METHODOLOGICAL FIT IN MANAGEMENT
FIELD RESEARCH
AMY C. EDMONDSON
Harvard Business School
STACY E. MCMANUS
Monitor Executive Development
Methodological fit, an implicitly valued attribute of high-quality field research in
organizations, has received little attention in the management literature. Fit refers to
internal consistency among elements of a research project—research question, prior
work, research design, and theoretical contribution. We introduce a contingency
framework that relates prior work to the design of a research project, paying particular
attention to the question of when to mix qualitative and quantitative data in a single
research paper. We discuss implications of the framework for educating new field
researchers.
To advance management theory, a growing
number of scholars are engaging in field re-
search, studying real people, real problems, and
real organizations. Although the potential rele-
vance of field research is motivating, the re-
search journey can be messy and inefficient,
fraught with logistical hurdles and unexpected
events. Researchers manage complex relation-
ships with sites, cope with constraints on sam-
ple selection and timing of data collection, and
often confront mid-project changes to planned
research designs. With these additional chal-
lenges, the logic of a research design and how it
supports the development of a specific theoreti-
cal contribution can be obscured or altered
along the way in field research. Compared to
experimental studies, analyses of published
data sets, or computer simulations, achieving fit
between the type of data collected in and the
theoretical contribution of a given field research
project is a dynamic and challenging process.
This article introduces a framework for as-
sessing and promoting methodological fit as an
overarching criterion for ensuring quality field
research. We define methodological fit as inter-
nal consistency among elements of a research
project (see Table 1 for four key elements of field
research). Although articles based on field re-
search in leading academic journals usually ex-
hibit a high degree of methodological fit, guide-
lines for ensuring it are not readily available.
Beyond the observation that qualitative data are
appropriate for studying phenomena that are
not well understood (e.g., Barley, 1990; Bouchard,
1976; Eisenhardt, 1989a), the relationship be-
tween types of theoretical contributions and
types of field research has received little ex-
plicit attention. In particular, the conditions un-
der which hybrid methods that mix qualitative
and quantitative data are most helpful in field
research—a central focus of this paper—are not
widely recognized.
We define field research in management as
systematic studies that rely on the collection of
original data—qualitative or quantitative—in
real organizations. The ideas in this paper are
not intended to generalize to all types of man-
agement research but, rather, to help guide the
design and development of research projects
that centrally involve collecting data in field
sites. We offer a framework that relates the
stage of prior theory to research questions, type
of data collected and analyzed, and theoretical
contributions—the elements shown in Table 1.
We thank David Ager, Jim Detert, Robin Ely, Richard
Hackman, Connie Hadley, Bertrand Moingeon, Wendy
Smith, students in four years of the Design of Field Research
Methods course at Harvard, seminar participants at the Uni-
versity of Texas McCombs School, the MIT Organization
Studies group, and the Kurt Lewin Institute in Amsterdam for
valuable feedback in the development of these ideas. We
are particularly grateful to Terrence Mitchell and the AMR
reviewers for suggestions that improved the paper im-
mensely. Harvard Business School Division of Research pro-
vided the funding for this project.
� Academy of Management Review
2007, Vol. 32, No. 4, 1155–1179.
1155
Copyright of the Academy of Management, all rights reserved. Contents may not be copied, emailed, posted to a listserv, or otherwise transmitted without the copyright
holder’s express written permission. Users may print, download, or email articles for individual use only.
In well-integrated field research the key ele-
ments are congruent and mutually reinforcing.
The framework we present is unlikely to call
for changes in how accomplished field research-
ers go about their work. Indeed, experienced
researchers regularly implement the alignment
we describe. However, new organizational re-
searchers, or even accomplished experimental-
ists or modelers who are new to field research,
should benefit from an explicit discussion of the
mutually reinforcing relationships that promote
methodological fit.
The primary aim of this article, thus, is to
provide guidelines for helping new field re-
searchers develop and hone their ability to
align theory and methods in field research.
