levels of meaning, links
between properties, and interpretation. Categorization is used to describe phenomena and
to distinguish from new data or to make inferences (Dey, 2007) and is usually the core level
of finding and, therefore, central to presentation. Codes are fractured into a conceptual level
by categorization (Glaser & Strauss, 1967), that is, texts are highly synthesized and con-
ceptual here rather than stories from individuals or groups (Strauss & Corbin, 1998). Some-
times they are enriched with original quotes that help the reader understand categories, but
add length. In sum, the generic prototype study here presents tables with data sources, and
aggregate tables with first-order and second-order steps and some type of “aggregation
dialectics,” preferably with representative proof quotes built in as the backbone of the
theory—in the cases where theory is developed. Process, theorizing, and framing are visua-
lized for more power (Mengis & Eppler, 2008). Category labeling is almost uniform: (a)
organizing categories, examples, final coding categories; (b) first-order (informant) con-
cepts, second-order themes, and aggregate analytical terms. These exact terms inform most
inductive studies published in the past two decades.6 Writing up research in terms of role
model studies seems to be a paying strategy, also as a learning process for young scholars
(Pratt, 2009; see also Worren, Moore, & Elliot, 2002). Using a recognized template increases
the likelihood of publication—and of being read and cited: the most cited study of our
sample, Andriopoulos and Lewis’s (2009) comparative case study on ambidexterity, is also,
seemingly, the most objectivized and most rigorous.7
3. Forms of validation/proof of scientific rigor in line with the chosen stance. These include
respondent or member checking or other forms of triangulation techniques (Jonsen & Jehn,
2009). Some studies mimic traditional mainstream inquiry in that they objectivize their
analysis process to the extreme. With this, they reduce the interpretive and narrative potential
of the method chosen, in favor of some type of proof of validity and generalizability. Others,
in line with a more transformational mind-set (Cho & Trent, 2006), allow for reiterations and
expansions of themes and findings. It is difficult to know how far objectivizing procedures
are caused either by the authors’ lack of familiarity with interpretive and narrative
approaches and thereby lack of self-confidence to write it up inductively, or by their expecta-
tion of and/or actual reviewers’ comments asking for more validity of the deductive, tradi-
tional kind. Most papers use a linear, organized form to suggest a controlled research process
and validate through craftsmanship, by quantifying and qualifying research effort and design
(see rhetoric) and by citing examples of scholars who performed a similar approach. Huy
(2011), in an energetic, first-person narrative on middle managers’ emotions, sustains the
narrative theorizing through sheer volume (over 200 interviews), and triangulation through
observation, focus groups, and internal documents, detailed in a table (Table 2, p. 1395).
4. An actionable, credible, and pleasurable account of the field, as perceived and lived by the
actors under study. The authors have gone there with humility, empathy, a subtle touch of
humor, and an open mind. We also find evidence of this open mind-set—often in smart,
precise tables—which displays receptivity and how our own a priori beliefs were left at
home. For example, Reinecke and Ansari’s (2015) rich and lively dual temporal study
convinces with concise tables (especially Table 3, p. 632, composed of respondent quotes
on contrasting temporal structures).
5. A capacity to actively engage readers in the narrative. This is important not only for them to
discover the realities of the field at hand, but to reflect on propositions that are a priori
Jonsen et al. 51
beyond their sphere of the probable, to rethink and question taken-for-granted assumptions
and ideas (also reflexivity). Van Dijk, Berends, Jelinek, Romme, and Weggeman (2011), for
example, take institutional theory head-on in their study on radical innovation by proposing a
series of novel and counterintuitive arguments on how embedded agents can overcome
legitimacy crises to facilitate radical innovation:
In other studies, the presence of competing demands from multiple institutional constituents
has been presented as a dilemma to overcome . . . similarly, whereas Oliver (1991) argued that
environmental uncertainty stimulates organizations to conform to established institutional
logics, our findings suggest that ambiguity provides opportunities for transformation. (p.
1509)
For practical referencing, we have summarized the heuristics of authenticity in a table (Table 4).
