Mapping the Terrain: The Use of Video-Based Research in Top-Tier Organizational Journals

My article examines how researchers use video recordings to gain insight into organizational phenomena. I conduct a literature review of articles published from 1990 to 2015 in six top-tier organizational journals: Academy of Management Journal, Administrative Science Quarterly, Journal of Management Studies, Organization Science, Organization Studies, and Strategic Management Journal. My review identifies 56 articles where video was central to the research design. My analysis demonstrates how researchers used the audible, visible, and timing affordances of video recordings to investigate organizational phenomena, including rhetoric, emotion, group interactions, and workplace studies. By exploring how researchers studied these phenomena, I show how video illuminates aspects of situated action and interaction that are difficult to evaluate using other kinds of data. My review contributes to the literature on video in organization studies by providing an overview of video-based research in these journals, highlighting the diversity of approaches used to collect and analyze video, and illustrating some of the ways that video helped to advance knowledge around organizational phenomena.