Guidelines for Researchers Using an Adapted Consensual Qualitative Research Approach in Management Research

1.IntroductionManagement researchers in general prefer to have structure in their research processes owing to the nature of their discipline which tends to involve procedure and organisation. As a result, this pursuit for structure may deter some researchers who prefer a more quantitative means of investigation from using qualitative research designs.However, the rich value attributed to qualitative research is often placed in designs which are emergent in nature and developed relatively flexibly (Clissett, 2008, p.100) with a particular and ambiguous outcome rather than replicable and clearly-defined outcomes (Van Maanen, 1979, p.520) as with quantitative research methodologies. The value is thus attributed to the creation of new theory and knowledge in the discipline or topic and, therefore, could be of value in understanding emerging issues within the discipline of Management Studies, by providing an in-depth understanding into concerns related to people and organisations as well as their concepts and ideas.Qualitative research can add value through rigorous, structured research designs. One such qualitative research design is Consensual Qualitative Research (CQR), which aligns well with most structured qualitative methods. The model of introducing a step-by-step process to collecting, coding, analysing and rechecking the research data has a number of important advantages in relation to the philosophy behind research designs and bridges the gap between realism and relativism by satisfying the need for "partly-replicable, robust and cumulative" research by calling for quasi-statistics or numerical classification of results (Yeh and Inman, 2007, p.374). further develops an adapted CQR approach which is offered as a guideline that could be replicated in other Management Studies, both on its own as a pure qualitative study or as an addition to a quantitative study.2. Literature review2.1Value of Qualitative Research in Management StudiesThe value of qualitative research is to explain and recognise social phenomena in terms of the significance people bring to them. Du Plooy-Cilliers, Davis and Bezuidenhout (2015, p.174) identify that qualitative researchers are interested in the depth of human experience, including all the personal subjective peculiarities that are characteristic of individual experiences and meanings associated with the particular phenomena. Furthermore, qualitative researchers are engaged in scientific discovery as well as the creation of new theory and are not just testing theory (Dougherty, 2015, p.608). Therefore, qualitative research could be the most appropriate method when the research being conducted attempts to explain the unexplained; where the nature of the research is broad and where previous theories do not exist, or are incomplete (Patton, 2002, p.22). This methodology provides management researchers with an added appeal by providing an in-depth understanding into concerns related to people and organisations as well as their concepts and ideas. As a result, qualitative methodology is instrumental in appreciating multifaceted interactions between individuals and their environment and how these phenomena influence outcomes (Anderson, Leahy, Delvalle, Sherman and Tansey, 2014, p.88). In addition, Kalou and Sadler-Smith (2015, p.629) explain that organisations need to be language-mediated domains of social interaction in which communication constructs organisational realities and produces organisational phenomena. Therefore, organisational researchers require methods for interpretive field studies (Kalou and Sadler-Smith, 2015, p.629). The crucial features of qualitative research can be identified as the appropriate choice of applicable methods and initial theories; the appreciation for and analysis of different perspectives; the researchers' reflections on their research as part of the process of knowledge production and the variety of approaches and methods that can be adopted (Flick, 2009, p. …