The degree to which researchers apply some of the heuristics above depends on their choice of
researcher role, voice, and style. A “confessional” style (Van Maanen) would go quite far in sharing
personal learnings, introspections, mistakes, iterations, changes in research tactics, and so on,
whereas scholars adopting a “realist” posture would camouflage or tone down such moments.
Reflexivity
Reflexivity concerns the research in all aspects, but principally the result, the substantive contribu-
tion. Does the final writing propose something distinctive, a singular contribution? Does it position
this contribution offering space to reflect? Reflexivity—the act of critical (self-)reflection on biases
and preferences—has been central to qualitative inquiry and impactful research (MacIntosh et al.,
2017), and more so since the debate on the lack of predictability of the management world, and the
fragility of the increasingly dynamic and transitory nature of organizations has emerged and taken
shape with such terms as postmodern, linguistic, and narrative (Denzin, 1997; Lyotard, 1984). Some
even argue that narrative, rather than a method of inquiry, is a process of understanding, of becom-
ing; and that narrative is, therefore, reflexivity (Lyle, 2009). There is a consciousness of the coex-
istence of multiple, albeit connected realities and diverse cultural ways of being and that these
realities and ways are constructed, deconstructed, and co-constructed by the actors involved. Reflex-
ivity is strongly linked to authenticity and feeds on some form of articulation of belief, doubt, and
experience and how these are resolved to arrive at stable propositions (Locke, Golden-Biddle, &
Feldman, 2008). Convincing arises from an interplay of varying points of view—that of the tensions
in the method, the actors in the field, the researcher, his or her colleagues, the reviewers, and
ultimately the readers. The value of a particular inquiry arises not from its approximation of an
ultimate truth, but from its usefulness as an instrument in the social debate leading toward such
“truth” (Fendt & Sachs, 2008). Practice issues can no longer presume to be resolved by validated
nomothetic knowledge, but must be researched, particularly in co-construction, often across com-
munities (e.g., scholar-practitioner).
Reflexivity here builds on Schön’s (1982) reflective practice and extends it, in that beyond the
reflection-in-action and the reflection-on action (post-thoughts) of both the respondents and the
researchers themselves, it establishes a quasi-dialectic with the reader by creating a space for others
to engage in critical thought by confronting them—through a powerful narration, a plausible aggre-
gation of findings, and a cultural critique—with unusual, unfamiliar, perhaps contestable, and yet
irrevocable propositions. In our sample, it was mainly narratives on issues connected with power that
engaged the reader in this way: for example, Korczynski’s (2011) study on the dialectical sense of
humor at the workplace, in which he frames the power and the (liberating, soothing, and/or
Table 4. Convincing with Authenticity.
Issues of
Authenticity What Emerges From Our Sample Some Pragmatic, Actionable Heuristics
Be there, deeply and Full details about methodology and Provide details of your stay: how
for some time the respondents/people interviewed long, how close, what setting (locus,
are given in the papers. depth, breadth of access).
Detail profiles of the observed
actors, and/or respondents.
Understand the field Some papers really detail a lively Provide rich, descriptive detail of
in some detail introduction for readers unfamiliar the specific field.
with the field (see Levina & Describe with intimate precision
Orlikowski, 2009, with some typical every day actions in the
“management consulting” or Ariño field.
& Ring, 2010, with a candid
narration of relationships explained
between events).
Empathize A strong emphasis is given on Choose a seasoned template,
emotions shared by the key players deviate late if the data and/or
in the research: fear, happiness, contingencies require it.
anger Explain your plan on how to get
data, close to people, access to
meetings, etc.
Then candidly describe what
happened, if the plan worked or not,
and how you improvised.
What people shared, how they felt;
their fears and ambitions about their
work and life.
Narrative choices Some papers provide a holistic Integrate macro and micro levels:
(Andriopoulos & Lewis, 2009; A holistic dimension that captures
Ashforth & Reingen, 2014) or the context in its full complexity.
historic (Canato et al., 2013) view of A micro-level in situ approach for
the analysis. Narratives are often sense-making practices, praxis,
clearly reported in the paper (see practitioners’ narrative (see Fenton
quotations reported by Costas & & Langley, 2008).
Grey, 2014. or the dialog reported Use of narratives as artifacts to
