Emergent Ideas from Emerging Markets: The Process of Discovery in Organizational Research

Purpose – To advance narrative and context-based organizational research.

Approach – We detail how a research design can dynamically unfold and be adjusted based on feedback from multiple sources, with three components to this process: requisite conceptual openness, methodological adjustment, and acknowledgement of prescient issues. Three examples in existing literature are analyzed, demonstrating how this process can facilitate the development of novel lines of inquiry.

Research implications – Our framework and the practical guidelines we advocate here are a resource for scholars to allow new conceptualizations to blossom and grow in perhaps unexpected directions, which may not otherwise have been charted without this exploratory process.

Originality/Value – The process of discovery is a contribution toward research methodology and design, as a helpful method for maximizing richness in contextual research. This approach may be particularly important in emerging markets and other settings with unexplored organizational processes.