what is qualitative research in international business

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Qualitative Research in International Business

Qualitative research (e.g. case study, interviews, ethnography, visual inquiry) permits to analyze events “from the inside out”, allowing a conceptualization from the standpoints of the actors at work. Qualitative research, with its emphasis on precise and ‘thick’ descriptions, captures the complex nature of rich life experiences and yields a nuanced understanding of social realities, drawing attention to processes, meaning patterns and structural features.

In the field of International Business, qualitative research is thus appropriate for opening the “black box” of organisational processes, helping to explore “how” and “why” firms internationalise. Qualitative studies indeed play a critical role to interpret and understand in depth the complex plurality of contexts- e.g. spatial, temporal, cultural, institutional, geographic and economic – that organisations encounter when operating beyond domestic borders. It is interesting to explore on how qualitative research can move the field of International Business forward by building, enriching and testing relevant theories.

Qualitative Methods in Business Research

• Päivi Eriksson - The University of Eastern Finland
• Anne Kovalainen - Turku School of Economics, Finland
• Description

This pragmatic, applied textbook showcases the potential and impact of qualitative research in business and management. Using case studies and a global approach it provides you with an overview of the philosophies, methodologies and methods you will need to research in this field.

Demystifying the whole process, it walks you through every aspect of conducting and using research in business, including generating questions, collecting useful data, evaluating the research and disseminating your findings.  It also:

• Explores the challenges of working with qualitative data
• Introduces qualitative methods including interviews, focus groups & ethnography

New to the 2 nd edition:

• The role of digital tools and social media, and how you can use them for data collection
• 3 new chapters on qualitative content analysis, visual research and publishing research.

`Comprehensive, current and compelling, a winning combination for any research student or practitioner interested in increasing his/her knowledge about qualitative methods as they apply to business research' - The Qualitative Report

See what’s new to this edition by selecting the Features tab on this page. Should you need additional information or have questions regarding the HEOA information provided for this title, including what is new to this edition, please email [email protected] . Please include your name, contact information, and the name of the title for which you would like more information. For information on the HEOA, please go to http://ed.gov/policy/highered/leg/hea08/index.html .

For assistance with your order: Please email us at [email protected] or connect with your SAGE representative.

SAGE 2455 Teller Road Thousand Oaks, CA 91320 www.sagepub.com

Eriksson and Kovalainen have improved on what was already a very useful and usable guide to the theory and application of a range of qualitative methods. All the five new chapters add considerably to the book, but the chapters on content analysis and breaking field boundaries are particularly enlightening. This will be my go to book for research and teaching.

Comprehensive, current and compelling, a winning combination for any research student or practitioner interested in increasing his/her knowledge about qualitative methods as they apply to business research

An excellent overview on different methods and a very good chapter on quality and validity for qualitative research.

An excellent book for research of any topic , clear advice and guidance for any student who want to carry out their project in year 3 or basic information for any project. thanks

This book explains very well the process to conduct a qualitative method approach within the Business and Management Research. The book describes a number of methods that researchers and students can use in order to collect and to analyze qualitative data

This will be a useful recommended reading source for our final year students for their Bachelor Thesis propaedeutic seminar. It provides a practical and easy to understand look at many essential tools such as literature review.

The book does not seem that different from the previous edition. Although it gives a global perspective, for students how had already some background in Qual method, further details and deeper textbook seems more relevant.

Preview this book

Sample materials & chapters.

Chapter Two: Research Philosophy

For instructors

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• Knowledge Base

Methodology

• What Is Qualitative Research? | Methods & Examples

What Is Qualitative Research? | Methods & Examples

Published on June 19, 2020 by Pritha Bhandari . Revised on June 22, 2023.

Qualitative research involves collecting and analyzing non-numerical data (e.g., text, video, or audio) to understand concepts, opinions, or experiences. It can be used to gather in-depth insights into a problem or generate new ideas for research.

Qualitative research is the opposite of quantitative research , which involves collecting and analyzing numerical data for statistical analysis.

Qualitative research is commonly used in the humanities and social sciences, in subjects such as anthropology, sociology, education, health sciences, history, etc.

• How does social media shape body image in teenagers?
• How do children and adults interpret healthy eating in the UK?
• What factors influence employee retention in a large organization?
• How is anxiety experienced around the world?
• How can teachers integrate social issues into science curriculums?

Table of contents

Approaches to qualitative research, qualitative research methods, qualitative data analysis, advantages of qualitative research, disadvantages of qualitative research, other interesting articles, frequently asked questions about qualitative research.

Qualitative research is used to understand how people experience the world. While there are many approaches to qualitative research, they tend to be flexible and focus on retaining rich meaning when interpreting data.

Common approaches include grounded theory, ethnography , action research , phenomenological research, and narrative research. They share some similarities, but emphasize different aims and perspectives.

Note that qualitative research is at risk for certain research biases including the Hawthorne effect , observer bias , recall bias , and social desirability bias . While not always totally avoidable, awareness of potential biases as you collect and analyze your data can prevent them from impacting your work too much.

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Each of the research approaches involve using one or more data collection methods . These are some of the most common qualitative methods:

• Observations: recording what you have seen, heard, or encountered in detailed field notes.
• Interviews:  personally asking people questions in one-on-one conversations.
• Focus groups: asking questions and generating discussion among a group of people.
• Surveys : distributing questionnaires with open-ended questions.
• Secondary research: collecting existing data in the form of texts, images, audio or video recordings, etc.
• You take field notes with observations and reflect on your own experiences of the company culture.
• You distribute open-ended surveys to employees across all the company’s offices by email to find out if the culture varies across locations.
• You conduct in-depth interviews with employees in your office to learn about their experiences and perspectives in greater detail.