Because a key aspect of this is the ability to
anticipate and detect problems that emerge
when fit is low, our discussion explores and
categorizes such problems. A second aim is to
suggest that methodological fit in field re-
search is created through an iterative learning
process that requires a mindset in which feed-
back, rethinking, and revising are embraced
as valued activities, and to discuss the impli-
cations of this for educating new field re-
searchers. To begin, in the next section we
situate our efforts in the broader methodolog-
ical literature and describe the sources that
inform our ideas.
BACKGROUND
Prior Work on Methodological Fit
The notion of methodological fit has deep
roots in organizational research (e.g., Bouchard,
1976; Campbell, Daft, & Hulin, 1982; Lee, Mitch-
ell, & Sablynski, 1999; McGrath, 1964). Years ago,
McGrath (1964) noted that the state of prior
knowledge is a key determinant of appropriate
research methodology. Pointing to a full spec-
trum of research settings, ranging from field re-
search to experimental simulations, laboratory
experiments, and computer simulations, he pre-
sented field studies as appropriate for explor-
atory endeavors to stimulate new theoretical
ideas and for cross-validation to assess whether
an established theory holds up in the real world.
The other, non-field-based research settings
were presented as appropriate for advancing
theory. Understandably, given the era, McGrath
did not dig deeply into the full range of methods
that have since been used within field research
alone.
Subsequently, Bouchard, focusing on how to
implement research techniques such as inter-
TABLE 1
Four Key Elements of a Field Research Project
Element Description
Research question ● Focuses a study
● Narrows the topic area to a meaningful, manageable size
● Addresses issues of theoretical and practical significance
● Points toward a viable research project—that is, the question can be
answered
Prior work ● The state of the literature
● Existing theoretical and empirical research papers that pertain to the
topic of the current study
● An aid in identifying unanswered questions, unexplored areas,
relevant constructs, and areas of low agreement
Research design ● Type of data to be collected
● Data collection tools and procedures
● Type of analysis planned
● Finding/selection of sites for collecting data
Contribution to literature ● The theory developed as an outcome of the study
● New ideas that contest conventional wisdom, challenge prior
assumptions, integrate prior streams of research to produce a new
model, or refine understanding of a phenomenon
● Any practical insights drawn from the findings that may be suggested
by the researcher
1156 OctoberAcademy of Management Review
views, questionnaires, and observation, noted,
“The key to good research lies not in choosing
the right method, but rather in asking the right
question and picking the most powerful method
for answering that particular question” (1976:
402). Others have issued cautions against as-
suming the unilateral rightness of a method—
wielding a hammer and treating everything as
nails (e.g., Campbell et al., 1982). Yet all re-
searchers are vulnerable to preferring those
hammers that we have learned to use well.
Thus, we benefit from reminders that not all
tools are appropriate for all situations. At the
same time, exactly how to determine the right
method for a given research question—particu-
larly in the field—has not been as well speci-
fied.
More recently, Lee et al. (1999: 163) tackled the
challenges of research in “natural settings” to
explicate strategies for effective qualitative or-
ganizational and vocational research. Using ex-
emplars, these authors showed that qualitative
data are useful for theory generation, elabora-
tion, and even testing, in an effort to “inspire
[other researchers] to seek opportunities to ex-
pand their thinking and research” and to help
them “learn from this larger and collective ex-
perience and avoid misdirection” (1999: 161). In
advocating the benefits of qualitative work for
organizational researchers, these authors pro-
vide a helpful foundation for the present paper.
We build on this work by distinguishing among
purely qualitative, purely quantitative, and hy-
brid designs, as well as by including a fuller
range of field research methods in a single
framework. The categories we develop allow a
more fine-grained analysis of field research op-
tions than offered previously.
