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Special Call: Qualitative Research Proposals

1. Special Call: Qualitative Research Proposals

William Prothro

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Special Call: Qualitative Research Proposals

Journal of Management

Deadline: January 15, 2027

Qualitative researchers often lament that editors and reviewers assess papers based primarily on rigor, which is signaled by 'methodological templates', such as the Gioia method for coding data, the Langley method of temporal bracketing, the Eisenhardt method of cross-case sampling, or by the positivist standards of replicability, validity and reliability (Harley & Cornelissen, 2022; Pratt, Sonenshein, & Feldman, 2022, Pratt, Kaplan and Whittington 2020). While some qualitative researchers appreciate the clarity that these approaches offer, others find them constraining and seek instead to apply novel methods, study phenomena not suited for well-accepted approaches, or present their paper in innovative ways. Some qualitative articles have embraced these innovative approaches and challenged boilerplate methods, but few are published in major management journals. With so many years of work at stake, most authors simply comply with editor and reviewer requests rather than risk losing the chance to publish in a high-quality journal (Corley, Bansal, & Yu, 2021).

Through this Special Call, we seek to open up opportunities for qualitative researchers to engage in a unique review process that provides pathways for creativity and innovation, while also welcoming research that follows more conventional approaches. One aspect of this unique call is that the initial submission is a proposal rather than a full paper. This allows the author to indicate their intended direction for the research and their data in hand / progress to date with somewhat lower effort. This also allows for more creativity and flexibility in preparing the full manuscript, after receiving initial editorial feedback. Building on this point, authors and guest editors will have the opportunity to correspond with each other during the review process, discussing things such as uncertainties in the reviews, innovative directions the work could take, other data that might be available but do not appear, or alternative theoretical directions. Such open dialogue provides greater collaboration throughout the review progress, strengthening the finished product while saving time in the process.

The guest editors for the Special Call will consider all proposals (authors will be blinded) and select those that (a) are grounded in strong data, (b) address an intriguing phenomenon, and (c) open new and important directions for theory development. Due to the volume of submissions, we are unable to provide individual feedback on proposals not selected. We want to underscore that non-selection does not indicate a weak proposal, but rather reflects the highly competitive nature of this call and the specificity of guest editors' thematic interests. Your chances of selection are highest if you can succinctly articulate what is interesting about your proposal and demonstrate the strength of your data. The list of guest editors is provided at the end of this document.

Please note that this is a Special Call, not a Special Issue. Proposals selected to be developed into full papers for this Special Call and ultimately accepted will be published online and in print as accepted (on a rolling basis), with a note indicating that the paper was a part of this Special Call. Papers developed from the selected proposals will undergo the regular JOM double-blind review process and remain at risk of rejection if the evolving paper is not likely to meet JOM's quality and timeliness norms.

Further details below:

The proposal should be submitted through manuscript central: http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/jom

Select "special qualitative research proposal" as the submission type when submitting).
Further information is available at Submission Guidelines: Journal of Management.

Proposals must adhere to the JOM Style Guide.
Submit a proposal of up to 20 pages, 12-point font, 1-inch margins, double-spaced text, inclusive of tables, figures, appendicies and references. References should be single-spaced within references, and double-spaced between them. Proposals that are not consistent with these requirements will be desk rejected.
The proposal should include (in no specific order or structure<w:sdt sdttag="goog_rdk_4" id="-1360968311"></w:sdt><w:sdt sdttag="goog_rdk_5" id="-600725612"></w:sdt><w:sdt sdttag="goog_rdk_8" id="749310431"></w:sdt><w:sdt sdttag="goog_rdk_9" id="1955753142"></w:sdt><w:sdt sdttag="goog_rdk_14" id="-836456733"></w:sdt><w:sdt sdttag="goog_rdk_15" id="-1335760116"></w:sdt><w:sdt sdttag="goog_rdk_20" id="-1578744071"></w:sdt><w:sdt sdttag="goog_rdk_21" id="87123969"></w:sdt><w:sdt sdttag="goog_rdk_22" id="1434323499"></w:sdt>):