by Brink & Benschop, 2014 for further deepen the sense-making
examples). process.
Probity Some authors share their interest in State your personal interest in the
their research theme (Levina & research question.
Orlikowski, 2009; Patvardhan et al., State if and how interests shifted
2015) or the method (Harrison & during the research, and why
Rouse, 2014) with the reader. (insights, contingencies).
State how you dealt with personal
bias (narrative interviews, member
checking, etc.).
Share the emotion, It seems that most authors share Share the strong feelings that you have
exhilaration, their enthusiasm and/or passion experienced in the field:
wondering, about their research (e.g., C. Wright The empathy, the adventure.
doubts et al., 2012). The culture, language, rites you
encountered. The insights that
triggered your inquiry, aggregation
process, and framing.
If/how it changed your perception,
your understanding, your beliefs.
Jonsen et al. 53
humiliating) potential of humor. Canato, Ravasi, and Phillips (2013) begin their study with a
respondent quote that pulls the reader right into the dilemma under study, the field reality, the
stakes, and the reigning culture:
Six Sigma had this terrifying thing of not wanting errors. But if you do innovation the way we
do, pure risk is something you have to be able to admit and accept . . . . With all these gate
reviews, Post-it would have never seen the light . . . and if Six Sigma would block a hypothe-
tical new Post-it, then Six Sigma is not for us. (p. 1724)
Another intriguing example is Costas and Grey’s (2014) study on the power of temporality.
From the very first sentences, this narrative grasps the reader and presents one disruptive proposi-
tion after another, in a vivid, exciting style, peppered with numerous well-chosen respondent
quotes. The art is in the balancing of (reassuring) familiarity and (compelling, noteworthy) new-
ness, essentially through bridging tactics. All narratives in our sample generously used
“normalizing” rhetoric as bridging heuristics to reassure readers who might be unfamiliar with
storytelling research:
All data were transcribed, usually within the two weeks of data collection. In the first step the
researcher read and re-read the data, whilst simultaneously reading studies on the various
themes emerging from the data. The process of data analysis and emergence of themes was
iterative. Initially . . . . The researcher then reread the data to specifically look for . . . . Follow-
ing this, the researcher systematically analyzed her data with respect to . . . . (p. 920, italics
added)
One key tension the authors seem to be facing is the balance between discovery, speculation, and
documentation (see also Van Maanen et al., 2007), in other words, keeping an open mind versus “an
open head.” This is not entirely different from managers with normal tendencies to firefight and
solve daily operational issues, and how we spend time in executive education to encourage taking
time out for reflexivity. This is about being conscious about driving the data versus being driven by
the data, the reporting versus the discovery (Charmaz, 2007). In essence, we need to learn when to
get our heads out of the data sand and be informed but not be blinded by it, and elevate our thinking
into theoretical contributions.
For practical referencing, we have summarized the principal heuristics of reflexivity in a table
(Table 5).
Imagination
By imagination, we mean the capability of authors to capture the very essence of a social reality and
to hold it up before the reader, in the way of writing, like a match to light a candle. It requires a grain
of folly, a vehement inquisitiveness, and sensitivity, spontaneity, inventiveness, intuition, insight,
and passion. We look at the research interest. Is the phenomena grasped at a particular angle, does
the field design lift the study out of the often-banal mainstream, does the researcher seek out
“extreme” respondents, are connections surmised in unusual places, and is there any stepping out
of the comfort zone, pragmatism, inference to the best explanation (Argote, 1999)? It also concerns a
particular resourcefulness in the face of adversity, when things go wrong, when the field closes,
when contingency disrupts the research context, and so on. Furthermore, we think of Weick’s theory
construction through disciplined imagination (Weick, 1989), by paying particular attention to facts,
values, goals, memories, or questions we might forget, fear, push aside, or neglect. Such behavior
might necessitate the willingness to unlearn (Kleinsasser, 2000), the ability to shed familiar
Table 5. Convincing with Reflexivity.
Issues of
Reflexivity What Emerges From Our Sample Some Pragmatic, Actionable Heuristics
Reflection-in- Many papers in our sample provide a Moments of insights, of feelings in