A recent body of work debates the appropri-
ateness of combining qualitative and quanti-
tative methods within a single research
project. Issues addressed in this debate in-
clude whether qualitative and quantitative
methods investigate the same phenomena, are
philosophically consistent, and are paradigms
that can reasonably be integrated within a
study (e.g., Greene, Caracelli, & Graham, 1989;
Morgan & Smircich, 1980; Sale, Lohfeld, & Bra-
zil, 2002; Yauch & Steudel, 2003). Consistent
with Yauch and Steudel (2003), who provide a
brief review of the current thinking on this
topic, we propose that the two methods can be
combined successfully in cases where the
goal is to increase validity of new measures
through triangulation1 and/or to generate
greater understanding of the mechanisms un-
derlying quantitative results in at least par-
tially new territory. This paper complements
prior work on hybrid methods by addressing
how the state of current theory and literature
influences not only when hybrid research
strategies are appropriate but also when other
methodological decisions are appropriate and
how different elements of research projects fit
together to form coherent wholes.
Sources for Understanding Fit in Field
Research
Several sources have informed the ideas pre-
sented in this paper. A long-standing interest in
teaching field research methods fueled exten-
sive note taking, reflection, and iterative model
building over the past decade. In this reflective
process we drew first from the many high-
quality papers reporting on field research pub-
lished in prominent journals; we use a few of
these articles as exemplars to highlight and ex-
plain our framework. Second, we drew from our
own experiences conducting field research,
complete with missteps, feedback, and exten-
sive refinement. Third, the first author’s experi-
ence reviewing dozens of manuscripts reporting
on field research submitted to academic jour-
nals provided additional insight into both the
presence and absence of methodological fit.2
Unlike reading polished published articles, re-
viewing offers the advantage of being able to
observe part of the research journey. Moreover,
a reviewer’s reward is the opportunity to see
how other anonymous reviewers have evalu-
ated the same manuscript—constituting an in-
formal index of agreement among expert judges.
Papers rejected or returned for extensive revi-
sion because a poor match among prior work,
1 Triangulation is a process by which the same phenom-
enon is assessed with different methods to determine
whether convergence across methods exists. See Jick (1979)
for a thoughtful discussion.
2 These reviewing experiences were important inputs into
the framework in this paper; however, the confidentiality of
the review process precluded using these cases as exam-
ples. To illustrate poor fit and attempts to improve fit later in
the article, we resorted to drawing on our second primary
source—our own field research projects.
2007 1157Edmondson and McManus
research questions, and methods helped inform
our framework; agreement among expert re-
viewers strengthens our confidence in these
ideas.
This agreement is not explained by explicit
instruction. A glance at the current Academy of
Management Journal and Administrative Sci-
ence Quarterly checklists for reviewers reveals
an emphasis on the quality of the individual
elements of a submission—for example, “tech-
nical adequacy”—without a formal criterion for
evaluating fit among elements. Yet researchers
may employ a particular method exceptionally
well, without it being an effective approach to
studying the stated research question. This hap-
pens, in part, because field research is often
spurred by unexpected data collection opportu-
nities. Responding to requests from contacts at
companies, researchers may collect data driven
by company interests but not well matched to
initial research questions. For example, surveys
may be distributed that help the site but that
have limited connection to the researcher’s the-
oretical goals. Similarly, interview data from a
consulting project may be reanalyzed for re-
search, focusing on an area of theory not well
suited to purely qualitative research. The oppor-
tunistic aspect of field research is not in itself a
weakness but may increase the chances of poor
methodological fit when data collected for one
reason are used without careful thought for an-
other.
The experience of reviewing also highlights
that a lack of methodological fit is easier to
discern in others’ field research than in one’s
own. This motivated us to develop a formal
framework to help researchers uncover areas of
poor fit in their own field research earlier in the
research journey, without waiting for external
review.
Drawing on the above sources, we inductively
derived the framework presented in this paper,
revising it along the way, driven by each other
and by colleagues and reviewers both close and
distant. In exploring methodological fit, we are
particularly focused on how the state of current
theory shapes other elements of a field research
project. For clarity of illustration and compari-
sons across diverse methods, we limit the sub-
stantive topic of the research projects discussed
to one area—organizational work teams.
