Qualitative Restudies: Retheorizing in a Changing WorldOrganization Studies: Special Issue Call for Papers
Fresh of the press! Special issue focus: The qualitative restudyGuest Editors
Submission Deadline: January 31, 2028
Restudies offer an empirical avenue for retheorizing: that is, they are studies that return to prior empirical work with the goal of reevaluating the theoretical conclusions that were generated from it. A restudy is an empirical study which is designed to enable systematic comparison with the original data, analytical results, and field setting of a prior study. In returning to established studies and their original empirical sites, qualitative restudies allow organization scholars to explore how our interpretations and theorizing are shaped by theoretical and methodological traditions, historical contexts, institutional structures, and researcher backgrounds. By acknowledging the situatedness of inquiry, restudies pave the way for more critical and sustained engagement with phenomena of interest, the populations and contexts in which we explore them, and the theoretical legacy on which we build our work (Köhler, Rumyantseva, & Welch, 2025; Rumyantseva & Welch, 2023). Restudies can be approached in multiple ways. The four types of restudies identified in Köhler et al. (2025) serve as a methodological base for this Special Issue: - Reanalysis - involves the reuse of the same dataset from a previous study (or as much of it as has been preserved or is accessible), without returning to the original research site to generate new data. The motivation for a reanalysis is to offer a new analytical perspective, with the scholar asking: What theoretical insights will a different reading of the data provide? - Revisit - returns to the same research site or research participants as the original study to generate additional data related to events during and/or after the period covered by the original study. In contrast to a longitudinal study, a revisit does not constitute part of the original research design and is conducted independently. The motivation for such a study is to understand: How can the changes that have been observed in the site be theorized? - Revision - makes use of and can extend the original dataset to offer an alternative theoretical lens and produce a rival explanation of the same events covered in a prior study. A revision is not a mere critique of the original study but an attempt to provide its sound theoretical replacement. The researcher will address the question: Why does the existing explanation fall short? - Repurposing - includes the same research site or participants on which the original study was based. Rather than reusing the same dataset or research site, it generates meaningful links with the original study. The orienting question is: How can existing knowledge about the site/participants be used to inform a new study? All four types of restudies exemplify research designs that are already used by OS scholars. For example, Beunza and Stark (2003, 2005) conducted a reanalysis to outline a new model of organizational recovery following the September 11 attacks. Cunha, Rego, Clegg, and Lindsay (2015) used a reanalysis to produce new theory, synthesizing successive, noncumulative interpretations of an exemplary empirical case: Honda’s entry into the US market. Crosina and Pratt revisited their original study of ex-Lehman bankers (Crosina & Pratt, 2019) to investigate the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, only to establish the unfaded centrality of Lehman’s influence on the lives of their respondents (Crosina, Sciarappa, & Pratt, 2025). Lê and Jarzabkowski (2017) have conducted a revision of their original study (Jarzabkowski & Lê, 2015) to reconceptualize conflict as paradoxical tension and show how this emerged through micro-practices of humor. Together with co-authors, April Wright repurposed their original study of emergency physicians in Australia during the Ebola epidemic (Wright, Meyer, Reay, & Staggs, 2021). Combining this study with data from management educators in the United Kingdom engaging in face-to-face teaching during the Covid-19 pandemic, they built a theoretical model of how perceptions of risks and their mitigation shape experiences of frontline professional workers (Wright, Pereira, Berrington, Felstead, & Staggs, 2024). The Special Issue is open to and actively encourages other types of restudies that do not fall into the above typology but offer another way to retheorize by re-examining existing empirical studies. If authors engage in a different type of restudy design from the four mentioned above, it would be expected that they add a methodological emphasis in their paper to introduce that design and its retheorizing potential. All authors whose work is featured in the Special Issue will be encouraged to elaborate on their methodological decision-making, including in a designated appendix. By doing so, they will provide a roadmap for other researchers who wish to conduct their own restudies in the future. Objectives and scope of the Special Issue The purpose of this Special Issue is to diversify the theorizing potential of qualitative research methods in our field. More specifically, with this Special Issue, we aim to inspire the community of organization scholars to advance our knowledge of modern organizations and (dis)organizing by realizing the potential of qualitative restudies. Retheorizing by means of restudies can be done in the form of extending the original theorizing, reconstructing it in meaningful ways, refuting existing theories, or adding new lenses and theoretical perspectives. The Special Issue will equip organization scholars with the methodological, empirical, and theoretical foundations to strengthen retheorizing in the field. The empirical restudies featured in the Special Issue will act as exemplars for future research, providing inspiration for organizational scholarship to conduct restudies along similar lines. In promoting novel research designs for retheorizing, this Special Issue makes a distinctive contribution to two pressing debates in the OS field: (1) How to expand avenues for theorizing and energize and renew theorizing efforts. Papers in this Special Issue have the opportunity to demonstrate the importance of returning to empirical fieldwork to inform theorizing. (2) The so-called replication crisis, which to date has either excluded qualitative research altogether, or threatened to impose inappropriate criteria on qualitative work (Pratt, Kaplan, & Whittington, 2020). Although qualitative research does not replicate in the same way quantitative work does – i.e., repeating an existing study to test if the result will be the same – it offers a powerful and theoretically generative alternative: Returning to an existing study with the expectation of a different theoretical result. The growing interest