Prelims

Delving Deep

Research Methodology in Strategy and Management

Series Editors: Paula O'Kane, Aaron F. McKenny, Sotirios Paroutis, and John R. Busenbark

Research Methodology in Strategy and Management, Volume 15

Delving Deep: Techniques We Wished We Had Known as Emerging Scholars

EDITED BY

Paula O'Kane

University of Otago, New Zealand

John R. Busenbark

University of Notre Dame, USA

Aaron F. McKenny

Indiana University Bloomington, USA

And

Sotirios Paroutis

University of Warwick, UK

United Kingdom – North America – Japan – India – Malaysia – China

Emerald Publishing Limited

Emerald Publishing, Floor 5, Northspring, 21-23 Wellington Street, Leeds LS1 4DL

First edition 2025

Editorial matter and selection © 2025 Paula O'Kane, John R. Busenbark, Aaron F. McKenny and Sotirios Paroutis.

Individual chapters © 2025 The authors.

Published under exclusive licence by Emerald Publishing Limited.

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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN: 978-1-83797-027-8 (Print)

ISBN: 978-1-83797-026-1 (Online)

ISBN: 978-1-83797-028-5 (Epub)

ISSN: 1479-8387 (Series)

Paula O'Kane is a Senior Lecturer in Human Resource Management at the University of Otago, Dunedin (New Zealand). She has expertise in interpretative qualitative research across a range of areas including performance management, social media, and the future of work. She has extensive expertise in Computer Aided Qualitative Data Analysis and has published in Research Methodology in Strategy and Management, as well as Organizational Research Methods, Human Resource Management Journal, Studies in Higher Education, among others.

John R. Busenbark is the Mary Jo and Richard M. Kovacevich Associate Professor of Management and Organization in the Mendoza College of Business at the University of Notre Dame, Indiana, USA.

Aaron F. McKenny is an Assistant Professor of Management and Entrepreneurship at the Kelley School of Business, Indiana University, and was the recipient of the 2020 Sage Publications/RMD Lawrence R. James Early Career Award from the Academy of Management Research Methods Division. His methods research emphasizes the dissemination and advancement of content analysis in organizational research and has been published in journals such as Organizational Research Methods, Journal of Applied Psychology, Journal of Management, Annual Review of Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior, Research Methods in Strategy and Management, and Family Business Review. He is a coeditor of the Research Methodology in Strategy and Management series and sits on the review boards of Academy of Management Review, Organizational Research Methods, Journal of Management, Journal of Business Venturing, Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, and Family Business Review.

Sotirios Paroutis is a Professor of Strategic Management at the Warwick Business School (United Kingdom). He primarily uses qualitative methods to study the practices and processes organizational actors employ when dealing with strategic tensions. His work has been published in Research Methodology in Strategy and Management, Strategic Management Journal, Organization Studies, and Long Range Planning, among others.

Andrew B. Blake is an Assistant Professor of Management in the Rawls College of Business at Texas Tech University. He received his PhD from the University of Arkansas. Andrew's research broadly focuses on the intersection of social psychology and the micro-foundations of strategy, emphasizing attention on the impact that CEOs and entrepreneurs have on organizational outcomes.

Steven Boivie is the Carroll & Dorothy Conn Chair in New Ventures Leadership at the Mays Business School at Texas A&M University. He received his PhD in Strategic Management from the University of Texas at Austin, his Master's degree from Brigham Young University, and his Bachelor's degree from Utah State University. He is primarily interested in how behavioral and social forces affect human actors at the top of the organization, and he conducts research in the areas of corporate governance, top executives, and directors. His research has been published in the Academy of Management Journal, Strategic Management Journal, Organization Science, Journal of Applied Psychology, Academy of Management Annals, and Journal of Management. Steve's research has also been mentioned in a number of press outlets including the Wall Street Journal, Harvard Business Review online, Forbes.com, IR Magazine, Bloomberg, The Economist, and more.

Joseph S. Harrison is an Associate Professor of Strategy in the Haslam College of Business at the University of Tennessee. He received his PhD in Strategic Management from Texas A&M University. His research focuses on social and behavioral aspects of strategic leaders and using content analytic techniques to understand organizational phenomena. Through his research, he has codeveloped multiple machine learning applications to extract meaning from unstructured text and provide insights into executive personality, corporate governance, risk, and performance. His work has been published in Academy of Management Journal, Academy of Management Review, Journal of Management, Organization Science, and Strategic Management Journal, among others. It has also been highlighted in press outlets like Harvard Business Review online, Fortune.com, and the TEK2Day podcast.