In the next section we show that producing
methodological fit depends on the state of rele-
vant theory at the time the research is designed
and executed. We use the state of prior theory as
the starting point in achieving methodological
fit in field research because it serves as a given,
reasonably fixed context in which new research
is developed: it is the one element over which
the researcher has no control (i.e., the state of
extant theoretical development cannot be mod-
ified to fit the current research project).
A CONTINGENCY FRAMEWORK FOR
MANAGEMENT FIELD RESEARCH
The State of Prior Theory
We suggest that theory in management re-
search falls along a continuum, from mature to
nascent.Mature theory presents well-developed
constructs and models that have been studied
over time with increasing precision by a variety
of scholars, resulting in a body of work consist-
ing of points of broad agreement that represent
cumulative knowledge gained. Nascent theory,
in contrast, proposes tentative answers to novel
questions of how and why, often merely sug-
gesting new connections among phenomena. In-
termediate theory, positioned between mature
and nascent, presents provisional explanations
of phenomena, often introducing a new con-
struct and proposing relationships between it
and established constructs. Although the re-
search questions may allow the development of
testable hypotheses, similar to mature theory
research, one or more of the constructs involved
is often still tentative, similar to nascent theory
research.
This continuum is perhaps best understood as
a social construction that allows the develop-
ment of archetypes. Consequently, it is not al-
ways easy to determine the extent of theory de-
velopment informing a potential research
question.3 We propose a continuum rather than
3 We thank an anonymous reviewer for pointing this out
and Terry Mitchell for suggesting howwemight address this
issue. To gain insight into raters’ agreement on this catego-
rization approach, we prepared short descriptions of four-
teen research questions that each began with a brief sum-
mary of the state of prior work on the topic. The fourteen
cases included the articles described in this paper, along
with a few additional field research studies. We then asked
four organizational researchers to categorize them accord-
ing to definitions of the three stages of theory we provided.
The average overall agreement with our intended classifi-
1158 OctoberAcademy of Management Review
clear stages to acknowledge that the categories
we suggest are not obvious or inviolable and to
recognize the potential for debate on the status
of prior work related to a given research ques-
tion. In short, our aim is to help field researchers
think about methodological fit in a more ex-
plicit, systematic way, using exemplars from the
organizational literature to illustrate how the
state of current theory informs methodological
decisions.
Developing Sensible Connections to Prior
Work
In a given field study, the four elements in
Table 1 should be influenced by the stage of
development of the current literature at the time
of the research. In general, the less known about
a specific topic, the more open-ended the re-
search questions, requiring methods that allow
data collected in the field to strongly shape the
researcher’s developing understanding of the
phenomenon (e.g., Barley, 1990). In contrast,
when a topic of interest has been studied exten-
sively, researchers can use prior literature to
identify critical independent, dependent, and
control variables and to explain general mech-
anisms underlying the phenomenon. Leverag-
ing prior work allows a new study to address
issues that refine the field’s knowledge, such as
identifying moderators or mediators that affect
a documented causal relationship. Finally,
when theory is in an intermediate stage of de-
velopment—by nature a period of transition—a
new study can test hypotheses and simulta-
neously allow openness to unexpected insights
from qualitative data. Broadly, patterns of fit
among research components can be summa-
rized as in Table 2.
We begin our more detailed exploration of fit
between theory and method with a discussion of
mature theory, because it conforms to tradi-
tional models of research methodology and so
serves as a conceptual base with which to com-
pare the other two categories. By drawing pri-
marily on the topic of work teams, we demon-
strate that the state of prior knowledge for
specific research questions within one broad
topic can vary from mature to nascent.
Mature Theory Research
Mature theory encompasses precise models,
supported by extensive research on a set of re-
lated questions in varied settings. Maturity
stimulates research that leads to further refine-
ments within a growing body of interrelated the-
ories. The research is often elegant, complex,
and logically rigorous, addressing issues that
other researchers would agree from the outset
are worthy of study. Research questions tend to
focus on elaborating, clarifying, or challenging
specific aspects of existing theories. A re-
searcher might, for example, test a theory in a
new setting, identify or clarify the boundaries of
a theory,