Alternative ways of studying time in qualitative international business research: A review and future agenda

Our study provides a systematic theoretical review of 304 qualitative-based articles published in seven international business journals from 2010 to 2020. We constructed a typology that provides alternative ways of studying time and is constituted by two dimensions: ontological conceptions of time (objective vs subjective) and theorising style of research (variance vs process). Our analysis and findings illustrate that time is mostly treated as objective and linear, and they highlight some concerning trends: lack of conceptual clarity; lack of diversity within and between paradigms; and lack of methodological clarity. We propose three pathways for advancing future research on time.