action logical and thoughtful flow of their the research journey (keep a memo
“journey” including interpretations of these).
(e.g., Van Dijk et al., 2011). Moments of insight/reflection that
actors in the field have shared (keep
a memo).
Reflection-on- Some papers refer to prior coding Return to insights ex post, when in a
action process (Smith, 2014) or prior work similar context again.
(Ashforth & Reingen, 2014; Moschieri, Conduct a meta-analysis of your
2011). Importantly, some papers are work (Golden-Biddle & Locke,
written so it allows and encourages 1993).
the readers to reflect (Harvey & Kou, Iterate between analysis and writing
2013; Moschieri, 2011; Nag & Gioia, up: They are closely related.
2012). Give the reader space to make his
or her own reflections.
Propose a writing Most papers use cautiously well- Bridge with “normalizing” rhetoric
style to the known terms considered as (use traditional methodological
reader “traditional vocabulary” such as “thick vocabulary).
description” (Patvardhan et al., 2015; Camouflage the (perceived)
Smith, 2014), “constant comparison” subversive nature of the approach.
(Clark et al., 2010; Nag & Gioia, 2012; Legitimize by using well-established
Shepherd & Williams, 2014), terms, such as “thick description,”
“transcription and coding” (Paroutis & “constant comparison,”
Heracleous, 2013) “first-order “conversation between data and
concepts” (Nag & Gioia, 2012). theory,” “transcription and coding,”
“first order concepts,” etc.
Bridging heuristics Most papers emphasize the rigor of Find a balance between familiarity and
their analysis by using words such as newness, use bridging rhetoric:
“systematically” (Andriopoulos & Ethnographic immersion “extended
Lewis, 2009; Harvey & Kou, 2013; over a period of n months” (feels
Pandza, 2011; Smith, 2014), long, shows seriousness).
“triangulation” of data or between Data were “systematically
authors (Reinecke & Ansari, 2015; analyzed,” while “simultaneously,”
Shepherd & Williams, 2014; Smith, “triangulated between authors,” etc.
2014) aimed at reassuring the reader (reassures that process is controlled
about the robustness of the analysis. and rigorous).
Reference leading methodology
scholars and works to “validate”
steps in the research designs.
Provoke Besides (sometimes conventional) Create a receptive climate, a petri dish for
generative grateful to the anonymous reviewers, serendipity:
moments, most papers thank colleagues, key Collide with (very!) diverse people
hunches, leaps actors in the story of the paper. in (very!) diverse places at (very!)
diverse times.
Empathy and inquisitiveness: engage,
go toward people, and ask for
feedback or explanation.
Approach people with half-finished
ideas and invite them to co-
construct.
(continued)
Jonsen et al. 55
Issues of
Reflexivity What Emerges From Our Sample Some Pragmatic, Actionable Heuristics
Temporal Some papers underline that Embed phenomena and field

