From the Editors: On Writing Up Qualitative Research in

Q Academy of Management Learning & Education, 2016, Vol. 15, No. 3, 400–418. http://dx.doi.org/10.5465/amle.2016.0275

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From the Editors:On Writing Up Qualitative Research in ManagementLearning and Education

In this editorial, I want to put a specific focus on howtowrite up qualitativework for submission toAMLE.My motivation comes from two observations. Sinceour team started our editorial role in July 2014, wehave held a number of workshops around the worldon publishing inAMLE. Many times, the discussionsin the workshops I gave revolved around questionsabout qualitativework and,more specifically, aroundcomposing qualitative manuscripts for submission toAMLE. In addition, I noticed that authors of qualitativemanuscripts submitted to the journal seem to bestruggling with a number of specific issues related towriting and to making decisions about what shouldand should not go into themanuscript. As a result, wefeel it is time to provide some guidelines for writingqualitative papers for AMLE as well as some insightsinto what reviewers and readers alike are looking forin a qualitative manuscript on a management learn-ing and education-(MLE) related topic.

From our experience, writing-related issues areamong themost pervasive issues reviewers identifyin qualitative papers (similar observations have beendiscussed in editorials in other journals, e.g., Gephart,2004; Pratt, 2009; Ragins, 2012; Suddaby, 2006). In fact,many more substantive issues, such as the perceivedlack of a theoretical contribution or issues with theexecution of the research, are often rooted in short-comings in the writing-up of the research. Frequently,reviewers bemoan that the authors simply did notprovide enough information or not the right kind ofinformation to assess whether a qualitative re-search project was conducted appropriately orwhether the reported findings are well groundedin the data (Pratt, 2008).

A lack of relevance of the research paper for MLEscholarship is a second, very common reviewerconcern that often contributes to rejection recommen-dations. MLE papers require an in-depth interaction

with the MLE literature, in addition to an interactionwith the applicable literature for the chosen researchtopic and with other discipline-specific literature (i.e.,OB, HR, etc.). For example, when writing about strate-gic decision making in business schools, it is impor-tant that authorsnot only review literature onstrategicdecision making, but also integrate insights from thehigher education literature on the business schoolcontext.Moreover, findings from the research first andforemost need to have implications for MLE researchand then for the discipline or research-topic specificliterature. This concern is primarily related to deter-miningwhetherAMLE is really the right target journalfor the authors’work.My purpose here is to provide guidelines about

writing up qualitative MLE research. We want tohelp authors compose papers that are written clearly,engage, tell an interesting story, pose challengingandmeaningful questions, communicate transparent,appropriate, and rigorous methods, and presentimpactful, consequential, and thought-provokingfindings. These papers are why we do our jobs aseditors and reviewers. In addition, we believe thatthere are few things in an academic career that areas empowering, confidence generating, and self-efficacy building as having published a compel-ling paper and being recognized by others for thequality of one’s work. At AMLE, we want to con-tribute to this process.On the flip side, we do not want to make any pre-

scriptions about how qualitative research needs tobe conducted; rather, we want to provide authorswith guidelines for what to report in their write-ups.AtAMLE, wewelcome research fromawide range ofqualitative research traditions, epistemologies, andontologies that promote different ways of conduct-ing qualitative research. As Gibbert and Ruigrok(2010) found, although different qualitative researchtraditions such as positivism and interpretivism,might be in disagreement about what makes forhigh-quality and rigorous qualitative research, theresearch actions authors from both traditions choseto report in their papers to demonstrate rigor wereastonishingly similar. As such, I want to focus in

I would like to thankMichael Pratt, CatherineWelch, AprilWright,Iris Fischlmayr, Chris Quinn-Trank, and Roy Suddaby for their in-valuable comments on an earlier draft of this editorial. I wouldfurther like to thank Thomas Sasso and Maria Gloria Gonzalez-Morales for providing feedback after using the content of this edi-torial in their own work.

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http://dx.doi.org/10.5465/amle.2016.0275

particular on the reporting of research actions thatauthors carried out. In doing so, I try to be as in-clusive as possible to different qualitative researchtraditions but acknowledge that my chosen lan-guage might from time to time violates some epis-temological and ontological traditions. I focus inmycomments on the issues that I see most often and onthe qualitative traditions most often applied in thesubmissionswe receiveatAMLE. I hope that authorsand reviewers from various qualitative researchbackgrounds read the ideas communicated here intheir intended spirit and not take offense as to thespecific terminology I chose.

In developing our guidelines, I focused on fourmain themes—clarity, purpose, coherence, andtransparency—which I briefly define here andthen apply in the following sections of this editorial.Clarity refers to writing clearly, that is, providingrelevant information inaway that eases the reader’sunderstanding (see, e.g., Ragins, 2012). Clarity ina qualitative paper is greatly dependent onwhetherthe paper follows a consistent and linear storyline(Golden-Biddle&Locke, 2007; Ragins, 2012), inwhicheach paragraph connects seamlessly to its preced-ingand subsequent paragraphs. There should be nojumps in argument or unnecessary exploration ofside topics that do not aid significantly in the under-standing of the topic at hand.

Purpose refers to stating clearly the motivationand aim of the manuscript, but also to purpose-driven writing. Reviewers frequently bemoan thatauthors do not communicate the purpose of theirresearch clearly enough. This includes not specify-ing clearly the actual research questions that theauthors attempt to answer. Not communicating thepurpose clearly means that a reviewer is not able tojudge easily whether the conducted study actuallyserves that purpose. To communicate the researchpurpose and the study’s attempt to fulfill this pur-pose to the reader, authors need to engage inpurpose-driven writing. This means that everythingthe authors discuss in the paper (literature review,research question, methodology, report of findings,etc.) needs to be strongly linked to the purpose andto the actual research questions.

Authors establish coherence by ensuring that thedescription of the core phenomenon, the literaturereview exploring previous treatments of the phe-nomenon, the derived research question(s), themethodology chosen to investigate the phenome-non, the explanation of the findings that state howthe data addresses the research question, and thediscussion of implications of the findings for future

work all align. Quite often reviewers notice thatdifferent parts of the paper do not align, when, forexample, the research questions do not follow logi-cally from the literature review, the researchmethodsemployedand findingsobtaineddonotactuallyallowthe authors to address their main research question(theory–datamisalignment), or theDiscussion sectiontries to derive implications that the findings do notreally support. All of these are red flags to the re-viewers (Pratt, 2008).Transparency refers to providing enough relevant

information about the unfolding of the research(i.e., the research actions), so that the reader cangain a thorough understanding of it. Reviewerscommonly bemoan that an evaluation of the appro-priateness of the research conduct, and thus, anevaluation of the trustworthiness of the findings, isimpossible because how the research project un-folded remains unclear. Gibbert and Ruigrok (2010)provide excellent examples of the level of detailprovided in more versus less rigorous qualitativecase studies published in 10 top management jour-nals. They highlight in particular thatmore rigorousstudies are transparent about when and how theactual research process had to deviate from theplanned one, while less rigorous studies revealvery little about the research process and morefrequently portray it as if it had been carried outaccording to plan.Derived from these four main themes, I provide in

the following specific guidelines for writing a qual-itative MLE manuscript, emulating the most com-mon structure of a qualitative manuscript, that is,the sequenceof literature review,methods, findings,and discussion.1 In each section, I provide concreteexamples and refer the reader to relevant researchmethods literature and prior relevant editorials to

1 Readers of this editorial will notice that I do not discuss how towrite compelling Introduction or Conclusion sections. I decidedagainst this for several reasons. First, the purpose and writing ofintroductions and conclusions are really not very different be-tween different types of papers (i.e., quantitative versus qualita-tive, MLE versus non-MLE). Introductions need to provide thereaderswith a very good idea of the phenomenon the researchersare going to explore, the conundrum this phenomenon creates forexisting theory or practice, and a short definition of the resultingopen research questions that the study is going to address. In-troductions also need to be written in a way that pulls in thereader. Conclusions, on the other hand, providea final take-awaymessageregarding the important findingsand implicationsof thestudy and should be succinct. Second, a wealth of resources al-ready exist that provide guidelines regarding thewriting of greatintroductionsandconclusions (seee.g.,Golden-Biddle andLocke,2007, Grant and Pollock, 2011, Huff, 1999, and Ragins, 2012.

