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Dear Sushant,

Yes, you're right, management research is heavily biased towards quantitative research in general and survey research in particular (see Cameron & Molina-Azorin, 2011). I wish to acknowledge that I'm as guilty of this as anybody else. Although the choice of methods should ideally be based on the research question (Edmondson & McManus, 2007), in reality, they are also based on a wide variety of contextual factors (Buchanan & Bryman, 2007), which includes but is not limited to conventions in the field. McGrath (1981) has an awesome paper in which he argues that every method has validity trade-offs, such that it is impossible for any particular method to maximizes all types of validity. Every method is therefore inherently flawed and these flaws cannot be fixed. The solution to this problem, he argues, is methodological pluriformity at the field level, such that, the methodological limitations of particular studies are off-set by the strengths of the other. His article highlights the problem of methodological uniformity, as evidenced by our reliance on surveys: the weaknesses of this method are currently insufficiently compensated by the strengths of alternative designs. These are some of the core messages I try to convey in my courses on Research Design.

I look forward to others' thoughts on this issue.

Best, Bart

Buchanan, D. A., & Bryman, A. (2007). Contextualizing Methods Choice in Organizational Research. Organizational Research Methods, 10(3), 483-501.

Cameron, R., & Molina-Azorin, J. F. (2011). The acceptance of mixed methods in business and management research. International Journal of Organizational Analysis, 19(3), 256-270.

Edmondson, A. C., & McManus, S. E. (2007). Methodological Fit in Management Research. Academy of Management Review, 32(4), 1155-1179.

McGrath, J. E. (1981). Dilemmatics: The Study of Research Choices and Dillemmas. American Behavioral Scientist, 25(2), 179-210.