reflexivity phenomenon has to be viewed as experience in a historical, temporal
distinct, stable, and detached from the context.
past and future, which calls for a Build reflexive links between past,
reflexivity over time (see, e.g., present and future actions.
Reinecke & Ansari, 2015).
Prior practice Some authors rely on archival data Practice fieldwork prior to the
prior to data gathering (see Clark study.
et al., 2010; Patvardhan et al., 2015; Observe and translate intentions,
Reinecke & Ansari, 2015) or prior perceptions, and insights into action.
participant observations (Costas & Reflect (in writing) on the learning
Grey, 2014). from this experience and share it.
practices, methodological templates, and so forth and venture into the unknown. Weick (2002)
speaks of “dropping one’s tools to regain lightness and agility” (p. S15), which relates back to good
craftsmanship, as it requires great mastery of research methods to be able to deviate from them.
Did we find evidence of such behaviors and heuristics in the studies of our sample? Yes and no.
Many studies had elements of creativity, mainly in terms of methodology (see Paroutis & Hera-
cleous’s, 2013, innovative multimethod approach). We see resourceful, creative ways to visualize
complex relationships (e.g., Paquin & Howard-Grenville, 2013, who combine process observation
with empirical network analysis devices such as mapping and snapshots, and Harrison & Rouse,
2014, who have imagined conceptually and visually appealing illustrations for their models of
elastic coordination in creative work), or smart designs (A. L. Wright & Zammuto’s, 2013, highly
creative desk study), or unusual, inspiring ways to present findings in tables and figures (e.g.,
Lipparini, Lorenzoni, & Ferriani, 2014, with their unusual and exciting graphics to display knowl-
edge flows between firms; Reinecke & Ansari, 2015, with their culture-grounded clock time/process
time approach, and their astute theorizing process model of ambi-temporality; Clark et al.’s, 2010,
transitional identity evolution graph). Others have shown great creativity in negotiating access to
difficult fields (Harrison & Rouse, 2014, a prime example of creative use of an extreme case setting),
or in engaging the respondents, that is, by making them draw or mime their realities, ambitions, fears
and relationships, rather than interview them (E. Barrett & Bolt, 2007). But rather than verbalizing
these situations, that is, recognizing them as data and/or as strategic moments in the theory-building
process, authors have generally toned them down.
In contexts of uncertainty, knowledge and opportunities are not so much sought but constructed
based on insights. Insights often lie in unexpected places, in intersections, in micro-caches, in the
liminal, and/or in holistic perspectives. We claim that theory is generated at least partly in the
unconscious (Crawford, Dickinson, & Leitmann, 2002), and emerges at certain moments of reflec-
tion, or of play, or of absent-minded musing (Peirce, 1992), or while washing the dishes. These
moments, these hunches, have been referred to as conceptual leaps (Klag & Langley, 2013), or
generative moments (Carlsen & Dutton, 2011), moments at the liminal between seeing/understand-
ing a novel construct, and being able to put it into words. These are small frequent occurrences, not
one singular magic insight (Van Maanen et al., 2007). They can be provoked. Heuristics can include
empathy, a genuine interest in and curiosity for people and phenomena; a strong bias for action and
experimentation (Burch & Goshal, 2004), that is, work with what you have and the readiness to
accept disgrace, ridicule, embarrassment, confusion, and deceit (Simard & Laberge, 2015);
multiplying encounters with diverse, unusual people in unusual places, and co-construction of ideas;
embracing contingency as an opportunity rather than a problem (Harmeling, Sarasvathy, & Free-
man, 2009); and hanging out, doing nothing, musing (Peirce, 1992). By creating, through such
behaviors, a climate, a petri dish receptive to chance, happenstance, or serendipity, hunches can
become process inherent. To invite serendipity, we need to leave some space, some improvisation,
some oxygen in our research design and behavior. So, researchers are advised to practice such
heuristics as generous hanging around in the field with no apparent purpose, being there before and
after the moment when we are supposed to be there, and multiplying encounters with diverse actors,
mainstream but also “extreme users” (Brown, 2009). And we need sagacity—a general openness and
motivation (Weisenfeld, 2009), the capacity to multiply conceptual leaps and weave them together
(Mintzberg, 2005), to discover from a very small number of observations and the opportunism to
seize it when it comes our way.
Do we get published because we “go mainstream” or because we are creative? One key tension
seems to be between how much imagination authors use throughout the study process and the extent
to which this can be written up at all, and/or in a way that defies the norms. Although we found
glimpses of high creativity in our (selective) sample, authors must wonder, like we did, why anybody
would take the risk of “being too different.” When today’s canon is a clear explanation of the
research process, reference to a handful of seminal methodology scholars, a somewhat repetitive
language (labels), table structures and theory-building levels on tables, packaged into a classical,