Detailed description of the phenomenon of interest, research question(s), and empirical context;
What's exciting, which will seek to convince the editors to champion this work;
Detailed methods, which should include

▪ a description of the data collected to date and additional data to be collected,

▪ the analysis completed to date and the additional analysis to be completed,

▪ the reasons for your decisions,

▪ how AI has been and will be used in the work (see JOM AI policy), and

▪ how risks were mitigated in the recruitment or inclusion of remote or non-human participants (see JOM policy);

Initial theoretical framing, which should include citations to the body of work that this research will contribute and some review of that literature to expose the puzzle – which may be empirical or theoretical;
Not necessary, but acceptable: tables and figures that support the text.

Please include a cover letter that identifies:

Acknowledgements of those people who contributed to the ideas;
Critical keywords;
Recommendation for three Guest Editors who might be suitable to take on the paper.
Transparency in how AI was used in the development of the proposal

The timeline for this special issue will be as follows:

Proposals must be submitted between January 1 and January 15, 2027, 11:59 pm EST.
Authors will be advised by March 15, 2027, if their proposals have been accepted by the team for further development. Initial submission of the full paper must then be submitted by March 15, 2028. This deadline will be non-negotiable.

o Final decisions about full papers will be made by December 31, 2029.

All proposals selected for this Call and the fully formed papers will go through a double-blind review process with <w:sdt sdttag="goog_rdk_2" id="1203987390"></w:sdt><w:sdt sdttag="goog_rdk_6" id="-1161847288"></w:sdt><w:sdt sdttag="goog_rdk_10" id="138544396"></w:sdt><w:sdt sdttag="goog_rdk_11" id="-325899039"></w:sdt><w:sdt sdttag="goog_rdk_16" id="104774543"></w:sdt><w:sdt sdttag="goog_rdk_17" id="-1228150290"></w:sdt><w:sdt sdttag="goog_rdk_23" id="-1310864639"></w:sdt><w:sdt sdttag="goog_rdk_24" id="1163280612"></w:sdt>two reviewers.

· Full papers of proposals that are not selected for this Call can be submitted to JOM via the regular review process. Full papers of selected proposals that are rejected in the review process cannot be resubmitted to JOM.

Due to editorial constraints, authors must adhere strictly to the proposal deadline. Late submissions will not be considered.
Please direct your questions to journalofmanagementsma@gmail.com.

References:

Corley, K., Bansal, P., & Yu, H. (2021). An editorial perspective on judging the quality of inductive research when the methodological straightjacket is loosened. Strategic Organization, 19(1), 161-175.

Harley, B., & Cornelissen, J. (2022). Rigor with or without templates? The pursuit of methodological rigor in qualitative research. Organizational Research Methods, 25(2), 239-261.

Pratt, M. G., Sonenshein, S., & Feldman, M. S. (2022). Moving beyond templates: A bricolage approach to conducting trustworthy qualitative research. Organizational Research Methods, 25(2), 211-238.

Pratt, Michael G., Sarah Kaplan & Richard Whittington (2020), The Tumult over Transparency: Decoupling Transparency from Replication in Establishing Trustworthy Qualitative Research, Administrative Science Quarterly, 65(1): 1-19.