in restudies has gained impetus from the changing nature of the social phenomena we explore. Given the scale of transformational changes, disruptive events, and crises that the world - and organizations - is currently experiencing, ‘we can no longer theorize with taken-for-granted assumptions’ (Quattrone & Zilber, 2025: 1090). Restudies are a set of research designs that assist with this endeavor, enabling organization scholars to return to familiar sites and theories in order to examine and develop a more refined understanding of what has changed and why. In particular, the Special Issue will demonstrate a set of methodological and theorizing tools, as well as examples of their application, to inspire new ways to address concerns of the journal’s readership around climate change, inequality, platform power and marginalized voices, bringing organization theory closer to the real world and its pressing issues. More specifically, the papers published in the special issue will push theoretical boundaries through their reexamination and reevaluation of existing theories, and likely offer novel theoretical avenues that are more suitable for the current academic, societal, and economic landscapes. Furthermore, the papers in the special issue will offer future researchers practical examples of how to advance theory revisions. Restudies are a way for theories to stay both nuanced and relevant: We do not study unchanging phenomena but engage with a dynamic world that challenges our preconceptions of it. At the same time, methodological and theoretical trends evolve, affecting the lenses through which we view the phenomena we study. There is no single way to do a restudy, as restudies can be conducted on any established theories or empirical sites that are relevant to current debates and concerns in organization studies. This provides ample basis for a Special Issue that showcases a range of possibilities for approaching restudies. Types of papers encouraged for submission to the Special Issue In line with the focus of this Special Issue on methodological diversity to improve theorizing from existing work, we encourage a range of formats, including (1) empirical qualitative studies, (2) qualitative methods papers, (3) a combination of (1) and (2). The Special Issue is aligned with the position of the journal in that it does not support purely conceptual or review papers. In other words, novel theoretical contributions of submissions to the Special Issue need to (1) be based on empirical work and constitute a type of restudy or (2) offer a methodological contribution that advances our understanding of how to approach restudies. Our hope for the Special Issue is to represent qualitative work based on diverse theoretical, methodological, and philosophical traditions. Given these objectives of the Special Issue, we will only be soliciting qualitative submissions. Accordingly, the use of machine learning (e.g., Natural Language Processing) does not fall within the scope of this special issue, as it is a quantitative analytical technique. The use of generative AI (i.e., LLMs) is also not appropriate for use in restudies, either for data collection or data analysis. The focus of retheorizing is underpinned by researchers’ critical reflective and interpretive skills. Prospective authors need to evaluate, reexamine, challenge, or refute previous interpretations and conclusions, all of which rely solely on human sensemaking and reasoning. Researchers also need to show deep temporal awareness and be able to question and problematize existing explanations for phenomena of interest. In addition, empirical work for restudies needs to consist of real data based on real people in real contexts, not via the use of synthetic (i.e., machine generated) data. Potential topics and research designs The Special Issue guest editor team welcomes submissions related to established theoretical traditions focused on organizations, organizing and disorganizing. We encourage submissions to look broadly at organization studies phenomena, theories, and contexts. Submissions from relevant sister disciplines that study organizations are also encouraged, such as restudies on organizations from sociology or business history perspectives. The following represent promising starting points for restudy efforts: - Seminal empirical research in organization studies: Do their theoretical conclusions still hold today and if not, why not? - Iconic, high-profile organizations that have been regularly featured in past studies: Have they changed to such an extent that our understanding of them, and what they exemplify, is now misleading? - Corporate failures and fallen heroes: Why were we so wrong about them, and what are the implications for current theories? - Research settings undergoing major disruption and transformation: Are broader political and societal changes impacting organizations in such a way that they challenge our existing theoretical understanding? - Access to previously inaccessible datasets: What do these new data sources reveal about empirical cases that we thought we knew? - Methodological innovations: How does applying new methodological approaches change the conclusions we draw from existing data or cases? - Epistemic shifts: Would the application of different onto-epistemological and theoretical lenses (e.g., feminism, hermeneutics, intersectionality, decolonial views) to core organizational phenomena lead us to different conclusions and interpretations and diversify our theoretical understanding? Submission process Manuscripts are to be submitted through the journal’s online submission system (http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/orgstudies). Authors will need to create a user account, if they do not already have one, and must select the appropriate Special Issue for the “Manuscript Type” option. The Guest Editors handle all manuscripts in accordance with the journal’s policies and procedures. We expect authors to follow the journal’s submission guidelines (https://journals.sagepub.com/home/oss). Submissions to the Special Issue will be possible between January 17 and January 31, 2028. For administrative support and general queries, please contact Sophia Tzagaraki, Managing Editor of Organization Studies, for administrative support and general queries email osofficer@gmail.com. Workshops The guest editor team is planning a series of restudy method and paper development workshops: Onsite, online, and during major conferences, including at EGOS 2027 (sub-stream: Qualitative Restudies: Retheorizing in a Changing World; part of standing working group 14). Participation in workshops is not required for submission to the Special Issue. To receive announcements of forthcoming workshops, please register via the QR code below to be part of the restudies community:
References
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