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further support their writing. In addition, I provideauthors with insights into some of the most com-mon concerns that our AMLE reviewers raise whenreviewingqualitativework. Last, I introduce readersto a selection of qualitative papers publishedin AMLE to showcase excellent writing. Table 1contains a summary of pointers to keep in mindwhen writing a qualitative manuscript in MLE.

LITERATURE REVIEW

Building a Case for Your Study and Its Contribution

In the literature review, authors develop the moti-vation for the research question(s) they want toaddress and explain how an exploration of thisresearch question adds something unique, novel,important, insightful, and impactful to ongoing de-bates in the existing literature. As such, they need tofirst establish the general topic they are interestedin exploring and how this topic has been treated byprior research (e.g., Golden-Biddle & Locke, 1993,2007; Huff, 1999, 2009). For MLE papers, researchersneed to ground their work in the MLE literature aswell as in the literature of the substantive researchfield on which they plan to draw.

For example, if researchers wanted to examinehow the strategic decision-making processes ofbusiness school deans influence expansion intoeducation markets in other countries, they shouldincorporate into their literature review not only rel-evant literature in strategy, decision making, andinternational business regarding foreign marketentry decisions, but also higher education literaturethat has looked into the expansion strategies anddecisions of universities in general and businessschools inparticular. Similarly, if researcherswantedto explore the identity development process of in-ternational students as they join local fraternities andsororities, they should not only incorporate literatureon identity and identity development in general, butalso literature on identity development in students, inparticular international students. They should alsoreview literature on relevant characteristics of theinternational student experience that would be af-fected by joining fraternities and sororities.

We see many papers in the submission processthat do not sufficiently anchor their research in boththe MLE and the substantive literature of the phe-nomenon of interest. Linking the research to appro-priate MLE literature (published in AMLE and inother MLE journals) is important to demonstrate therelevance of the research and its contribution to this

field (e.g., Arbaugh, 2009). At the same time, authorsneed to reviewand integrateapplicable research fromother research fields (suchasorganizationalbehavior,strategy, international business, or human resourcemanagement, or research in other disciplines). If thereviewers believe the study would have turned outvery differently had the researchers actually incorpo-rated this literature, then they often recommend re-jection given that the study does not adequately buildupon and contribute to existing research. For moreinformation, Ben Arbaugh (2008, 2009) has written twoilluminating editorials that highlight what literaturereviews need to entail, andAmyKenworthy (2014) andSiri Terjesen and Diamanto Politis (2015) have writteninspiring editorials on how MLE papers can benefitfrom incorporating different literatures.Authors also need to be very clear from the start

about what specific goal they pursue in their quali-tative study and how the goal contributes to the exten-sion of existing research. The purpose of a qualitativeresearch project in the MLE field can be manifold,including the exploration and rich description ofa novel phenomenon or teaching context (e.g.,MOOCs, flipping classrooms, the effect of glob-alization on academic careers); understanding themeaning of lived experiences of individuals in aca-demic contexts (e.g., students, academics, profes-sional staff); exploring alternative explanations forphenomena (e.g., ina casestudy context); uncoveringprocesses that underlie observable phenomena (suchas learning processes); theory building (e.g., aroundpedagogy or learning); and many more. All of thesepurposes are welcome but require a slightly differentapproach to the literature review, the development ofthe coremotivation of the paper, the resulting researchquestion(s), and the definition of themain contributionsto existing research. Clearly communicating the pur-pose of the study from the start helps readers evaluatethe ensuing sections of the paper. The resulting re-searchquestions inparticularneedtobein linewith theoverarchinggoal of thepaper, otherwise reviewerswillfeelastrongdisconnectbetweenwhat thepaperclaimsit set out to do and what it actually accomplishes.I want to acknowledge here that specific chal-

lenges exist for qualitative researchers in craftinga literature review. Although readers expect theauthors to write a linear storyline, insightful quali-tative research rarely unfolds in a linear fashion.Qualitative research often unfolds in an iterative,adaptive process, in which the research question,methods, and conclusions may change as the qual-itative study is conducted. This often means thatresearchers learn crucial information about their

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TABLE 1Pointers for the Preparation of Qualitative Manuscripts for AMLE

Manuscript section Guiding questions Specific challenges and advice

Literature review Does the paper clearly develop its motivation for theresearch question(s)?

Authors should write with clarity and employa linear storyline. However, qualitative workrarely unfolds linearly, but rather in an iterative,adaptive process, in which the research question,methods, and conclusions may change as thequalitative study is conducted. Authors may needto go through multiple versions of a literaturereview to settle on a storyline that provides a clearmessage and strips away all the unnecessarydetails.Authorsmayneed to acknowledgeupfrontthat their literature review is informed by theirfindings and that they need to reveal somefindings early to introduce the reader to corecharacteristics of the phenomenon.

Do the authors clearly communicate the purpose ofthe qualitative study?

Is the study clearly anchored in the MLE literature?What is the study going to add to existing literature,especially the MLE literature?

Does the literature review integrate relevantliterature specific to the chosen research topic andto the field in which it is situated?

Do the research questions follow logically from andare supported by the literature review?

Methods Does the paper contain a transparent description ofthe methods used?

Is there alignment between the methods andresearch questions?

Study setting and roleof the researcher

Does the paper contain a thorough description of thechosen research context and the process throughwhich the researcher gained access to thiscontext?

Authors should communicate as strengths of thestudy characteristics of their chosen setting thatallow them to address aspects of the researchquestion in unique andmeaningfulways. Authorsshould compare and contrast their setting to othercommon settings in which their research questionlikely matters. Authors should also acknowledgepotential limitations that are inherent in thesetting or in the method section rather than in thediscussion section to allow the reader to be awareof these limitations before evaluating theappropriateness of the data collection and thevalue of the observations obtained in this setting.

Does the researcher describe his or her role in thiscontext and, if applicable, a reflection on possibleissues with power?

Does the paper contain an explanation of how thechosen context allows the researcher to addressthe research question?

Is the chosen population in the context potentiallyvulnerable? Is the research topic in the contextespecially sensitive? Does the paper contain anexplanation of how the researcher managed this?

Sample description andrecruitment process

Does the paper contain a description of the sample(including core demographics) and itsappropriateness for exploring the researchquestion?

Authors should communicate all relevantcharacteristics of the sample thatmight be criticalfor studying the research question.

Does the paper contain a description of therecruitment process and related potentiallimitations?

Qualitative method andresearch design

Does this paper contain a description of the chosenmethod and how it was employed, itsappropriateness for addressing the researchquestion, and its fit to the chosen researchcontext?

Authors need to explain in detail how they realizedand applied the chosen method and describe thetaken research actions.

Does the paper contain a description of researchdecisions and adaptations made during theresearch conduct and the underlying rationale forthem?

Authors should consider incorporating one or moreforms of triangulation into their qualitativeresearch design and describing triangulationefforts in the paper.

Interventions or tasks Does the author provide an in-depth description ofthe intervention or task?

The description of the intervention needs to bedetailed enough to enable the reader to designa similar type of intervention themselves.Does the author explain how their chosen

intervention fits the research question?(table continues)

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phenomenon as they research it, and as such, theirliterature review of the phenomenon changes. Thiscreates two issues: First, in developing a clearstoryline, authors often need to go through multipleversions of a literature review to settle on one thatprovides a clear message and strips away all theunnecessary details. Second, authors need to motivate

the study of their phenomenon in their literature re-view by stating how they offer a new lens or how thephenomenon might need to be explored differentlyfrom previous examinations. However, often this al-ready constitutes one of the core insights and con-clusions from their study (especially in inductivestudies). As such, authors run the risk of putting too

TABLE 1Continued

Manuscript section Guiding questions Specific challenges and advice

Data-collection process Does the paper contain a detailed description of thedata collection process and its potentiallimitations?

