Triangulation as Methodology and Mindset: Developing Practice-Based Guidance for Organizational Research

Aiming to inform organizational research practice, we scrutinize how scholars in management and business studies report triangulation: the systematic integration of multiple data sources, methodologies, measures, investigators, and/or theories, usually with the objective of enhancing the robustness, validity, richness, and/or complexity of research findings. We analyze 1,209 articles from the UTD24 journal list, using thematic analysis to assess scholars’ use and justification of triangulation as a term of art that spans disciplinary boundaries and qualitative, quantitative, mixed-methods, and nonempirical methodological approaches. Our findings elucidate triangulation types (method, data, investigator, theory, and measures triangulation); convergence (validity and corroboration) and divergence (richness and complexity) perspectives; and reporting practices at the manuscript level. From this analysis and our examination of exemplars, we abstract triangulation's dual nature: as a root methodology—a foundational tool that transcends methodological boundaries and is deployable across the research process—and a research mindset—an epistemological orientation that engages reflexivity and multiplicity to achieve rigor. Based on our findings, we provide recommendations for how to plan for, conduct, report, and evaluate triangulation and discuss our contributions to organizational research methods.