linear write-up. In other words, while some (few) lively storytelling narratives have broken ground,
digging deeply into the true potential of inquisitive and exploratory analysis, many may not make it
into leading management journals yet.
For practical referencing, we have summarized the heuristics of imagination in a table (Table 6).
Discussion
This is a study on a sample of a large variety of qualitative approaches. We based our independent
choices (Sandelowski, 1995; Schatzman & Strauss, 1973) on our experiences and our passions as
qualitative scholars in a continuing strive to become subjective thinkers in a Kierkegaardian sense,
and at the same time armed with contemporary pragmatism and craftsman’s integrity that makes us
question and doubt our work and relentlessly reexamine our assumptions (Ryle, 1968). We have
focused on the matter of writing qualitative research, as a central element of interpretation and
meaning making. We have set out to distil what constitutes persuasive writing, and how it can appeal
to and convince readers, including reviewers. We have displayed our condensate along five key
writing practices, emerging from reading, debating, and negotiating the texts at hand, and we have
proposed, for each, a set of actionable heuristics.
We purport that management researchers could and should matter not merely as researchers, but
as human beings who set out to understand other human beings, and who through that probing come
to discover new and better selves, if not different, and reexamine stances, beliefs, and ideas, and
stimulate our readers to do the same and understand the worlds that we shape and that shapes us. But
to make a difference, we must be read, just like composers must be heard and (visual) artists must be
seen. And this requires persuasive, and often amazing, writing. We must also be capable of writing
relevant knowledge (Courpasson, Arellano-Gault, Brown, & Lounsbury, 2008)—a subjective con-
struct that starts with asking good, actionable questions on many urgent organizational and societal
issues at hand (Jonsen et al., 2010). Writing is central to such research and intricate in its process. We
examined how scholars who have passed the test of publication have negotiated the tensions along
five distinct but related practices of convincing—see Figure 1—and proposed some actionable
heuristics for each (Tables 2-6). Rather than proposing a template, we suggest and maintain that
each writer must find his or her personal style and footprint in line with his or her research interests,
Jonsen et al. 57
Table 6. Convincing with Imagination.
Issues Concerning
Imagination What Emerges From Our Sample Some Pragmatic, Actionable Heuristics
Trigger the All papers offer some creativity at Understand conceptual leaps and
unconscious some point: some through visuals their value as data and significant
(Andriopoulos & Lewis, 2009), moments.
taxonomy (Korczynski, 2011), Understand that there is not one, but
sampling (Davis & Eisenhardt, 2011), many small ones, that it is an ongoing
methodology (Paquin & Howard- partly subconscious cognitive
Grenville, 2013). activity.
Contingency If most researchers think of Treat contingency, happenstance,
contingency in terms of limits and etc. as an opportunity, rather than a
bias, some papers in our sample constraint.
turn it into a more positive light Make contingencies transparent in
(see Harvey & Kou, 2013). your writing.
Abduction Most authors have the continuous Go beyond induction, to explore not
interplay between emerging only “what is” but also what “might
concepts and data and some of them be.”
used an abductive methodology Use abductive tools from innovation
(see, e.g., O’Mahoney et al., 2013). methods (lean start-up, effectuation,
design thinking).
personality, stance, empirical field, theoretical ambition, and targeted audience. We offer this study
in the hope that it can inspire scholars to venture more often and more deeply into the challenges and
pleasures of qualitative writing and thus discover its infinite generative power.
Once written, qualitative inquiry may still be hard to publish, but once it is, it is intensely read,
appreciated, and cited.8 So where could qualitative inquiry be going? Early seminal studies, thanks
to their detailed process descriptions, have begun to serve as role models well before they even
entered the research manuals: Dutton and Dukerich (1991), Larson (1992), Van Maanen (1988),
Charmaz (1983), Orlikowski (1993), Isabella (1990), Eisenhardt (1989), and later Corley and Gioia
(2004), to name a few. Later, more explicitly methodological contributions proposed clear and
rigorous conceptual underpinnings to the different emerging approaches, which in turn gave con-
fidence to many novice scholars to take the path of qualitative inquiry, including a much-needed
focus on studying processes and temporality (Hatch & Schultz, 2017; Langley, Smallman, Tsoukas,
& Van de Ven, 2013; Srikanth, Harvey, & Peterson, 2016). These (comprehensive elements of)
boilerplates bring craftsmanship and confidence to scholars, but also canons of rigor, substance, and
scienticity to supervisors, editors, and reviewers.
This perhaps comes at a price insofar as the writing (up) of qualitative research is today expected
to look like an “Eisenhardt template” or a “Gioia template” (term used by Langley & Abdallah,
2011); “the Gioia method for building grounded theory” (as recently phrased by Meister, Sinclair, &
