Qualitative Organizational Research: Best Papers from the Davis Conference on Qualitative Research

Over the past five years the Davis Conference on Qualitative Research has welcomed research projects by the very best qualitative, organizational researchers in the world. This conference has helped authors develop and hone theoretical ideas in an environment friendly to qualitative methods, and more importantly, has begun to build a community of qualitative researchers that work on organizational and management issues. The authors winning the "Best Presentation Awards" at the Davis Conference over the past five years have contributed chapters to this volume. The ideas in these chapters were "born" before the conference, but were nurtured through dialogue at the conference, and subsequently matured through later interactions among the community of qualitative scholars associated with the conference. As such, this volume represents the fruits of our collective labor as a qualitative research community. This collective and iterative process is a hallmark of qualitative methods, and often leads to a counter-intuitive, "ah-hah" experience for the researcher. This volume showcases some of the very best of those ah-hah experiences from the organizational, qualitative research community.

CONTENTS: Introduction: Weird Ideas From Qualitative Research, Kimberly D. Elsbach. The Politics of Knowledge Work in a Software Development Group, Andrew Hargadon and Beth A. Bechky. The Rules and Resources that Generate The Dynamic Capability for Sustained Product Innovation, Deborah Dougherty, Helena Barnard and Danielle Dunne. Re-examining The Link Between Organizational Image and Member Attraction: On The Positive Uses Of ?Negative? Organizational Stories In Recruiting Medical Residents, Jeffrey B. Kaufmann and Michael G. Pratt. Strategies and Struggles: The Governance of U. S. Collegiate Athletics, Marvin Washington, Pamela J. Forman, Roy Suddaby and Marc Ventresca. Understanding Group Behavior: How a Police Swat Team Creates, Changes, and Manages Group Routines, Gerardo A. Okhuysen. How Nonprofits Close: Using Narratives To Study Organizational Processes, Beth M. Duckles, Mark A. Hager and Joseph Galaskiewicz. Information, Prices, and Sensemaking In Financial Futures Trading, Peter Levin. Learning from Women Who Make It Work: A Call For Dynamic Flexibility, Spela Trefalt and Leslie Perlow.