EIBA 2022 workshop on qualitative methods
Date: Sunday December 11, 2022
Time 10 - 13
Host: Rebecca Piekkari, Catherine Welch, Eriikka Paavilainen-Mäntymäki and Emmanuella Plakoyiannaki
Workshop on how to engage in contextual theorizing in IB
One of the main competitive advantages of IB scholarship is its ability to deal with context. In order to explain how and why phenomena occur in the social world IB scholars need to take context seriously. In this workshop, we will argue for contextual theorizing as a promising theorizing style. It aims at building distinctive theories of complex phenomena by turning away from the pursuit of general IB theories. We will focus on qualitative case-based research in which context is essential - not a hindrance - to theorizing. Case researchers using this theorizing style treat context holistically, rather than extract out variables and relationships of interest. For them, context is not just description or something external to the study; rather, it is constitutive of organizational phenomena. Case studies are also close to managerial action and therefore reduce the risk of producing theories that are obsolete or irrelevant for explaining the social world.
In this workshop, we cover the following topics:
- define what contextual theorizing is
- explain why and how context matters for theorizing,
- analyze examples of IB studies that engage in contextual theorizing, and
- conclude by arguing that the case study is a superior research strategy for reconciling context and theory.