Guest Editors

Name and photo	Biography	Topics
Pratima (Tima) Bansal Western University (Co-Chair)	Pratima (Tima) Bansal is a Professor and Canada Research Chair in Business Sustainability. Her research explores the dimensions of time, space, and scale in business strategy. She is a Consulting Editor for the Journal of Management. She has previously been a Deputy and Associate Editor or Academy of Management Journal and sat on over 10 editorial boards in the past.	Corporate sustainability & responsibility, grand challenges, social issues, systems thinking, engaged scholarship
Kevin Corley Imperial College (Co-Chair)	Kevin Corley is Professor in the department of Management & Entrepreneurship at Imperial College London. His expertise lies in leading organizational change, as well as qualitative research methods and theory development. Kevin has served as associate editor of the Academy of Management Journal and currently serves on several editorial boards.	Organizational change, sensemaking/sensegiving, organizational identity & image, organizational culture, strategic leadership, interpersonal processes at work
Charlotte Cloutier HEC Montreal	Charlotte Cloutier, PhD, is professor of strategy. Her research focuses on strategizing practices and processes in pluralistic contexts focusing more specifically on how organizations work together to address social and environmental issues. She is an expert in qualitative research methods and is co-author (with Ann Langley and Kevin Corley) on the book How to Design, Write and Publish Qualitative Research for Insight and Impact (Elgar, 2026). She is currently an Associate Editor at The Academy of Management Journal and a former co-editor at Strategic Organization (2022-2025).	Institutional work; institutional fields; social movements; social and environmental issues socio-technical transitions; organizational identity; practice and process studies
David Collings (JOM AE) Trinity College Dublin	David Collings is Professor and Chair of Sustainable Business at Trinity College Dublin. His research is focused on staffing, with a particular emphasis on talent management, global mobility and the future of work, sustainable work and HQ subsidiary relations in the MNE. He is an associate Editor at the Journal of Management and serves on or has served on multiple editorial boards including Academy of Management Review, Journal of International Business Studies and the Journal of Management Studies.	Sustainable work, the future of work, staffing, strategic HR, talent management, HQ-subsidiary relations
Nicky Dries KU Leuven	Nicky Dries is Full Professor of Organizational Behavior at KU Leuven (department of Work & Organisation Studies) and at BI Norwegian Business School in Oslo (department of Leadership & Organizational Behaviour). In Leuven, she runs the Future of Work Lab within the Faculty of Economics, that studies social imaginaries for the future. The Lab's research builds on methods aimed at triggering people's imagination about the future, using media analysis, robotic art and design, virtual reality, and science-fiction movies. The mission of the Lab is to re-politicize the future of work, and stimulate democratic debate.	Future of work, artificial intelligence, AI, robots, robotics, technology, imaginaries, historical analysis, scenario planning, fourth industrial revolution, digital transformation, algorithms, algorithmic management, gig work, gig economy, platform work, app work, neurotech, biotech, VR, XR, media analysis, fiction
Melissa Graebner University of Illinois	Melissa is Robert C. Evans Endowed Professor of Business Administration, Director of the Initiative for Qualitative Research in Innovation and Entrepreneurship (INQUIRE), and Associate Dean of Entrepreneurship at the Gies College of Business at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. She is former co-editor of Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal and has been a guest editor at Strategic Management Journal as well as serving on multiple editorial review boards.	Entrepreneurship, entrepreneurial resource acquisition, trust, interorganizational relationships, mergers and acquisitions, family business
Matthew Grimes University of Cambridge	Matthew is Professor of Entrepreneurship and Sustainable Futures. His research is focused on entrepreneurship / innovation / emerging technologies, institutions / governance, and impact. He is former Associate Editor and current Deputy Editor at the Academy of Management Journal.	Entrepreneruship, social innovation, identity, sensemaking, institutions, governance, sustainability, social evaluations, hype, categories, artificial intelligence, deep tech, cultural entrepreneurship
Paula Jarabkowski University of Queensland and City St George's, University of London, UK	Paula Jarzabkowski is Professor of Strategic Management at University of Queensland, Australia and City St George's, University of London, UK. As a founder in the field of Strategy-as-Practice, Paula takes a qualitative, practice theory lens to research, with a particular focus on addressing the complex, pluralistic problems or 'grand challenges' affecting society and markets. She has extensive editorial experience across a range of journals.	Strategizing and organizing practices; process studies; paradoxes and pluralism; grand challenges; disaster response, recovery and resilience
Nadine Kammerlander WHU, Otto Beisheim School of Management (JOM Senior Editor)	Nadine Kammerlander is Chaired Professor of Family Business and Associate Dean of Sustainability and DEI at WHU – Otto Beisheim School of Management in Germany. Her research focuses on family business and business families, entrepreneurship, and innovation. Nadine is currently serving as an Associate Editor for JOM and has been an Associate Editor for Family Business Review since 2016.	Family business; ownership; sustainability; innovation
