Themed issue: Methodological pluralism and innovation to advance strategic organization research in organizations and fields

Abstract

Strategic Organization (SO!) launched its first issue 20 years ago with an explicit commitment to developing theoretically and methodologically pluralist research that sat at the intersection of, and helped integrate, the increasingly divergent fields of strategic management research and organizational theory (Baum et al., 2022). Over the past 20 years, this pluralism has enabled creativity and innovation in the work published in the journal. The methodological pluralism also sets it apart, in particular, from journals in strategy. This pluralism is something that is nurtured explicitly in the journal’s editorial process. Features of this process, including the one major revision policy, and an editorial process that is attentive both to the author’s voice and for empirical pieces, the voice of the data (Because data speaks! We cannot let established theory prevent us from hearing!) are, in the editorial team’s view, sources of innovation. The pieces in this issue reflect this commitment to pluralism and the author (and data’s) voice. In addition, they are testament to the idea that leveraging pluralism is a way of advancing theory. Two of us collaborated on this piece from the perspective of a co-editor at SO! (A.N.) and from the perspective of a junior scholar of strategic organization whose research programme takes a methodologically plural approach (M.G.). Both of these perspectives were essential, in particular, for situating the specific papers in this issue into a broader reflection on the values of pluralism.