Qualitative researchers often consider themselves “instruments” in research because all observations, interpretations and analyses are filtered through their own personal lens.

For this reason, when writing up your methodology for qualitative research, it’s important to reflect on your approach and to thoroughly explain the choices you made in collecting and analyzing the data.

Qualitative data can take the form of texts, photos, videos and audio. For example, you might be working with interview transcripts, survey responses, fieldnotes, or recordings from natural settings.

Most types of qualitative data analysis share the same five steps:

• Prepare and organize your data. This may mean transcribing interviews or typing up fieldnotes.
• Review and explore your data. Examine the data for patterns or repeated ideas that emerge.
• Develop a data coding system. Based on your initial ideas, establish a set of codes that you can apply to categorize your data.
• Assign codes to the data. For example, in qualitative survey analysis, this may mean going through each participant’s responses and tagging them with codes in a spreadsheet. As you go through your data, you can create new codes to add to your system if necessary.
• Identify recurring themes. Link codes together into cohesive, overarching themes.

There are several specific approaches to analyzing qualitative data. Although these methods share similar processes, they emphasize different concepts.

Qualitative research often tries to preserve the voice and perspective of participants and can be adjusted as new research questions arise. Qualitative research is good for:

• Flexibility

The data collection and analysis process can be adapted as new ideas or patterns emerge. They are not rigidly decided beforehand.

• Natural settings

Data collection occurs in real-world contexts or in naturalistic ways.

• Meaningful insights

Detailed descriptions of people’s experiences, feelings and perceptions can be used in designing, testing or improving systems or products.

• Generation of new ideas

Open-ended responses mean that researchers can uncover novel problems or opportunities that they wouldn’t have thought of otherwise.

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Researchers must consider practical and theoretical limitations in analyzing and interpreting their data. Qualitative research suffers from:

• Unreliability

The real-world setting often makes qualitative research unreliable because of uncontrolled factors that affect the data.

• Subjectivity

Due to the researcher’s primary role in analyzing and interpreting data, qualitative research cannot be replicated . The researcher decides what is important and what is irrelevant in data analysis, so interpretations of the same data can vary greatly.

• Limited generalizability

Small samples are often used to gather detailed data about specific contexts. Despite rigorous analysis procedures, it is difficult to draw generalizable conclusions because the data may be biased and unrepresentative of the wider population .

• Labor-intensive

Although software can be used to manage and record large amounts of text, data analysis often has to be checked or performed manually.

If you want to know more about statistics , methodology , or research bias , make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples.

• Chi square goodness of fit test
• Degrees of freedom
• Null hypothesis
• Discourse analysis
• Control groups
• Mixed methods research
• Non-probability sampling
• Quantitative research
• Inclusion and exclusion criteria

Research bias

• Rosenthal effect
• Implicit bias
• Cognitive bias
• Selection bias
• Negativity bias
• Status quo bias

Quantitative research deals with numbers and statistics, while qualitative research deals with words and meanings.

Quantitative methods allow you to systematically measure variables and test hypotheses . Qualitative methods allow you to explore concepts and experiences in more detail.

There are five common approaches to qualitative research :

• Grounded theory involves collecting data in order to develop new theories.
• Ethnography involves immersing yourself in a group or organization to understand its culture.
• Narrative research involves interpreting stories to understand how people make sense of their experiences and perceptions.
• Phenomenological research involves investigating phenomena through people’s lived experiences.
• Action research links theory and practice in several cycles to drive innovative changes.

Data collection is the systematic process by which observations or measurements are gathered in research. It is used in many different contexts by academics, governments, businesses, and other organizations.

There are various approaches to qualitative data analysis , but they all share five steps in common:

• Prepare and organize your data.
• Review and explore your data.
• Develop a data coding system.
• Assign codes to the data.
• Identify recurring themes.

The specifics of each step depend on the focus of the analysis. Some common approaches include textual analysis , thematic analysis , and discourse analysis .

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Title: Digitalisation and digital transformation of the Norwegian fashion industry: an exploratory qualitative study

Authors : Cornelia Bjerke; Dag Øivind Madsen

Addresses : School of Business, University of South-Eastern Norway, Bredalsveien 11, 3511 Hønefoss, Norway ' School of Business, University of South-Eastern Norway, Bredalsveien 11, 3511 Hønefoss, Norway

Abstract : Digitalisation and digital transformation have had a far-reaching impact on most industries in recent years, and the global fashion industry is certainly no exception. Although there is emerging literature on digitalisation and digital transformation in the global fashion industry, so far little research has been done in a Norwegian context. Therefore, this article explores the situation through a series of qualitative interviews with key informants from the Norwegian industry where the informants were asked about their views and experiences. The findings indicate that the actors in the Norwegian fashion industry have different perspectives on digitalisation and digital transformation. While the industry informants appear to have a low level of knowledge related to digitalisation and digital transformation, the perception is that such technologies are highly relevant. Generally, the industry informants envision a future where the Norwegian fashion industry will utilise digital technologies to a much greater extent.

Keywords : fashion industry; digitalisation; digital transformation; Norway; omnichannel.

DOI : 10.1504/IJMCP.2024.137663

International Journal of Management Concepts and Philosophy, 2024 Vol.17 No.2, pp.187 - 204

Received: 09 Oct 2022 Accepted: 16 Oct 2022 Published online: 02 Apr 2024 *

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