Jehn, 2017) or a “Langley template.” Qualitative designs are becoming kosher—on the condition
that they display a recognizable structure that typically includes such terms and labels as “data,”
“coding,” “analysis,” “triangulation,” “themes,” “aggregated dimensions,” and so forth.
It appears that we still tend to perceive scientific method as a tool in a quest for objectivity and,
“by innuendo and osmosis” (Stout, 2001), associate objectivity with linear cognitive processes.
Subjectivity—creativity—is by contrast undesirable. But research can—and must—be creative. If
we as scholars want to take on the big questions, if we want to contribute, however modestly, toward
addressing the challenging societal, cultural, economic, and technological impacts of an accelerated
digital world and address some of the daunting dysfunctions and asymmetries at hand, we might
need to think differently about the world, perhaps radically differently. When studying novel
phenomena we often have neither much data, nor theory to test. We are thus doubly in the unknown
and must imagine new ways of researching new ways of managing and organizing. Abductive
reasoning, for example, is one form of research that can do that, and go beyond explanation (“what
is”), toward imagining new possible futures (“what could be”).9 See also Van Maanen et al. (2007).
Moving forward in the field, we could try to break down some of the silos of our disciplines and
venture beyond our comfort zone (Cheng, Henisz, Roth, & Swaminathan, 2009; Lee & Brown,
2013). We have a responsibility to work hand in hand with scholars from other disciplines, including
our own historic reference disciplines (Locke, 2015), practitioners, and a wide variety of other
stakeholders, across functions, cultures, and continents (Heracleous, 2011; Pfeffer, 2007; see also
Kuhn, 1978; Tashakkori & Teddlie, 2010). The big questions, those that matter, may require it. This
is a challenge since social realities are, as stated, messy, stressful, idiosyncratic, irrational, context-
bound, and contingent. Interpretive techniques of many kinds, some accounted for in this paper, can
“provide a deeper and richer understanding of the issues under investigation” (Van Maanen, 1979, p.
520), and unpack the phenomena of interest (Birkinshaw, Brannen, & Tung, 2011), such as complex,
fleeting, and contingent moments of managerial agency. Suddaby (2015) and Sword (2014) suggest
that academics could improve their writing by taking inspiration and analogies (Oppenheimer,
1955) from other genres (see Lord, Dinh, & Hoffman, 2015, for a recent example). We advocate
such a transdisciplinary mind-set, capturing not only what each science can teach us but also what
sciences may see together when they collaborate (Khapova & Arthur, 2011). This could also include
writing in different and novel ways, and also for practitioners’ outlets—excellent rhetorical practice
and communicating with an audience typically larger than academia.
Regardless of the abundance of insightful recommendations available at our fingertips, we
remain in a dilemmatic space between the rising demand for qualitative inquiry on the one hand,
and a cultural, structural, and technical incapacity of our still dominantly positivist academic world
to actually process such inquiry on the other. We believe that this dilemma is temporary. It char-
acterizes all nascent innovations, institutional disruptions, and/or paradigm changes facing a “glass
ceiling” (Cotter, Hermsen, Ovadia, & Vanneman, 2001). Innovators deploy rhetorical strategies to
construct meanings and justify interpretations (Lawrence & Suddaby, 2006) until a critical mass, an
institutional “tipping point” (Gladwell, 2000) is reached, at which point enough individuals in a
system have adopted—or learned to deal with—a paradigm, so that its further rate of adoption
becomes self-sustaining (Angehrn & Nabeth, 1997). Importantly, systemic shifting is costly
(Easterby-Smith et al., 2008). Thus, until now we may have been somewhat comfortably caught
in the echo chamber of our own institutionalized voice and norms for persuasive writing. Never-
theless, the tipping point is within reach.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or pub-
lication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Notes
1. While we acknowledge—with St. Pierre and Roulston (2006)—that qualitative research “is not one thing”
(p. 678), for the sake of this study, we use frequently the terms qualitative research, qualitative inquiry, and
qualitative research methodology broadly, referring to nonquantitative, inductive research, context laden
and with interpretive elements, typically aimed at “holistic understanding.” At the same time, we concur but
Jonsen et al. 59
do not engage in the qualitative versus quantitative debate, as this is indeed problematic in numerous ways
(for discussions, see Locke, 2015; Walsh et al., 2015).
2. E.g., British Journal of Management (2015), Strategic Management Journal (2014), Management Decision
(2012), Journal of International Business Studies (2011), Journal of Applied Behavioral Science (2010),
Organizational Research Methods (2008).
3. “Novelty” seems to be an exception, mentioned considerably less by reviewers/editors than by authors.
4. The research section of the Financial Times ranking seemed of some relevance because scholars’ tenure
progress at many European business schools is informed largely by their publications in outlets on that list.
We do not endorse such hit parades but acknowledge their importance.