In MLE research, many phenomena, processes, andconstructs of interest are very hard to observe orcapture (e.g., learning). Consequently, authorsshouldexplain to the readerhowtheir chosendatacollection methods allow them to access relevantinformation concerning these phenomena,processes, and concepts.

Does the author explain how the chosen datacollection process is appropriate to address theresearch question?

Does the author provide an interview protocol/observation protocol/other data collection plan?

Data-analysis process Does the paper contain a step-by-step description ofthe coding process employed in the study?

Authors should not limit themselves to a “short-hand” description instead of a full and detaileddescription of their coding process. The lessinformation provided, the less trustworthy thedata analysis process may be perceived.

Do the authors transparently describe their codingdecisions and the rationale behind them?

Does the paper contain an explanation of how theresearcher incorporated their own criticalreflections about the data collection and codingprocess?

Findings Do the authors clearly articulate the core findings,provide relevant evidence from the data (e.g.,through quotes, observations) to support them,and provide an interpretation and analysis ofwhat the findings mean with respect to theresearch question?

Authors need to strike a very fine balance betweenpresenting their data (i.e. showing) andinterpreting that data (i.e. telling). Authors need toensure that they present “parts” of their story ortheir data in away that the “whole” of their story orfindings also makes sense. This means thatauthors need to keep in mind the big picture thattheywant the reader to understandwhile they areproviding evidence for thepieces thatmakeup thebig picture.

Does the findings section strike an appropriatebalance between the showing and telling of data?

Are the findings presented in a way such that thereader can follow and comprehend them easilyand find them engaging and convincing?

Are quotes and observations effectively labeled toencode relevant characteristics of their source?

Discussion Do the authors clearly communicate their study’scontribution to research, especially to MLEresearch?

Papers published in AMLE need to discuss theircontribution to MLE research and practice.Specific practical implications for teaching andlearning or for the operation of business schoolsare crucial and need to be a major part of thediscussion section.

Do the authors clearly communicate their study’scontribution to teaching and learning practice orto the operation of business schools?

Do the authors provide practical recommendationsthat are well-grounded in the data and specificenough to be implemented?

Does the paper include a discussion of limitations,opportunities and strengths?

General Does the paper follow a clear, linear storyline?Are all the sections aligned and coherent?Does the purpose of the study remain clearthroughout the paper and is the overall writingdriven by that purpose?

Is the paper transparent throughout about itsresearch conduct?


much of their actual findings into the literature re-view, which can render the Findings section unsur-prising given that the main contribution has alreadybeen revealed upfront. One way to resolve thisissue is for authors to acknowledge upfront thattheir literature review is in fact informed by theirfindings and that they need to reveal part of theirfindings early to introduce the reader to core con-cepts and characteristics of the phenomenon.

Previous literature has done an excellent job indiscussing how authors in general, and qualitativeresearchers in particular, should approach the lit-erature review and the rationale for their study(e.g., Bansal & Corley, 2012; Barley, 2006; Bartunek,Rynes, & Ireland, 2006; Colquitt & George, 2011;Golden-Biddle & Locke, 2007; Huff, 1999; Pollock &Bono, 2013; Pratt, 2009; Ragins, 2012). In addition,awealth of resources discuss how studies canmaketheoretical contributions and how authors need towrite about them (e.g., Bergh, 2003; Corley & Gioia,2011; Whetten, 1989). We refer readers to these andother resources, given that a more general discus-sion of writing good literature reviews goes beyondthe scope of this editorial. Instead, we want to in-troduce the readers to a few examples of qualitativepapers published in AMLE that have done an ex-ceptional job of developing the motivation for theirresearch in their Literature Review section and ofderiving their specific research questions.

Petriglieri, Wood, and Pertiglieri (2011), for exam-ple, examine an elective in an international MBAcurriculum that provides students with an opportu-nity for deep reflection about their personal devel-opment and learning during their MBA program byworking with a psychotherapist over the course ofa year. In particular, the authors explore the pro-cesses through which this elective helps studentsengage in reflection on their learningandputs it intothe context of their own life stories. The LiteratureReview section in this paper is particularly goodbecause it marries a review of the literature ontransformational learningwith literature on identityworkspaces, highlighting the need for a study thatexamines how the creation of identity workspacescan lead to transformational learning. Especiallynoteworthy is that the authors state very clearlywhat they mean to accomplish and which other re-search questions they are not going to examine:

The question then becomes not whether, buthow can a management education curriculumfoster the transformational learning thatenableson-going leader development? This research

question is our focus here.We are not concernedwith assessing the prevalence of transforma-tional learning in management education,testing the efficacy of one approach in foster-ing it, comparing different approaches, orproving causal links. We aim to develop the-ory that may inform scholarship and practiceon this important question, through a qualita-tive study of participants’ experiences withinthe Personal Development Elective and itsMBA context (Petriglieri et al., 2011: 433).

The paper is clearly aligned with the mission ofAMLE in that it addresses a key context of learningin business schools and builds theorywith regard tothe learning processes that particular teachinginterventions create. Other great examples of suc-cessful literature reviews and motivations in AMLEarticles can be found in Elmes, Jiusto, Whiteman,Hersh, and Guthey (2012), Martin, Woods, andDawkins (2015), and Reichard et al. (2014).

METHODS

Establishing Rigor and Trustworthiness

A Methods section needs to accomplish several coregoals: The authors need to explain in sufficient detailexactly how they conducted their study (i.e., trans-parency of research actions); how their research ap-proachalignedwiththeresearchquestion (i.e.,purposeand coherence); and how their chosen methodologygenerated appropriate and relevant evidence vis-a-vis their research question (i.e., trustworthiness).In my experience, the main reasons for whichAMLEreviewers recommend rejection of a paper is a per-ceived misalignment between the chosen method-ology and the specified research question or a lackof transparency in theMethods section to determinethe appropriateness of the research actions taken.These observations align with Pratt’s (2008) findingsthat between 56 and 75% of authors of qualitativestudies submitted to top-tier North-American journalshave received comments from editors or reviewersthat bemoaned missing or inadequately describedmethods and analyses. On the flip side, Gibbert andRuigrok (2010) found that the most rigorous qualita-tive case studies published in 10 of the top man-agement journals were extremely transparent abouttheir research actions, decision making, and neces-sary adaptations during the research process.Qualitative papers in MLE, in particular, need to

describe in detail the following aspects of their

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research methodology: The setting of their study(i.e., the research context); the sample (includingsample characteristics and recruitment of the sam-ple); the research design (which includes the type ofqualitative method chosen and the specific applica-tion of this method in the current study); the teachingintervention or task given to the sample (dependingon the topic of the paper); the data collection process(including information about the type and amount ofcollected data and the respective data sources fromwhich different types of information were collected);and the data analysis process (i.e., the coding pro-cess). These sections do not necessarily have to bediscussed in the particular order mentioned here;rather, authors should reflect on the order that bestserves their storyline.

In many ways, these sections are very similar tothe sections found in quantitative papers. However,in some ways they are also quite different and re-quire more detailed information than we typicallysee in quantitative work. In my opinion, the level oftransparency needed in these sections (that oftengoes beyond the transparency offered in quantita-tive work) is actually a strength of qualitative workandnot an indicator that qualitative researchers aresomehow less trusted. Rather, it is an acknowledg-ment of the fact that during the research process,a researcher has to make myriad decisions con-cerning the research design and its execution. Onlywhen these decisions aremadeknown to the reader,can the reader evaluate whether the chosen meth-odology was appropriate for the research questionand skillfully carried out.

In a qualitative paper, a Methods section canquickly get out of hand. One only has to look at thelength of my recommendations for the Methodssection here to know that writing one requires lotsof detail. However, it is important that a Methodssection does not overpower the manuscript. Al-though it has to deliver everything needed for thereader to understand what the authors did and beconvinced that the chosen approach was appro-priate, this section is really only ameans to an end.It stands between the literature review and thefindings, that is, between the open research ques-tion and learning what the researchers have actu-ally found. In thatway, readers oftenwant to simplybe assured that the findings they are about to readare based on sound researchmethods and decisionmaking such that they can move on to read thefindings. Nevertheless, readers and reviewers ap-preciate rigorous methods, so highlighting all thecore strengths of a researchdesign is paramount. In

the following, I offer some guidance about the kindof information authors should provide in each sec-tion and how this information could be delivered tomaximize reader comprehension and perceived fitbetween the chosen approach and the researchquestion. I also introduce published AMLE papersagain to showcase transparent and convincingmethods sections.