Anna Kim McGill University	Anna Kim is a William Dawson Scholar and Associate Professor in Management for Sustainability at the Desautels Faculty of Management, McGill University. Her research explores organizing for sustainability through the lens of time–space, with commitment to understanding long-term processes and consequences rooted in places. Through ethnographic and qualitative methods, Anna has collaborated with organizations and communities in Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Nepal, Canada, South Korea, and the UK, including Indigenous enterprises on Turtle Island.	Sustainability; time-space; Global South; Indigenous entrepreneurship; social entrepreneurship; linguistic inclusiveness; visual methods
Ann Langley HEC Montreal	Ann Langley is Emerita Professor of management at HEC Montréal and Distinguished Research Environment Professor at University of Warwick. Her research deals with strategic management processes and practices in complex organizations with an emphasis on qualitative research methods. She has served as Deputy Editor of Academy of Management Journal for qualitative research (2022-2025) and is coauthor with Charlotte Cloutier and Kevin Corley of a book on qualitative methods (How to design write and publish qualitative research for insight and impact, 2026) published by Edward Elgar.	Organizational change, Process and practices studies, Identity work, Professional practice and expertise, Health care organizations, Discursive or narrative studies
Stella Nkomo University of Pretoria	Stella Nkomo's research on the management of diversity and difference in organisations focuses on race and gender inequality in the workplace, decolonisation of management and organisation studies (MOS) knowledge, and the epistemic erasure and misrepresentation of Africa (and other marginalised regions of the world) in research. Professor Nkomo has held several editorial roles including editing special issues and service on the boards of Academy of Management Review, Leadership, and British Journal of Management.	Race and gender, Africa context, postcolonial and decolonial thinking, African feminism, critical sociology, critical diversity studies, indigenous knowledge systems
Gerardo Okhuysen University of California	Gerardo Okhuysen is a Professor of Organization and Management at the Paul Merage School of Business at the University of California, Irvine. His research primarily focuses on interactive processes in organizations, with particular emphasis on collective accomplishment. He has also published work on processes for developing conceptual contributions in Organization and Management Studies. Gerardo has served as Associate Editor for the Academy of Management Review and serves in multiple editorial boards. His most recent work examines collective advice processes and the role of diversity initiatives in organizations.	Cross-level processes, group processes, interactions within organizations, collective processes, abductive reasoning, time and temporal phenomena
Nelson Philips University of California	Nelson Phillips is the Christian A. Felipe Distinguished Professor of Technology Management at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Professor Phillips' research interests cut across organization theory, innovation, and technology. He has been an Associate Editor at Organization Studies and was the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Management Inquiry and Innovation: Organization & Management. He sits on a number of editorial boards including the boards of Academy of Management Discoveries and Strategic Organization.	Innovation, Technology, Entrepreneurial Hype, Entrepreneurial Framing, Entrepreneurial Deception, Discourse Analysis
Davide Ravasi University College London (UCL)	Davide Ravasi is Professor of Strategy and Entrepreneurship and Director at the UCL School of Management, University College London. His research primarily investigates strategic and organizational changes, with particular emphasis on how organizational culture and identity affect these changes or are affected by them. His more recent work examines the role that history and memory play in these events. He is also interested more generally in socio-cognitive and cultural processes surrounding design, craft, entrepreneurship, and innovation. He has served as Associate Editor for the Journal of Management Studies and the Academy of Management Journal.	Organizational identity, culture, history, traditions, heritage, memory and remembering. Occupational culture, identity, mandate. Craft, artisanship, authenticity, cultural and symbolic value. Design and design thinking.
Juliane Reinecke University of Oxford	Juliane Reinecke is Professor of Management Studies and Faculty Director for Sustainability at Saïd Business School, University of Oxford as well as Senior Associate at Oxford Net Zero. Her research focuses on transnational governance institutions for sustainable business and desirable futures, net zero transition, multi-stakeholder partnerships, collective action, and social movements. Juliane has served in several Associate Editorship roles (Academy of Management Journal, Organization Theory, Business Ethics Quarterly).	Sustainability, nature, human rights and ethics, social movements, temporality and futures, transnational governance, multi-stakeholder partnerships, global value chains, systems change, prospective theorizing

