Which research methods are better, quantitative or qualitative? What is more important, getting a richer picture of what goes on in organizations, or seeking generalizable insights about causality? This debate has raged at the very least since Glaser and Strauss popularized the grounded theory method in the mid twentieth century. In 2025, we want to put this debate to rest. We asked one of the best econometric scholars we know (Brad Greenwood) and one of the best qualitative scholars we know (Youngjin Yoo) to fight this debate on air and come up with their very own end-of-all arguments. The result? It may surprise you: We all ought to get mad.

Episode reading list

Chang, H. (2008). Inventing Temperature: Measurement and Scientific Progress. Oxford University Press.

Burtch, G., Carnahan, S., & Greenwood, B. N. (2018). Can You Gig It? An Empirical Examination of the Gig Economy and Entrepreneurial Activity. Management Science, 64(12), 5497-5520.

Greenwood, B. N., Kobayashi, B. H., & Starr, E. P. (2025). Can You Keep a Secret? Banning Noncompetes Does Not Increase Trade Secret Litigation. SSRN, https://ssrn.com/abstract=4771171.

Kraemer, K. L., Dickhoven, S., Tierney, S. F., & King, J. L. (1987). Datawars: The Politics of Modeling in Federal Policymaking. Columbia University Press.

Roth, J., Sant'Anna, P. H. C., Bilinski, A., & Poe, J. (2023). What’s Trending in Difference-in-Differences? A Synthesis of the Recent Econometrics Literature. Journal of Econometrics, 235(2), 2218-2244.

Matherly, T., & Greenwood, B. N. (2024). No News is Bad News: The Internet, Corruption, and the Decline of the Fourth Estate. MIS Quarterly, 48(2), 699-714.

Levitt, S. D., & Dubner, S. J. (2005). Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything. William Morrow.

Greenwood, B. N., & Wattal, S. (2017). Show Me the Way to Go Home: An Empirical Investigation of Ride-Sharing and Alcohol Related Motor Vehicle Fatalities. MIS Quarterly, 41(1), 163-187.

King, A. A. (2025). Does Corporate Social Responsibility Increase Access to Finance? A Commentary on Cheng, Ioannou, and Serafeim (2014). Strategic Management Journal, forthcoming. https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4647425.

Seidel, S., Frick, C. J., & vom Brocke, J. (2025). Regulating Emerging Technologies: Prospective Sensemaking through Abstraction and Elaboration. MIS Quarterly, 49(1), 179-204.

Pentland, B. T. (1999). Building Process Theory with Narrative: From Description to Explanation. Academy of Management Review, 24(4), 711-725.

Lee, J., & Berente, N. (2013). The Era of Incremental Change in the Technology Innovation Life Cycle: An Analysis of the Automotive Emission Control Industry. Research Policy, 42(8), 1469-1481.

Anderson, P., & Tushman, M. L. (1998). Technological Discontinuities and Dominant Designs: A Cyclical Model of Technological Change. Administrative Science Quarterly, 35(4), 604-633.

Brynjolfsson, E., & Hitt, L. M. (1996). Paradox Lost? Firm-Level Evidence on the Returns to Information Systems Spending. Management Science, 42(4), 541-558.

Noe, R. (2025). Moral Incoherence During Category Emergence: The Contentious Case of Connected Toys. Harvard Business School Working Paper, 24-071, https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=65988.

We continue with our special “Ask us anything” episode to celebrate the centenary of the This IS Research podcast. This time, we handle questions such as “do we have to worry about ontology?" - No; "should we engage in community building?" Yes; and “what have you learned from the podcast?” A whole lot - and we hope you have learned a thing or two along the way as well.

Episode reading list

Meyer, J. W., & Rowan, B. (1977). Institutionalized Organizations: Formal Structure as Myth and Ceremony. American Journal of Sociology, 83(2), 340-363.

James, W. (1907). Pragmatism: A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking. Hackett Publishing.

Gal, U., Berente, N., & Chasin, F. (2022). Technology Lifecycles and Digital Innovation: Patterns of Discourse Across Levels of Abstraction: A Study of Wikipedia Articles. Journal of the Association for Information Systems, 23(5), 1102-1149.

Faik, I., Barrett, M., & Oborn, E. (2020). How Information Technology Matters in Societal Change: An Affordance-Based Institutional Perspective. MIS Quarterly, 44(3), 1359-1390.

Leonardi, P. M. (2010). Digital Materiality? How Artifacts Without Matter, Matter. First Monday, 15(6), https://doi.org/10.5210/fm.v15i6.3036.

Goebeler, L., Hukal, P., & Xiao, X. (2024). Four Roles of Physicality in Digital Innovation: A Theoretical Review. Journal of Strategic Information Systems, 33(4), 101862.

Faulkner, P., & Runde, J. (2019). Theorizing the Digital Object. MIS Quarterly, 43(4), 1279-1302.

Dwivedi, Y. K., Kshetri, N., Hughes, L., Slade, E. L., Jeyaraj, A., . . . Wright, R. T. (2023). "So what if ChatGPT wrote it?” Multidisciplinary Perspectives on Opportunities, Challenges and Implications of Generative Conversational AI for Research, Practice and Policy. International Journal of Information Management, 71, 102642.

We have an anniversary to celebrate: one hundred episodes of the This IS Research podcast. We mark the occasion by answering questions we received from our audience: Which bear is the best, who likes a hug more... and what advice would we give about starting as an assistant professor, pivoting your research, and what books to read. All this and much more in part one of our “ask us anything” episode.

Episode reading list

Fort, T. (2003). The Book of Eels. HarperCollins.

Nazar, S. (1999). A Beautiful Mind. Simon & Schuster.

Frankl, V. E. (1946). Man’s Search for Meaning. Beacon Press.

Ashby, W. R. (1956). An Introduction to Cybernetics. Chapman & Hall.

Card, O. S. (1985). Ender’s Game. Tor Books.

Beer, S. (1974). Designing Freedom. CBC Learning Systems.

Simon, H. A. (1947). Administrative Behavior: a Study of Decision-Making Processes in Administrative Organization. Macmillan.

Newell, A., & Simon, H. A. (1972). Human Problem Solving. Prentice-Hall.

March, J. G., & Simon, H. A. (1958). Organizations. John Wiley & Sons.

Urquhart, C., Berente, N., Recker, J. (2021). Naughty Grounded Theory. This IS Research podcast episode, 22 December 2021.

Zwass, V., Berente, N., Recker, J. (2023). Never create a journal unless it is JMIS. This IS Research podcast episode, 31 May 2023.

Berente, N., Recker, J. (2022). Why we love what we do. This IS Research podcast episode, 18 May 2022.