Study Setting and Role of the Researcher

In qualitative work, the setting of a study—the re-search context, in which the research question wasexplored—is of utmost importance. At the center ofmuch qualitative work is a phenomenon or specificconstruct that the researcher wants to understandanddescribe. This phenomenonor construct usuallyexists and operates in certain contexts but not inothers. Understanding the relationship between thephenomenon and the context in which it exists isa major component of qualitative inquiry and canhelp the researcher identify important underlyingmechanisms and dynamics relevant to the phenome-non. In addition, in choosing the research setting,a researcher needs to ensure that the phenomenoncan actually be observed and studied and that re-searching the phenomenon in the chosen settingwill likely provide rich and comprehensive infor-mation. Depending on the research question, in-depth explorations of single contexts (e.g., singlecase studies) or explorations across multiple contextscan be appropriate.For example, let’s assume a researcher wanted to

understand anxiety-related experiences in instruc-tional settings of students for whom the main lan-guage of instruction is not their first. To examine thisresearch question, it might be good to observe thesestudents ina rangeof different instructional settingsto learn more about how different instructional set-tings evoke different anxiety-related experiencesand identify underlying factors and mechanismsthat create different sources or levels of anxiety.Insights from this study could help understand howinstructional settings might have to be redesignedto reduce the amount of anxiety that second-languagestudents experience.Accordingly, when writing about the chosen set-

ting of a study, authors should explain to the readerhow the setting provided an optimal context to ad-dress the research question. At the same time, inMLE research, inparticular, somepopulationsmightbe especially vulnerable, depending on many fac-tors, suchas the relationship of the participantswith


the researcher (e.g., teacher–student or head ofdepartment–department member). In addition, someresearch topics might be especially sensitive (e.g.,stigmatization, prejudices, or bullying). Authors ofsuch studies want to take extra care in their ex-planations of how they managed these contexts.

In a first step, the authors should thoroughly de-scribe the research context they have chosen andthe process or relationships through which theygained access to this setting (e.g., Dutton&Dukerich,2006). For papers on teaching interventions, for ex-ample, thismight consist of a description of the classor subject inwhich the studywas conducted, the typeof university at which the class was held, and thecountry andacademic system inwhich theuniversityissituated. Itwouldalsoneed tocontainadescriptionof the role of the researcher in this specific classcontext, that is, whether the researcher is an in-structor or an observer (e.g., another facultymember,student, teaching assistant, etc.). A description of therole should entail an explanation of the perspectivethe researcher had from this role and a reflection onthe likely power relationships between the researcherand the participants. Both would influence what in-formation and insights the researcher can possiblygain in the chosen setting (e.g., Pratt, 2009).

For papers exploring issues related to businessschools, on the other hand, a description of the set-ting should include an in-depth description of thebusiness school (including relevant informationabout its operational structure, faculty members, orwhatever might be essential for the topic of the pa-per), the academic and country setting it resides in,and the particular situation it currently operates in(e.g., having just gone through a large strategicchange, having been established for hundreds ofyears vs. being relatively young, etc.). For example,if the main research question of a paper revolvesaround how and in what way business schoolschange when going through an accreditation pro-cess, then the research context could include a lon-gitudinal case studyof one ormorebusiness schoolsundergoing change or it could include a cross-sectional case study of one ormore business schoolsthat are about to undergo an accreditation process,are currently undergoing such a process, or haveundergone such a process recently. Each of thesespecific contexts would allow the researchers toobserve slightly different things and would comewith its own strengths and limitations.

Similar to the first example, researchers shouldalso provide their position vis-a-vis the researchsetting. For example, a researcher that is a faculty

member or administrator in a business school thatundergoes an accreditation process likely has adifferent perspective during the research processthan a researcher who is unaffiliated with the cho-sen business school or a researcher who belongs tothe accrediting institution. Providing this informa-tion allows a reader to determine how the specificinstructional or organizational context and the roleof the researcher might impact on the kind of obser-vations that can or cannot be made.Specific contexts can allow researchers to make

observations and gain insights that they would nothave been able to obtain in other contexts (e.g.,Bamberger & Pratt, 2010). It is thus very importantthat authors clearly communicate those character-istics of their chosen setting that allow them to ad-dress aspects of the researchquestion inuniqueandmeaningful ways. These are strengths of the studyand should be highlighted as such to the reader.Moreover, authors should compare and contrasttheir setting to other common settings in which theirresearch question likely matters. By describing theways in which the chosen setting is similar to ordifferent from these other possible settings, the au-thors can make a case for how data and findingsderived from the current setting might be transfer-able to others. Readers can then determine the util-ity and applicability of the current study’s insightsfor contexts in which they operate.In addition to highlighting the unique strengths of

the research setting, authors should also acknowl-edge potential limitations of the setting. In eachsetting there are boundaries for the kind of in-formation authors can obtain and the insights theycan draw from the data. Limitations that are in-herent in the setting or the design are preferablydiscussed in the Method section rather than in theDiscussion section. This allows the reader to beaware of these limitations before evaluating theappropriateness of the data collection and the valueof theobservations obtained. For further informationabout the importance of the study setting and re-search context, we refer the reader to the followingresources: Hatch, 2002; Locke, 2001; Lofland andLofland, 1995;Malterud, 2001; Pratt, 2009; Ritchie andLewis, 2003; and Yin, 2009.

Sample Description and Recruitment Process

Qualitative researchers also need to concern them-selveswith choosing an appropriate sample. On theone hand, it is important to ensure that the partici-pants can in fact provide crucial information relevant

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for addressing the research question. On the otherhand, it is also important that researchers thinkstrategically about their sources of information suchthat they increase their chances to obtain a repre-sentation of the phenomenon in question that is suf-ficiently rich, multifaceted, nuanced, and diverse.In inductive qualitative research, this approach tosampling is termedpurposive samplingand is one ofits core characteristics. An important aspect of pur-posive sampling is that it is adaptive and iterative,meaning the actual sampling strategymight changeduring the study to adapt to the chosen context andobtain the most relevant information about the phe-nomenon. When the sampling strategy changes, au-thors should report this change and their rationalefor it.

To start off, authors should provide a general de-scription of the type of sample they selected, forexample, undergraduate business students, MBAstudents, executives, business school deans, orleadership trainees. Authors should then explainhow this sample allows them to address their re-search question (Bono &McNamara, 2011; Zhang &Shaw, 2012). For example, when the purpose of thestudy is to examine a specific teaching interven-tion, then business students are usually appro-priate. If the purpose is to examine how a specifictraining intervention creates learning processesthat lead to changes in executives’ decision mak-ing, then a student sample that does not consist ofexecutives is likely not appropriate.

