Process Research in Organizations

Variance research treats the world as variables and asks whether changes in one produce changes in another, typically with cross-sectional or panel data and statistical estimation. Process research treats the world as events unfolding over time and asks how and why something emerges, develops, or changes, taking sequence, timing, and activity as the substance of the explanation. The 2013 editorial by Langley and colleagues stresses that process studies rest on different ontological commitments, foregrounding becoming and flow rather than static states. The two are complementary — they answer different questions — but mixing them carelessly, such as forcing process data into a variance question, undermines both.

Langley identified seven generic strategies: narrative (telling a detailed story), quantification (coding events into variables), alternate templates (interpreting the same events through several theoretical lenses), grounded theory (inductively building categories), visual mapping (diagramming sequences and relationships), temporal bracketing (dividing the flow into comparable periods), and synthetic strategies (treating whole processes as units for comparison). Each balances accuracy, parsimony, and generality differently — narrative is rich but hard to generalize, quantification is general but loses texture. Langley argues that method and theory are intertwined and that strong process research often combines several strategies rather than relying on one.

Van de Ven and Poole distinguished four ideal-type generative mechanisms. The life-cycle motor sees change as a programmed sequence of stages, like growth and maturation. The teleological motor sees change as goal-directed, driven by purposeful actors envisioning and pursuing an end state. The dialectical motor sees change arising from conflict between opposing forces or interests, producing synthesis. The evolutionary motor sees change through variation, selection, and retention among competing entities. Real organizational change often involves several motors interacting, and identifying which are at work gives a process account its explanatory engine rather than leaving the sequence of events to speak for itself.