Kevin Rockmann George Mason University	Kevin Rockmann is a Professor of Management and Assistant Dean of Research at the George Mason University Costello College of Business. His research involves studying working relationships in organizations, and he is particularly interested in new ways of working (remote, hybrid, on-demand). He is a past chair of the Managerial and Organizational Cognition division of the AOM and the past editor-in-chief at Academy of Management Discoveries.	Relationships, social exchange, identity and identification, negotiation, conflict, teams, social dilemmas
Ute Stephan King's College (London) (JOM AE)	Ute Stephan is Professor of Entrepreneurship at King's College London, UK. She researches how individuals and societies can thrive through entrepreneurship, studying social entrepreneurship, well-being and health, how contexts shape entrepreneurship; and how entrepreneurship, in turn, can help to build more inclusive societies. She serves as Associate editor at the Journal of Management and at Entrepreneurship Theory & Practice, and on the editorial boards of AMJ, AMR, and JBV. Previously, she was editor-in-chief of Applied Psychology. Ute is recognized as a Fellow of the International Association of Applied Psychology (IAAP) and a 21^st Century Entrepreneurship Research Fellow.	entrepreneurship, well-being, stress, health, social entrepreneurship, sustainability, cross-cultural research
Paul Tracey Cambridge Judge Business School	Paul Tracey is Professor of Innovation and Organization at the Cambridge Judge Business School. He is also Professor of Entrepreneurship at the University of Melbourne. His research focuses on how entrepreneurs and established organizations create value of different kinds, with a particular focus on social value. He serves as an Associate Editor for the Academy of Management Review and is a past winner of the Academy of Management Journal best paper award.	Social innovation, institutional change, legitimacy, organizational stigma
Eero Vaara University of Oxford	Eero Vaara is Professor in Organisations and Impact at Saïd Business School at University of Oxford. His research focuses on strategy process and practice research, studies of radical change such as mergers and acquisitions, work on institutional change and legitimation, and historical analysis. What cuts across these research interests is an attempt to better understand how communication, discourses and narratives are used in and around organizations and how they construct organizational reality. He has served in editorial roles (e.g., Associate Editor in Academy of Management Journal) and in several leadership positions in international societies and associations (e.g., Chair of EGOS, member of AOM's Board of Governors.)	strategy, change, legitimacy, identity, history, discourse, narrative, sensemaking
Charlene Zietsma University of Michigan	Charlene Zietsma is the Max McGraw Professor of Sustainable Enterprise at the School for Environment & Sustainability and the Ross School of Business, and Faculty Director of the Erb Institute at the University of Michigan. Her research focuses on individual, organizational and collective efforts to make and resist institutional change, primarily in the context of grand challenges. Professor Zietsma has held editorial and guest editorial roles with several journals and serves on the editorial board for the Academy of Management Journal.	Institutional work, institutional logics, institutional fields, social emotions, social symbolic work, cultural entrepreneurship, entrepreneurship, social innovation, grand challenges, mixed methods, process approach.

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Stro Prothro
Journal of Management
Managing Editor
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