A good example for the need to make a case forsample appropriateness is when authors submitpapers to AMLE that do not include a sample ofbusiness students, business school employees, oremployees or managers in educational settings.AMLE’s mission in particular is to address issues inmanagement education and practices in businessschools. As such, appropriate samples usually aresituated in this specific context. Nevertheless, we doget papers that include samples outside of thiscontext, for example, samples of students in otherdisciplines than business or employees in organi-zational training settings that have little to do withbusiness or management education. This does notnecessarily mean that studies conducted on suchsamples are inappropriate for AMLE and will berejected; however, the authors need to explain howfindings generated from these samples will be rel-evant in and translate to themanagement educationand business school context. More often than not,examples outside of the core management educa-tion area become a liability for the authors and

a reason for a paper ultimately being deemed un-suitable for AMLE.In addition to the need for this fundamental fit of

the sample to the general context of MLE, excellentsamples for studying the research question of in-terest allow researchers to gain valuable informa-tion and rich insights about the target phenomenon.Having clearly defined and described the targetphenomenon and the core research question earlierin their papers, authors should now describe howthe recruited participants can provide this informa-tion. Given that most interesting social phenomenaare complex and multilayered, it is very likely thatauthors need to obtain information from differenttypes of participants with access to differentinformation.Returning to our example of business schools

undergoing change during an accreditation pro-cess, it is likely that change is different at differentlevels of the business school and for different typesof employees. In addition, different types of em-ployees at different levels likely have differentinvolvement in, opinions about, and experiencesduring the accreditation process. All of these piecesof information, though, are important to address andunderstand the complexity of the outcomes of theaccreditation process. Of course, it is not necessarilythe case that every research question needs a 360-degree view of all potential stakeholders. This de-pends entirely on the research question; hence, thesample selection needs to align with the researchquestion. The paper by Barbera, Bernhard, Nacht,and McCann (2015) published in AMLE provides anexcellent example for showing the appropriatenessof their sample and for involving different types ofparticipants (i.e., students, parents, and course in-structors) to obtain a more nuanced picture of howand why whole person learning aids in the edu-cation of the next generation of leaders of familybusinesses.After describing the core characteristics of their

sample and its appropriateness for the researchquestion, authors should explain how participantswere recruited into their sample. If, for example, allstudents in a course participated in a teaching in-tervention, the authors should explain whetherstudents were able to opt in or out of participatingin the intervention. If the researchers conducteda study of business school deans, they should ex-plain how these deans were approached to partic-ipate in the study and what number of the deansultimately agreed to participate. The final sampleincluded in the study to some degree determines


the information obtained. Authors might want todiscuss the potential implications of their finalsample for the exploration of the research question(e.g., Are important perspectivesmissing andwhy?).This will help the reader interpret the findings andconclusions drawn from them. An example of a veryclear description of a sample recruitment processcan be found in Martin et al. (2015).

Last, authors should provide core demographicsabout the recruited sample. It is surprisinghowoftenwe see papers in which relevant demographic in-formation ismissing. Core demographic informationusually includes age, gender, national or culturalbackground, and ethnicity. In student samples, de-mographics usually also contain year in their pro-gram, major, and prior work experience. In samplesof members of organizations, demographics usuallyalso include things such as position in the organiza-tion, tenure, work experience, and leadership re-sponsibilities. This information can be important forthe reader to determine whether the particularsample may be very different from the samplesthey typically encounter. In addition, it can provideinformation to the reviewer about the appropriate-ness of a particular sample.

However, authors should not just limit themselvesto this type of information if there are other charac-teristics of the sample that might be critical for theresearch question. For example, if a researcherwanted to determine how students in an MBA pro-gram form social networks during a specific class orproject, then the researcher needs to determine howmany of the students knew each other before thecourse and how many of them, for example, belongto the same student associations, and thus, mightalready belong to certain social networks. Or, ifa study proposes to determine what leaders learnfrom a particular leadership training program, welikely need to know about their prior leadership ex-perience, their specific leadership responsibilitiesin the organization, and their position within theorganizational hierarchy. All these aspects could berelevant for the reader’s interpretation of the find-ings and should be communicated. For further in-formation about comprehensive sample descriptions,we refer readers to Bamberger and Pratt (2010),Gephart (2004), Pratt (2009), Ritchie and Lewis (2003),and Suddaby (2006).

Qualitative Method and Research Design

After having described their research setting andsample, authors shoulddescribe thechosenqualitative

method(s). It can often be helpful to first describe howthe research question and chosen setting createcertain requirements an appropriate method has tomeet. The description of the chosenmethod can thenspecifically address how the method fulfills theserequirements and allows the researchers to studythe research question. In addition, the description ofthe method should discuss what information themethod allows the researchers to uncover.For rigorous reporting of the employed methods,

authors need to go beyond a simple statement thatthey have used a particular method following a pre-vious author’s guidelines (see Gibbert & Ruigrok,2010), such as writing that they used the groundedtheory method according to Glaser and Strauss(1967), Locke (2001), or Gioia, Corley, and Hamilton(2012) or a case study approach following guidelinesby Eisenhardt (1989) or Yin (2009). Authors need toexplain in detail how they realized and applied thisapproach in their study, that is, to describe their re-search actions (Gephart, 2004; Lee, 2001). More oftenthan not, authors actually do not follow to the lettera particular approach suggested by previous re-search. Rather they make choices to adapt the sug-gestedapproach to optimally address their researchcontext and question, which is considered one of themajor strengths of qualitative methods. To demon-strate that these choices were reasonable and ap-propriate, authors should also provide the rationalebehind their choices (Pratt, 2008). These reasonsmay include current best-practice recommendationsfrom the research methods literature or pragmaticdecisions related to the specific research contextand situation. Whatever they may be, a high level oftransparency is key in establishing rigor and trust-worthiness (Gibbert & Ruigrok, 2010; Pratt, 2009;Zhang & Shaw, 2012).For example, returning to the research question of

how business schools might change when they un-dergo an accreditation process, one of the mostpredictable choices to explore this question wouldbe a case study analysis that allows researchers tocompare and contrast the experiences of differentbusiness schools (i.e., cases) that have undergonesuch a process or a longitudinal, single-case studyof a business school undergoing an accreditationprocess from initiation to conclusion. The authorswould first need to arguehowacase studyapproachprovided them with the information they needed toanswer the research question, that is, how they useddifferent business school cases to compare and con-trast different events and experiences to analyze theireffect on changes that these schools underwent.

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Alternatively, to explore the identity formationprocess of new international students who join localfraternities and sororities (our second example re-search question), researchers might choose a nar-rative study approach, following internationalstudents over the course of their first year to de-termine how students make sense of their new ex-periences and create a new identity for themselves.In a first step, authors would need to explain howandwhy a narrative studywould help themuncoverstudents’ identity formation process and how itwould allow them to obtain information about rele-vant experiences that contributed to the students’sense-making process. This would entail an expla-nation of how the researchers plan to collect dataover the course of the first year to map the identityformation process and the factors contributing to it(although authors could also write about this in thesection on data collection).

Toestablishmethodological rigor, I recommend toauthors to consider incorporating one or more formsof triangulation into their qualitative research design.Depending on the chosen method and qualitativetradition in which a study is situated, triangulationmay have different purposes and take on differentforms. Triangulation essentially means that re-searchers look at a phenomenon from differentangles to explore and understand it deeply. Thiscan mean that researchers might combine differentdata or sources of information, utilize differentmethods to harness their respective strengths,integrate multiple theories to understand a phenom-enon, employ different researchers to add differentlenses and expertise, collect information at differenttimes, and several other strategies (see Patton, 2002,and Yin, 2009, for excellent descriptions of differentways to triangulate). Some researchers may use tri-angulation to help corroborate findings, compensatefor the shortcomings in particular methods, and tocapture the richness and complexity of a phenome-non (Rouse & Harrison, 2016). Others may use it toassess divergent findings across different triangu-lation strategies to better explore the underlyingstructures and dynamics creating the phenomenonand to obtain a better theoretical understanding of it(Bechky & O’Mahony, 2016).

Reviewers are usually very appreciative of well-thought out triangulation designs, because they in-still confidence that the researchers have exploreda phenomenon in depth and that the conclusionsare well derived. For a great example in an AMLEpaper, see Barbera, Bernhard, Nacht, & McCann’s(2015) use of data source triangulation by gathering

information from students, parents, and course in-structors; researcher triangulation by forming two re-searcher teams comprised of two researchers each(one internal and one external to the institution atwhich data were collected) to independently code thedata and then discuss findings; and data analysis tri-angulation by comparing observations gained fromdifferent sources.