5. W. K. Smith (2014) thanks Corley in her acknowledgments, and indeed this study resembles that of Corley
and Gioia (2004) in that the method description and tables (all, but especially Table 3, p. 1598) are of such
detail and precision that they could almost be used as a template.
6. This somewhat isomorphic procedure comes with the recommendations (perhaps not altogether intention-
ally) of many thought leaders: For Van Maanen (1998), “examples must be our guide” (p. xxv). And for
Taylor and Bogdan (1998), “Perhaps the best way to learn inductive analysis is by reading qualitative studies
and articles to see how other researchers have made sense out of their data. So, study up—not to find
theoretical frameworks to impose on your data, but to learn how others interpret and use data.” (p. 141).
7. This study features over 860 citations in Google Scholar by the end of April, 2017.
8. For example, in 2005, of 17 papers that received more than one vote in the Academy of Management Journal
poll, 11 were qualitative studies (Barley, 2006, p. 19).
9. Abduction is concerned with the generation of ideas, not just their understanding. It is conjectural and
ampliative. Such research (informed by pragmatism; Barley, Meyer, & Gash, 1988; Peirce, 1905; Watson,
1997) works with doubt (Locke, Golden-Biddle, & Feldman, 2008), speculations, conjectures, and assess-
ments of plausibility (Weick, 2005). It touches the realm of innovation and entrepreneurship, and scholars
can seek inspiration from and find a rich toolbox in such literature (Dew & Sarasvathy, 2007; Katila &
Shane, 2005; Leonard-Barton, 1995).
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Author Biographies
Karsten Jonsen is a research fellow in organizational behaviour and international management at IMD–
Switzerland and a visiting professor at several European universities. He earned his MSc in economics from
CBS in Copenhagen, MBA from ESCP in Paris, and PhD from the University of Geneva. His research interests
and publications cover a variety of topics, including work-family balance, team performance, virtual teams,
leadership, stereotyping, cosmopolitanism, research methodology, cross-cultural communication, gender, and
workforce diversity. He has served as advisor to large corporations in the field of workforce diversity and is the
co-winner of the Carolyn Dexter Award for best international research paper at the Academy of Management
2010, and has since won multiple scholarly awards.
Jacqueline Fendt is a professor of strategy and entrepreneurship at ESCP Europe and scientific director of the
school’s Chair of Entrepreneurship. She holds a bachelor’s in organization science and business administration
(distinction), an MBA from GSBA/Boston University, and a PhD in organization science (cum laude) from
Jonsen et al. 67
Leiden University, Netherlands. Back in her native Switzerland she then embarked upon a corporate career with
executive positions, and in 1994 she was appointed CEO of Swiss Shipping and Neptune Co. Ltd (now Rhenus).
She was appointed by the Swiss government to head Expo.01, a large once-in-a-generation national exhibition.
In 1999 she founded and chaired Business Angels Schweiz (www.businessangels.ch). From 2001 to 2004 she
was dean of the Graduate School of Business Administration (www.gsba.ch). She serves on the boards of
international companies in the life sciences and transportation industries and is a long-standing trustee of the
International Center for Economic Growth (www.iceg.org), California.
Sébastien Point is a full professor in human resource management and international management at the EM
Strasbourg Business School, University of Strasbourg, France. He holds a French doctorate in management
from the University of Lyon 3 (France) and a master of management sciences in European management from
the University of Kent at Canterbury (UK). His research interests include leadership discourse, discourse
analysis, academic careers, diversity management, and comparative management research. He has published
in a number of international journals and French academic journals and currently he is heading the HuManiS
research centre of EM Strasbourg Business School.

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Article

Organizational Research Methods

Karsten Jonsen1, Jacqueline Fendt2

In Search of Meaning, Patterns, and Inspiration

Key Methodology Studies/Scholars

Key Methodology Studies/Scholars

Key Methodology Studies/Scholars

Key Methodology Studies/Scholars

Key Methodology Studies/Scholars

Key Methodology Studies/Scholars

Key Methodology Studies/Scholars

Convincing Writing: How Those Who Made It, Did It

Convincing, in terms of:

Figure 1. Five characteristics of convincing writing and their interplay.

1. A masterly epistemological and methodological savoir faire. Paroutis and Heracleous’s

Table 2. Convincing with Rhetoric.

Awareness of Huy (2011) tells a story in a Tell a substantiated story, i.e., to

For practical referencing, we have summarized the heuristics of good craftsmanship in a

Table 3. Convincing with Craftsmanship.

Table 4. Convincing with Authenticity.

Table 5. Convincing with Reflexivity.

Reflection-in- Many papers in our sample provide a Moments of insights, of feelings in

Temporal Some papers underline that Embed phenomena and field

Table 6. Convincing with Imagination.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

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