Exploring the landscape of qualitative research in international marketing : Two decades of IMR

Purpose – The authors seek to show the extent and nature of qualitative research in international marketing in IMR ( International Marketing Review ) and then aim to understand and explain developments in this area. They explore the global coverage of extant qualitative work in IMR and reflect on the thematic focus, theoretical purpose, research design and transparency of methods prevailing in these studies. Design/methodology/approach – The authors identify and content-analyze 79 qualitative international marketing-focused articles published in IMR from 1990 to 2010. Findings – The analysis revealed several areas that can assist researchers in identifying gaps to be filled by future qualitative international marketing studies. These include: global coverage needs to be further developed; an increase in the number of comparative studies, yet insights from three or more countries remain scarce; extant qualitative studies seem to explore ten key themes; there is a growing trend in theory elaboration studies; interviews are still the most popular data collection method, yet the repertoire of methods is expanding; there is an upward trend in higher transparency in the description of data collection and analysis, but this needs further development. Originality/value – The paper fosters the development of qualitative research in international marketing by: highlighting the value of qualitative research for advancing theory in this field; inspiring international marketing scholars to learn more about qualitative methods; and offering guidelines to researchers that seek to advance this field.