Interventions or Tasks

In MLE research, intervention studies or studies in-volvingan instructional taskareespecially common(e.g., the application of a teaching method, a train-ing program, a change in course structure, etc.). Intheir papers, authors need to provide an in-depthdescription of said intervention that entails a veryspecific description of the involved tasks, the timingof the intervention, required set-up, and other rele-vant information. If an author, for example, wantedto explore the value of student-consulting projectsfor developing work readiness, the reader wouldneed to learn about the design and content of theseprojects, what learning goals were associated withthem, how students were assigned to them, howstudents engagedwith the clients during theproject,how the course instructor interacted with the stu-dents, how conflicts were handled during the pro-jects, how grades were determined (i.e., form ofassessment), and many other pieces of information.Essentially, the description of the interventionneeds to be detailed enough to enable the reader todesign a similar type of intervention themselves. Toremainwithin the confinesof the requiredpage limitfor publications, it might be advisable to includea richer description of more elaborate teaching in-terventions in an appendix.In addition, authors again need to make a strong

case for how their chosen intervention allows themto address their research question. For example, ifthe main research question of a paper revolvedaround howandwhat students learn from tasks thatare high in uncertainty and ambiguity, then the taskchosen would need to be uncertain and ambiguous.It might then be contrasted with a nonambiguousone, depending on whether the authors wanted todraw conclusions about the differences in learningbetween tasks high and low in uncertainty andambiguity. We want to point out two fantastic ex-amples of clear, detailed, and transparent de-scriptions of interventions in AMLE papers: Elmes,Jiusto, Whiteman, Hersh, and Guthey’s (2012) de-scription of a project geared at teaching students


social entrepreneurship, and Barbera, Bernhardet al.’s (2015) description of a leadership course forfamily businessmembers focusing onwhole personlearning.

Data-Collection Process

A detailed description of the chosen data-collectionprocess is crucial so that the readers and reviewersunderstand how the chosen approach aligns withthe research question (i.e., theory–data alignment);what data are available; and also what limitationsthe chosen data-collection process might put on thefindings. There are many potential approaches tocollect data (such as interviews, observations, or-ganizational documents, or pictures), and differentresearch questions and settings might requirea combination of these methods to be exploredcomprehensively.

Interviews are one of the most common sources ofdata in qualitative AMLE submissions. Rarely,though, do authors actually explain why interviewswere an appropriate methodology and how theyconducted their interviews to obtain relevant in-formation to answer their research question. Whendescribing their interviewapproach, authors shouldidentify the general approach (e.g., ethnographic orsemistructured), and describe how this approachwas executed in the study (i.e., research actionscarried out). This includes information about howa typical interview unfolded and how long it usuallytook, where it was conducted, whether it was con-ducted by one ormultiple interviewers, whether oneor more interviewees participated at the same time,the approach to note taking during the interview,and what these notes were about. In addition, it iscrucial to provide the actual interview protocol sothat the reader can assess whether the questionsasked allowed the researchers to elicit relevant in-formation to address the research question withoutasking leading questions. A brilliant example ofa clear, transparent, and detailed description ofa data-collection process using interviews waswritten by Konopaski, Jack, and Hamilton (2015) intheir study on how members of family businesseslearn about continuity, such that their business re-mains thriving over multiple generations.

Similarly, if the authors collected informationthrough observation, they need to make the case forhow their observations afforded them unique in-sights into the phenomenon relevant to the researchquestion. They then need to specify what types ofobservations they engaged in (e.g., participant

observation, nonparticipant observation, covert,overt), and how these observations were carriedout, including when the researchers chose to ob-serve, where observations took place (i.e., in whatcontext), what they chose to observe (e.g., interac-tions, behaviors, or incidents), and how these ob-servations were recorded (e.g., field notes). In thespirit of triangulation, they might also describewhether different observations (e.g., observing dif-ferent groups of students, different parts of a teach-ing intervention, or different types of meetings ofa business school’s executive board) allowed themto corroborate similar information through differentmeans or obtain unique insights for theory building.If authors chose to employ multiple data-collectionmethods, it is helpful to explain how these werecombined and used strategically to collect differentperspectives on or characteristics of the phenome-non in question. Authors who have employed tri-angulation in this way should highlight this as acore strength of the study.In MLE research, many phenomena, processes,

and constructs of interest are very hard to observe. Aprime example is learning itself. What constituteslearning can bemanifold. The acquisition of factualknowledge is probably the easiest form of learningto observe; however, for qualitative researchers, it isalso often one of the least interesting. Learning suchas shifts in cognitive thought processes, identitydevelopment and struggles, development of com-petence and confidence, moral development, criti-cal thinking, reflexivity, or self-awareness providemuch more interesting study topics but are alsomuch harder to observe. Consequently, authorsshould explain to the reader how their chosen data-collection methods allow them to access relevantinformation concerning these phenomena, pro-cesses, and concepts.

Data-Analysis Process

As Bansal and Corley (2011) found in their analysisof AMJ papers over the course of 10 years, mostqualitativepapers submitted toAMJengage in someform of coding. Yet, as Gephart (2004), Suddaby(2006), and Pratt (2009) point out, a large number ofsubmissions at AMJ do not adequately describe thecoding process employed in the study. This is thesame for papers submitted to AMLE. As such, myrecommendations will predominantly focus on howauthors should describe their coding process suchthat readers and reviewers gain a better under-standing of how authors made sense of their raw

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data, uncovered underlying patterns in the data,and arrived at their observations and conclusionsabout the phenomenon in questions. This will helpconvince the reader that the conclusionsdrawn fromthe data are reasonable and justified.

In general, I recommend that authors providea step-by-step description of their coding, startingwith the processing of the raw data, its disassemblyintomeaningful thought fragments, its ordering intofragments of similar meaning, the interpretation ofunderlying categories of meaning, and so on. As inprevious sections, there is a wealth of different dataanalysis approaches that all include their own bestpractices and guidelines, and numerous prior pub-lications have provided excellent recommendationsfor describing the data-analysis process (e.g.,Corbin & Strauss, 2015; Krippendorf, 2004; Locke,2002; Sonpar & Golden-Biddle, 2008; Weber, 1990).I urge authors to ground their decision making intheavailable, relevant researchmethods literature. Itis invaluable to provide appropriate information tothe reviewers, as this will greatly smoothen the ex-perience thatauthorswill have in the reviewprocess.

Having just referred authors to previously pub-lished recommendations for coding, I want to men-tion one caveat that authors should be wary of:Authors are usually ill-advised when they providea “shorthand” description instead of a full and de-tailed description of their coding process. This usu-ally means that they refer to some form of templatefor conducting qualitative coding without explain-ing how they operationalized the coding in theirstudy. Some authors might feel the need to citea template approach so that their work looks moresimilar to a quantitative paper or so that reviewerswillmore likely perceive that the codingwas carriedout appropriately. However, the exact opposite isthe case. The less information provided, the lesstrustworthy the data analysis process may be per-ceived to be (see also Gibbert & Ruigrok, 2010).

When authors forego explaining in detail howthey applied the respective approach in their study,reviewers tend to bemoan that they have no way ofknowing exactly how theapproachwas applied andwhether it was employed appropriately. Further-more, reviewers and readers alike usually prefer toobtain a thorough understanding of how the re-searchers disassembled their raw data and reas-sembled it to arrive at lower level category definitionsand higher level concepts and relationships betweenthese concepts. They want to assess how the codingprocess employed might have affected the findingsobtained with it.

Furthermore, coding decisions need to be madewith the research question inmind, not by followinga generic and rigid template. To demonstrate rigorin their data analysis, authors need to be trans-parent by providing rationale for their coding de-cisionsandgiveexamplesofhow theyapplied thesedecisions in specific instances of their coding pro-cess. Very often graphs and tables can be usedsuccessfully to help the reader understand how thecoding process unfolded, andwehighly recommendmaking use of these visual representations (see alsoPratt 2008, 2009; Miles, Huberman, & Saldaña, 2013).Moreover, graphs and tables can be employed todescribe the coding process economically vis-a-visthe required page limit of the manuscript. For somegreat examples for the use of visual representationsof the data analysis process in AMLE papers, seeKonopaski et al. (2015) and Barbera et al. (2015).To establish confidence in the researchers’

decision-making process and interpretation of thedata, authors should further include an explanationof how they incorporated their own critical reflec-tions about the data-collection process (i.e., fieldnotes) and the coding process (i.e., memos) in theiranalysis to become aware of how their perspectiveand background might have influenced the conclu-sions they have drawn (e.g., Malterud, 2001; VanMaanen, 1979). If theyhave followed specific steps tocounteract imbalanced interpretations (e.g., work-ing in research pairs, recoding data from differentangles with different theoretical lenses, (i.e., codingtriangulation), then they should describe those asa strength of their process in the paper.Generally, authors should take confidence in the

fact that deviations from the standard approach areactually desirable when they allow the researchersto obtain insights that they would have not other-wise been able to obtain. As long as the coding de-cisions are well-argued and thought through,reviewers and readers are likely going to applaudthe authors for employing an approach that fits theirresearch questionwell. At the same time,we need tocommunicate to reviewers and readers of qualita-tive work that they need to refrain from making au-thors stick to templates; rather, they need to assessthe authors’ approach based on its own merit andappropriateness for their specific research context.

