The International Journal of Business Communication is inviting papers for a Special Issue on Qualitative Methods in Business Communication Research. This volume aims to highlight the value of qualitative research by focusing on novel methodological principles and showing the variety of approaches undertaken by qualitative researchers.
Qualitative research methods focus on the qualities of the material being researched, opening up new areas of inquiry by identifying, describing, and contextualizing meaningful elements of the data. Qualitative research can show aspects of business communication that are largely overlooked, encourage theory building, and lend itself to novel, emerging, interdisciplinary, and creative methods.
This Special Issue invites work on innovative approaches to qualitative research in business communication. These could include methods of data collection (e.g., surveys, focus groups, interviews, ethnographic observation, corpus compilation); methods of data analysis (e.g., textual content analysis, visual content analysis, rhetorical analysis, narrative analysis, corpus analysis); verification methods (e.g. advances in intercoder reliability, respondent verification, and triangulation); and researcher response to tools, platforms, and conditions (such as researcher positionality and bias response). Therefore, this volume seeks to highlight work that considers challenges to and emerging approaches to qualitative research. Papers need not use new methods in every area, but we welcome authors who are adventurous in one or more arenas. This volume will collect a series of papers that explain and interpret a variety of methodological procedures and decisions in original research on business and organizational contexts.
Because the uniting factor across papers is the focus on methods and methodologies, the specific topics under investigation are left open to authors to decide. We expect that authors will place great emphasis on methodological decisions and reflect on how methodological choices impact the final results and interpretations. The end result of the papers will be original, innovative research.
Contributions can come from all qualitative data collection and analysis approaches, including but not limited to:
-
Interviews
-
Focus groups
-
Narrative analysis
-
Discourse analysis
-
Pragmatics analysis
-
Textual content analysis
-
Ethnographic observation
-
Corpus analysis and compilation
-
Linguistic and rhetorical analysis
-
Computer-aided content analysis
-
Qualitative approaches to surveys
-
Visual content analysis and multimodality
-
Communicative Constitution of Organizations (CCO)
Methods that do not fit easily into categories are also welcomed.
Submission Requirements
Submit a preliminary extended abstract of 500-800 words (excluding references) by May 8 to the Guest Editors, Stephen Carradini, Mathew Gillings, and Sky Marsen at https://www.businesscommunication.org/p/su/rd/survey=43c8f1ed-a8e6-11ed-8d11-bc764e103916. Replies will be sent by June 27th. Full papers of approximately 8,000 words are due by October 16th. The special issue is expected to be published in 2025. Please send any questions to Stephen Carradini at Stephen.Carradini@asu.edu.
Instructions for Extended Abstracts
The abstracts should be as specific as possible and include:
-
a description of the area and topic examined and the aims of the paper
-
a short overview (3-4 key sources) of relevant literature that positions the paper
-
a description of the method/methodology covered, including reliability/validity/triangulation measures
-
a description of initial findings and further expected results
------------------------------
Jacqueline Rowley Mayfield
Professor Emeritus
Texas A & M International Univ.
San Antonio TX
------------------------------