2329: Methodological Pluralism in Team Research (14923)

Monday, August 12, 2024

11:30 – 13:00 CT (GMT-5/UTC-5)

Location: Swissotel: Verbier

Session Number: 2329
Symposium (panel)
Orientation: Research
Shareable link: https://cdmcd.co/mRDm4n

Moderator(s)

AK

Aimee Kane

Duquesne U., United States
KE

Kyle J. Emich

U. of Delaware, United States

Panelist(s)

HB

Henrik M. Bresman

INSEAD, Singapore
CC

Corinne A. Coen

Case Western Reserve U., United States
KE

Kyle J. Emich

U. of Delaware, United States
AK

Aimee Kane

Duquesne U., United States
LV

Lyn M. Van Swol

U. of Wisconsin-Madison, United States

Teams are ubiquitous across workplaces and organizations of all kinds. Although our current understanding of team functioning comes from years of pluralistic inquiry, management research has become narrow in its philosophical consideration of what is considered an acceptable team sample. In this panel symposium, we will discuss the importance of maintaining methodological pluralism in the study of work teams by discussing the assumption and values underlying positivism and constructivism. To do this, we have assembled a group of researchers who have conducted team research across these perspectives using quantitative and qualitative techniques as well as agent-based modeling: Henrik Bresman, Corinne Coen, Kyle Emich, Aimee Kane, and Lyn van Swol. In an interactive, structured discussion, our panelists will collectively: (1) Describe the strengths and weaknesses of each perspective, (2) Identify relationships among the perspectives and how they may be integrated; and (3) Discuss how team scholars can address key research questions from each perspective to gain a fuller understanding of team functioning while addressing team member perspectives and characterizing the contexts in which teams operate. Our goal is to give researchers insight into how we, as a field, can integrate perspectives while maintaining our individual research identities.