Findings: The Fine Balance between Showingand Telling

Findings sections are probably the hardest sectionsto write well. In part, this is because authors need to


strike a very fine balance between presenting theirdata (i.e., showing) and interpreting that data (i.e.,telling; Golden-Biddle & Locke, 2007; Sandelowski,1998). Just how fine that balance can be is apparentfrom Pratt’s (2008) study of qualitative researcherswho have submitted their papers to top-tier NorthAmerican journals. He found that over 50% of thesurveyed authors had received comments duringthe review process that they provide too much in-terpretation as compared with showing their data.At the same time, over 30% of the authors had re-ceived comments that they were showing too muchdata, while not providing enough interpretation.

We observe similar issues in qualitative paperssubmitted toAMLE. Many authorsmake themistakeof simply telling the reader what they foundwithoutinvolving the reader in the discovery process. Thismeans that the reader is presented with statementsabout what the findings are, but not how the dataactually support these findings, or how the re-searchers have arrived at their interpretations (i.e.,too much telling, too little showing). On the flip side,authors can offer too much data with too little focusand interpretation (i.e., too much showing, too littletelling). Theyprovideastringofquotes (orquotes thatare too long) to essentially provide a detailed sum-mary of what their participants told them, withoutmuch interpretation of the meaning of these quotes.This can be an indication that the authors have notyet managed to sufficiently separate themselvesfrom the raw data and abstract up to identify theunderlying patterns and dynamics creating thephenomenon.

A compelling Findings section introduces thereader to core findings by providing relevant evi-dence from the data (e.g., through quotes) and aninterpretation and analysis of what these findingsmean. The primary purpose of a Findings section isto answer the research question. To do that, authorsneed to employ their data to build a chain of evi-dence that carries their findings. Consequently,authors need to think strategically about the pre-sentation of their data such that it forms a coherentstoryline that the reader can easily comprehendandfollow, and that engages and convinces the reader(for an excellent treatment of writing up qualitativeresearch, see Golden-Biddle & Locke, 2007).

One step in this direction is to write a Findingssection that focuses entirely on the discovery pro-cess of the reader. This means that authors need tobe aware of the pieces of information readers needbefore they can understand the meaning and cen-trality of a core finding. As I mentioned above, often

this means that basic findings might already be in-corporated earlier in the paper (i.e., in the LiteratureReview). In this way, the researcher might create forthe reader a foundation of knowledge of the phe-nomenon that is essential to understand what isultimately unique or surprising about the phenom-enon in the researcher’s chosen context. The latterwould then be presented in the Findings section bycomparing and contrasting it to the foundation ofknowledge provided earlier in the paper.Another step in this direction is to be conscious of

how information needs to be presented to the readerto be convincing and engaging. To be engaging,authors should first ensure that the context of thestudy comes to life for the reader. This means thatthe reader needs to feel that they have obtaineda very good impression of the context, for example,such that they understand exactly the situation thatan examined business school is in or such that theycan hear the students’ voices reflected in the find-ings. In some qualitative traditions, this is akin toproviding a rich or thick description of the context.This can be achieved through providing essentialquotes and observations from the data (i.e., showing).To be convincing, the quotes and observations

need to be interpreted (i.e., telling). The ideal goalhere is that readers feel theyactually got to know thedata well enough to follow and understand the in-terpretations offered by the researchers. Whena findings section is well written, a reader feels thatthey would have come to essentially the same con-clusions as the authors. Furthermore, they feel in-tellectually engaged by the findings, meaning theyform ideas about what this means for themselves,their own work, the larger theory landscape in anarea, or for future research, before even arriving atthe Discussion section. Findings sections like thisget readers and reviewers excited.There is no single best structure that Findings

sections should follow to be engaging and convinc-ing (see Sandelowski,1998, for an excellent piece onwriting up one’s findings). In my experience, a Find-ingssectiongets rewrittenmultiple times toconvergeon a version that seems to present the findings to thereader in the most accessible way. Also important isthat authors present meaningful chunks of data andprovide an interpretation of what the data mean(i.e., the analysis of the researcher). This interpreta-tion has to go beyond a rewording of what an in-terviewee said or of what happened in an incident toestablishing a link between what was observed andwhat we can learn from it to understand the phe-nomenon or answer the research question.

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In addition, authors need to ensure that theypresent “parts” of their story or their data in a waythat the “whole” of their story or findings alsomakessense. Thismeans that authors need to keep inmindthe big picture that they want the reader to un-derstand, while they are providing evidence for thepieces that make up the big picture. Examples forgreat presentations of findings in AMLE papers canbe found in Barbera et al. (2015), Elmes et al. (2012),Konopaski et al. (2015), and Petriglieri et al. (2011).What all of these papers do particularly well, albeitin different ways, is that they communicate thefindings clearly and convincingly to the reader byeffectively using quotes, in-depth descriptions, andgraphic visualizations to show their data. They alsoall have created successful structures to presenttheir data inawaysuch that it becomesveryeasy forthe reader to follow the authors’ interpretations,while still being able to hear the voices of theirparticipants.

On a more general note, I want to mention somegood practices for providing quotes and observa-tions in the Findings section (or in the associatedtables). Authors should generally label each quoteand observation with an anonymized code thatcaptures the source of the information (i.e., a specificparticipant) and relevant information about thesource. For example, when a study contains teachersand students, it might be helpful to distinguish be-tween what teachers said and what students said. Ifthe study contains students from multiple cultures,and culture is one of the core aspects of the researchquestion, it would be useful to reflect in the labelwhich culture a particular interviewee belonged to.Sometimes, it can even be helpful to reflect in thelabel themethodwithwhich the datawere collected,for example: Teacher 1 – interview as opposed toTeacher 1 – syllabus. Authors need to determinewhatmakes the most sense in their case.

Labeling quotes and observations has two mainpurposes. On the one hand, it helps readers keeptrack of who said what. It can allow authors to buildinterviewee profiles in their findings (if appropriate)or track the development of an individual over time(e.g., in a teaching intervention study) as just twoexamples. On the other hand, it also allows readersto determine whether the quotes used to support theauthors’ findings and interpretations have comefrom a rather small number of interviewees or arerepresentative of many or all interviewees. It is notnecessarily the case that all interviewees need tohave reported the same issue for that issue to bedeemed important and become a core finding.

Sometimes, onlyone individualmight say somethingthat allows the researcher to have a crucial insightabout an ongoing dynamic in the research context.This can happen when one interviewee is particu-larly insightful orwhen that interviewee holds a coreposition in the context that allows him or her to knowabout information thatotherparticipantsdonothave.At the same time, readers and reviewers usually

want to know how prevalent a given observationwas and how central it might have been to the par-ticipants’ experience of the situation. Being ableto show that some findings can be supported withquotes from several interviewees increases areader’s confidence in the representativeness ofa reported finding (i.e., triangulation). At the sametime, providing a quote that clearly demonstratesthe connections between different concepts or as-pects of the phenomenon can increase perceptionsof relevance of the uncovered patterns in the data. Inthe end, it boils down to representing the data fairly,that is, reporting what is really there rather thanwhat the researcher wants to be there. Previouswork has provided excellent advice on how to usequotes and anecdotes strategically, and we referauthors to this work (Golden-Biddle & Locke, 2007;Pratt, 2009, 2008; Yin, 2013).

DISCUSSION

Why Does Your Study Matter and Where DoWe Go From Here?

