Publishing Multimethod Research in AMJ: A Review and Best-Practice Recommendations

“Multimethod research”—defined as the use of more than one methodology in a single research project—offers a number of potential benefits. Indeed, the siren song of a multimethod approach seems to be growing ever stronger. The song promises numerous intuitively appealing strengths—for instance, the potential to generate and test theory in a single manuscript. Using multiple methods concurrently can also help researchers triangulate on the answer to their research question, enabling inferences that are high in both internal and external validity (Molina-Azorin, 2012). Moreover, multimethod designs can facilitate a more complete and accurate understanding of organizations, which are multidimensional and complex. Given no single research approach can tap into all of the various attributes of organizations, combining multiple approaches can enable important new insights (Daft & Lewin, 1990) that are both theoretically and practically valuable (Aguinis, Werner, Lanza Abbott, Angert, Park, & Kohlhausen, 2010).