Qualitative Researchers, Heal (and Help) Thyself Too

A persistent lament by qualitative organizational researchers is that qualitative research is not published, published enough, cited enough, or valued by industrial–organizational (I-O) psychologists. Pratt and Bonaccio (2016) present convincing data that there has been an increase in the visibility of qualitative studies throughout many organizational research journals, though some of the flagship journals in I-O psychology are less receptive. Also, they present a series of suggestions that largely entail ways that journal editors and nonqualitative researchers can adapt their attitudes and behaviors to help qualitative research have more of an impact. I agree with those suggestions and think that they should be pursued. On the other hand, I was disappointed that none of the suggestions presented by Pratt and Bonaccio offered things that qualitative researchers might do to make their research more impactful to I-O psychologists. For qualitative research to have a bigger impact in the organizational literature, qualitative researchers need to make changes as well. In this short commentary, I propose three things that qualitative researchers might do to improve their impact within the field of I-O psychology.