Regional Voices, Central Questions: Context, Method, and Theory Building in Management Studies

Abstract

Management and organization studies have long been shaped by intellectual centers that define what counts as legitimate theory, method, and contribution. Decades of research demonstrate that publication patterns, citation networks, and evaluation standards disproportionately privilege US-based positivist traditions, while knowledge produced in other contexts is often framed as “contextual,” “descriptive,” or “derivative” rather than theoretically generative (Tsui, 2004; Hambrick, 2007; Üsdiken, 2014). Recent scholarship, however, suggests that this center–periphery hierarchy is neither epistemically neutral nor theoretically productive. Studies of citation networks and research styles reveal how peripheral contexts are structurally positioned as theory importers rather than theory producers, reinforcing methodological homogeneity and constraining intellectual imagination (Üsdiken, 2014; Meyer & Peng, 2005). At the same time, growing dissatisfaction with universalist models has renewed interest in indigenous theory building, interpretive approaches, and pluralist epistemologies that treat context not as a control variable, but as constitutive of organizational reality (Tsui, 2004; Rodríguez-Pomeda, 2023). This panel brings together senior scholars whose work and lived academic experiences span South-East Europe, the Western Balkans, Türkiye, Iraq, and the Eastern Mediterranean. Collectively, they challenge the assumption that theoretical advancement flows only from institutionally stable Western contexts. Instead, they argue that regions marked by institutional volatility, hybrid governance, relational logics, and emotional–value-laden cognition offer unique conditions for advancing management theory, provided that dominant methodological and evaluative regimes are critically rethought. The panel pursues three core objectives: 1. To reconceptualize context as constitutive, rather than residual or problematic, in management theorizing. 2. To interrogate the epistemological dominance of positivism and propose credible alternatives grounded in interpretive, critical, and pragmatic traditions. 3. To demonstrate how qualitative and mixed-methods research, often marginalized in peripheral contexts, can generate original theoretical insights rather than merely support quantitative findings. This proposed panel examines how management scholarship emerging from regions traditionally positioned at the “periphery” challenges dominant positivist and universalist assumptions in the field. Drawing on experiences from South-East Europe, the Western Balkans, Turkey, Iraq, and the Eastern Mediterranean, panelists argue for context-as-constitutive theorizing, critical interpretivism, pragmatic pluralism, and qualitative-led inquiry as sources of theoretical innovation rather than methodological deviation.