Aaron D. Hill is an Associate Professor in the Management Department of the Warrington College of Business at the University of Florida. He received his PhD at Oklahoma State University. His research focuses on strategic leadership and governance, examining the implications of executives for organizational outcomes.

Timothy D. Hubbard is an Assistant Professor of Management in the Mendoza College of Business, University of Notre Dame. He received his PhD from the University of Georgia. His research focuses on behavioral strategy – the cognitive and social factors that influence strategic decisions and their outcomes. He serves as a Director of the University of Notre Dame's Virtual Reality Laboratory. His research appears in the Academy of Management Journal, the Strategic Management Journal, the Journal of Management, the Journal of Management Studies, and the Academy of Management Discoveries, among others. He teaches strategic management and organizational theory.

Amrit Panda is a PhD student in the Management Department in the Rawls College of Business at Texas Tech University. He received his Master's in Human Resource Management from the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, India. His research interests lie broadly around upper echelons and competitive behavior of firms. Specifically, he is interested in exploring how CEOs and top management teams shape competitive strategy and its subsequent effect on firm performance and other strategic outcomes.

Oleg V. Petrenko is an Assistant Professor in the Strategy, Entrepreneurship, Venture, and Innovation Department at the Sam M. Walton College of Business at the University of Arkansas. He received his PhD from Oklahoma State University. His research broadly focuses on the micro-foundations of strategy in large corporations and new ventures. Specifically, he examines the psychology of executives and entrepreneurs and how it impacts strategic decision-making and firm performance. Oleg's research focuses on creating knowledge that will help the leaders of tomorrow be successful at leading their organizations and taking on new challenges.

Timothy J. Quigley is the Georgia Athletic Associate Professor of Management in the Terry College of Business at the University of Georgia. He received his PhD from Pennsylvania State University and is broadly interested in CEOs, CEO succession, and how CEOs impact organization outcomes. Tim is currently an Associate Editor at Strategic Management Journal.

Dean A. Shepherd, Bachelor of Applied Science (RMIT), MBA and PhD (Bond University, Australia), is the Ray and Milann Siegfried Professor of Entrepreneurship at the Mendoza College of Business, Notre Dame University. He has held positions at the Kelley School of Business, Indiana University, the Leeds School of Business, University of Colorado, and the Lally School of Management, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. His research and teaching are in the field of entrepreneurship; he investigates the decision-making involved in leveraging cognitive and other resources to act on opportunities, responding with resilience to adversity, learning from experimentation (including failure), and the dark side of entrepreneurship. He has authored over 20 books and 180 publications in top management and entrepreneurship journals with over 80,000 Google sites. Dean is a Fellow of the Academy of Management. From the Entrepreneurs Division of the Academy of Management, Dean has been awarded the “Dedication to Entrepreneurship Award”, the “Mentor Award”, and the “Foundational Paper Award” (twice). He is the past Editor-in-Chief of the Journal Business Venturing. He is on the editorial boards of the Academy of Management Journal, the Academy of Management Review, Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal, and the Journal of Management Studies.

Eric W. K. Tsang is the Dallas World Salute Distinguished Professor at the Jindal School of Management, University of Texas at Dallas, and is a Fellow of the Academy of International Business. He received his PhD from the University of Cambridge. His main research interests include organizational learning, strategic alliances, corporate social responsibility, entrepreneurship, and philosophical analysis of methodological issues. He has published widely in leading business journals, such as Academy of Management Journal, Academy of Management Review, Journal of International Business Studies, Marketing Science, MIS Quarterly, and Strategic Management Journal, and is the author of the books The Philosophy of Management Research and Explaining Management Phenomena: A Philosophical Treatise. His publications have been well cited by fellow researchers. For example, his article “Social Capital, Networks, and Knowledge Transfer” (with Andrew Inkpen) is the winner of the 2015 Academy of Management Review Decade Award.

Michael Villano is a Research Assistant Professor of Psychology in the College of Arts and Letters at the University of Notre Dame.