Qualitative Research Submissions to Project Management Journal®

This is the second in a series of editorials designed to provide authors with guidance for future submissions to Project Management Journal (PMJ). We started this series in the October issue of PMJ (volume 49, issue 5) by outlining the lack of theoretical contribution as one of the main reasons for submission rejection. We also provided a few recommendations to overcome this, such as the use of interesting and contemporary subjects combined with established theoretical perspectives in order to gradually improve or expand existing theory. Nevertheless, we also welcome submissions with newly developed theory, even though these submissions are quite rare when compared with the number of submissions that apply existing theories or theoretical frameworks. The aim of this editorial remains the same: to provide more transparency in the requirements that lead to promising submissions to PMJ. Generally speaking, the nature of qualitative inquiries— with its large variety of ontological, epistemological, and methodological stances—calls for an equally wide variety in ways of writing about these studies. However, the manuscript should satisfy some basic requirements for academic publishing and allow the novice as well as the experienced reader to follow the process of the study and the author’s line of thought. We recommend referring to the Journal Article Reporting Standards for Qualitative Research as outlined by the American Psychologist Association (Levitt et al., 2018) before writing and submitting qualitative and mixed-methods work. In the following section, we first provide a few general recommendations for all types of submissions to PMJ and then address the specific expectations for qualitative submissions. All research starts with a research question (Makadok, Burton, & Barney, 2018). We refer here to the author guidelines on the PMJ website, which clearly state that submissions must have a research question and address a phenomenon that has a wider relevance than just “being interesting. ” Unfortunately, we continue to receive numerous submissions that neither have a research question (i.e., the what) nor a clearly identifiable justification (i.e., the why) for the study. Equally critical is to outline the study’s contribution to a specific academic discourse, which positions a study relative to other studies in a specific subject area, contributes to its justification, and furthers understanding of the novelty of the findings. To accomplish this objective, an article shall critically engage with both the current and classic literature of a specific discourse to embed the work in a focused and well-researched current understanding of the phenomenon. Independent of the chosen methodological approach, the findings in an article are expected to be set in relation to those of existing publications in order to develop a verbal description of the observed regularity, which leads to a theoretical contribution that expands on the existing knowledge on the subject. Qualitative studies are known to be a premier choice for answering research questions that start with how, such as questions about behavior or processes. Unique to these studies is the need to convince the reader through a coherent and exhaustive “story” that respects the worldview of informants, provides evidence for its claims, and contributes to theory development (Pratt, 2009). Due to the lack of “significance levels,” such as those in quantitative studies, qualitative studies aim for and require result credibility. Credibility stems from the plausibility of the research and its design, as well as the rigor in execution. Hence, a qualitative paper must outline how the study was designed, that is, the coherence between ontological and epistemological assumptions about reality on one hand and the ways of data collection, analysis, and interpretation of the results on the other. All these elements must fit together. Rynes and Gephart (2004) provide some examples of frequently encountered mistakes, such as claiming a positivist stance but conducting a Grounded Theory study. To avoid these inconsistencies, we recommend starting the methodology section in a submission with a description of the design process or framework that was followed and led to the particular methodology. Many of the established design processes suggest starting with the underlying philosophical assumptions. This provides hints on the nature and generalizability of the results. For example, positivist studies will aim for general laws, post-positivist studies will aim for trends, and realist studies will aim for possible, but not necessarily the only explanation of a phenomenon. Phenomenalism studies will aim for the understanding of subjective lifeworlds of individuals, and postmodernist studies consider contradictions and random