Papers published in AMLE need to fulfill two pur-poses: making a contribution to MLE research(which includes theoretical contributions, but also,e.g., contributions to methodology) and makinga contribution toMLEpractice. Different frompapersin other research specialty areas (e.g., organiza-tional behavior, strategy, organizational theory, in-ternational business, etc.), practical implications forteaching and learning or for the operation of busi-ness schools are crucial and need to be amajor partof the Discussion section. In addition, authors needto highlight the limitations, opportunities, and spe-cific strengths of their papers, and end on a mean-ingful conclusion from their work.

Contributions to Research

Qualitative papers often establish a very strong linkbetween their findings and discussion sections(Golden-Biddle&Locke, 2007). After a brief summaryof the core findings, qualitative papers can draw


meaningful conclusions and implications from thefindings for ongoing debates in the chosen researcharea. In defining a study’s contribution to existingresearch on a topic, authors need to distill implica-tions from the study’s findings, that is, they shoulddescribe what the findings and interpretationsmean for research and practice. Previous work hasprovided some excellent general recommendationsfor the identification andwritingup of contributions,and we refer readers to these resources (see, e.g.,Bergh, 2003; Corley & Gioia, 2011; Locke & Golden-Biddle, 1997; Rynes, 2002; Whetten, 1989).

Here, I want to focus on advice for writing aboutcontributions of MLE papers, which means that au-thors need to establish how theirwork contributes toongoing research streams in the MLE domain. Al-though contributions to other domains (e.g., organi-zational behavior, strategy, etc.) are valuable andshould be discussed, they should not be the mainfocus of the Discussion section. This is somethingthat authors often struggle with when they submittheir first paper to an MLE journal. Take as an ex-ample a paper that explored how a particular im-pression management training approach changesleaders’perceptions of their leader identity and self-efficacy. The focus of the Discussion section shouldnot be first and foremost about how impressionmanagement, leader identity, and self-efficacy arerelated and how findings from the study contributeto our knowledge of these three constructs. Rather,the discussion section should discuss implicationsfor impression management training approaches,the processes that led to learning and change inleader identity and self-efficacy, and how we canuse this newknowledgeabout learning processes tochange future research and practice in the area ofleadership trainings.

One of the most common critique points in re-viewer letters is that the discussion section of aparticular paper does not in fact provide real impli-cations for MLE research or that the contributions re-main unclear. Another common critique point is thatthe contribution is not strong enough. Thismeans thatthe implications that the authors derived from theirfindings and interpretations do not seem potentenough to change our thinking and theorizing abouta specific teaching and learning approach or a par-ticular practice in business schools. A third, com-monly raised critique pointed out by reviewers is thatauthors sometimes extrapolate far beyond what theirdataand findingsactuallyallow themtoconclude. So,while underpinning the importance and relevance oftheir work, authors need to remain true to their data.

The question of howbig a contribution needs to betobeconsideredasubstantial contribution is oneweoften hear. It is hard to find an answer to this ques-tion, though. Judging from some of the most suc-cessful papers we have seen (some of themwe gaveas examples here), a contribution needs to make asolid change to the ongoing research debate ona topic,whichcould,amongother things,beachangein variables we deem to be important, a meaningfulchange in our understanding of underlying pro-cesses, or a change inmethodology or interventions.A convincing contribution often also makes uspause, reflect, and reevaluate how we think abouta topic. In MLE research, this often goes hand inhand with the practical contributions derived fromthe findings. A greatAMLE example paper for this isKonopaski et al.’s (2015) paper, in which the authorsshow how several of their findings contradict andextendexisting theory onparticipation and learningin family businesses. From these findings, the au-thors develop practical implications for consultants,members of family businesses, and educators inbusiness schools.

Contributions to Teaching and Learning Practice orto the Operation of Business Schools

A core mission of the journal is to be practicallyrelevant for instructors and teaching practitionersaswell as for key stakeholders and decisionmakersin business schools. Consequently, readers andreviewers also place a strong emphasis on high-quality practical implications. The recommen-dations made in this section need to be solid,well-grounded in the data, and meaningful. In ad-dition, the recommendations need to be as specificas they can be. For example, if a paper explores howthe incorporation of courses focusing on reflectionfosters students’ deep-level learning in an MBAcurriculum, then good practical implications de-scribe in as much depth as possible how thesecourses need to be designed, at which point theyneed to appear in the curriculum, andhow theyneedto coincide with and complement other courses inthe curriculum. It is not enough to simply statesomethingakin to the fact that decisionmakersneedto think about including reflective courses in theircurriculum design.To be practically relevant, the reader needs to

learn about recommended best practices and aboutalternative approaches that lead to different out-comes. Especially in teaching-intervention papers,how and why an intervention worked needs to

2016 415Kohler

become clear. An excellent description of practicalimplications for developing educational resourcescan be found in Martin et al.’s (2015) paper on man-agingemployeeswithmentalhealth issues, inwhichthe authors develop potential learning objectives forMBA curricula as well as provide a specific exampleof a case study that could be used in the classroom.

Of course, context factors are critically importantfor this, and authors are well advised to include thediscussion of context factors in their Practical Im-plications section (Egri, 2013). Qualitative papershave a core advantage here over most quantitativepapers because they are very solidly grounded intheir particular research context. That means thatauthors can provide a rich description and analysisof how the context did or did not matter for theirfindings. In addition, due to the required detail inthe Methods section, readers already receive a lotof information about the context, sample, and in-tervention (where applicable). So, in the Discussionsection, authors can focus on a discussion of howtransferable their findings and conclusions are andhow they are likely going to matter for decisionmakers in business schools or for instructors ofa range of different courses.

It is important to note here that qualitative papersare not concerned with generalizability. It is un-likely that findings from a qualitative study, whichhas been conducted in a very specific context ona very specific sample, can generalize widely. How-ever, qualitative researchers do care about howtheir insightsmight be transferable to other contextsand samples. As such, a discussion on what makesthe context and sample similar to or different fromothers is quite appropriate (see related suggestionsin the Methods section).

Limitations, Opportunities, and Strengths

We recommend that similar to other papers authorsinclude a section on limitations, opportunities, andstrengths. In this section, the authors should brieflydiscuss how insights from their study are bound bythedesign and execution of the research. Authors donot need to discuss again their methodologicalchoices or why they had to design their study in theway they did. They have already done that in theMethods section (see suggestions above). This sec-tion should, rather, focus on how characteristics ofthe sample, context, intervention design, and re-search context limit the conclusions that authorscan derive. At the same time, authors should makeconstructive suggestions how future studies can

examine specific issues that the current study didnot address (i.e., opportunities). This is not the sameas the contributions to existing research and theimplications for future research discussed above onthe section on research contributions. Rather, anidentification of opportunities should focus on rec-ommending further interesting contexts, samples,interventions, or methodological approaches thatmay provide new insights about the phenomenonin question.We also recommend that authorswritea brief summary of the specific strengths of theirstudy, its theoretical lens, research question, ap-proach to address the research question, and meth-odology.Readers like to have a take-awaymessagethat encapsulates what is extraordinary and im-pressive about the study they just read. It is oftenimportant to end on this high note to maintain ex-citement about the study and to leave the readerengaged with the topic.

Final Thoughts

The purpose of this editorial is to help authors betterunderstand what reviewers are looking for in qual-itative papers and to provide some guidelines fornavigating the manuscript writing process. Hope-fully I leave readers more informed and more confi-dent about their abilities to write up their qualitativeresearch for AMLE. I further hope that I was able toinspire more researchers interested in MLE re-search topics to conduct and write up qualitativestudies for submission toAMLE.We look forward toreceiving all of the excitingmanuscripts that are inthe works out there.

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Tine KohlerThe University of Melbourne,

Australia


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Author/s:

Köhler, T

Title:

From the Editors: On Writing Up Qualitative Research in Management Learning and

Education

Date:

2016

Citation:

Köhler, T. (2016). From the Editors: On Writing Up Qualitative Research in Management

Learning and Education. Academy of Management Learning & Education, 15 (3), pp.400-

418. https://doi.org/10.5465/amle.2016.0275.

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http://hdl.handle.net/11343/191876

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From the Editors: On Writing Up Qualitative Research in