Innovative Research Methods in Management, Spirituality, and Religion

Management Research Review - Emerald Publishing

Submission Deadline: May 31, 2016

Guest Editors: 
Orneita Burton, Tim Ewest, Theodora Issa, Kent D. Miller, Charles Tackney

Overview
This special issue of Management Research Review seeks innovations in research methods that will advance the study of management, spirituality, and religion. Influential research asks questions that a particular audience finds important and provides answers that the audience believes arise from a reliable research design. By publishing articles that provide innovative research methods, this special issue will help expand the audiences reached, questions asked, and answers offered in the field of management, spirituality, and religion (MSR). The goal of innovative research methods within MSR scholarship is to advance theory building and testing, and bring spiritual perspectives to management practice that improve lives, reduce conflict, and promote human flourishing.

We seek multiple forms of advances in research methods, along at least four dimensions of opportunities.
- Traditional and/or new questions: First, we welcome work that provides methods to answer more reliably established questions within MSR, as well as methods that open up new questions for MSR scholarship.
- Within and/or across methods: Second, we seek work that builds upon established qualitative, quantitative, and logical methodologies, and work that brings together methods (i.e., mixed methods).
- Within and/or across fields: Third, we welcome work that demonstrates how to apply methods used in other fields to MSR research, including alternatives to established methods that are well-suited to MSR phenomena and questions.
- Theory, data, and action: Fourth, we welcome work that takes varied positions along the theory-data continuum, including developing theory, testing theory, improving measurement reliability and validity, examining data, and describing and interpreting phenomena. We also seek methods that promise actionable implications for managers and organizations.

Submissions
We welcome submissions within and across multiple forms of methodological inquiry, including - but not limited to- qualitative analysis, statistical analysis, measurement development, experiments, action research, formal modeling, and other approaches to developing and answering MSR research questions. Although research methods often emphasize analyzing data, we also invite papers on other aspects of the research process, such as reviewing literature, planning research, and creative methods for gathering data. Furthermore, submissions may elaborate proposals for contextualizing research, analyzing data, and presenting and disseminating findings in ways that make MSR research helpful to managers and employees in organizations.

Successful submission will have three attributes:
- Question: First, they will identify a question (or category of questions) that MSR researchers have not answered adequately or cannot currently ask because they lack suitable means for deriving answers.
- Methodological innovation: Second, they will describe an innovation in research methods, whether an entirely new approach or a meaningful refinement or recombination of existing approaches, that will provide answers.
- Application: Third, they will apply - or explain how to apply - the innovative method in a specific research context, demonstrating its superiority relative to existing approaches.

Where appropriate, your submission may include a supplement with data, proofs, techniques, or other background materials. Ideally, readers of the articles will have online access to materials, data, and techniques that will help them learn the methods and apply them to their own work.

Deadlines, Submission and Review Process
Publication of the special issue is planned for 2017. Original submissions are due by May 31, 2016, and must be made using the Management Research Review ScholarOne submission system here: http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/mrr

Please also visit the author guidelines for the journal here: http://www.emeraldgrouppublishing.com/products/author_guidelines.htm?id=mrr

Authors should indicate that they would like their submission to be considered for the special issue on 'Innovative Research Methods in Management, Spirituality, and Religion.' This will appear in the relevant drop-down menu on page four of the submission process. Authors of papers invited to be revised and resubmitted will be expected to work within a tight timeframe to meet the special issue's publication deadline.

Editorial Team
The co-editors for this special issue bring two important attributes. First, they represent diverse methodological expertise. Second, they share an open-minded view on research methods in management, spirituality, and religion, including audiences, questions, and ways of deriving valid and useful answers. Beyond seeking methods advances, the special issue editors want to promote the practice, publication, and use of MSR research. Please contact the special issue editors for more information.

- Orneita Burton, Abilene Christian University (orneita.burton@coba.acu.edu)
- Tim Ewest, Wartburg College (timothy.ewest@wartburg.edu)
- Theodora Issa, Curtin University (theodora.issa@curtin.edu.au)
- Kent D. Miller, Michigan State University (millerk@broad.msu.edu)
- Charles Tackney, Copenhagen Business School (cttack@gmail.com)