ABSTRACT
In this chapter, we summarize our insights about the five approaches to multimodality and suggest a multi-approach research agenda within multimodal organization research. We argue that combining approaches in individual studies is not just a matter of ‘triangulation’, but also a way of combining the potentials of multiple approaches to creating insights and reconstructing meanings. Each approach constitutes a specific perspective providing a distinct spotlight on a phenomenon. Only by combining approaches does a holistic understanding become possible. To do so, we argue that researchers need to be aware of the limitations of each approach and of how to overcome these. Based on our review of the five approaches, we also conclude that the visual mode is—alongside the verbal mode—clearly still dominant in organization and management research, although additional modes are slowly gaining ground. Even when multiple modes are considered simultaneously, designs are still more often comparative than integrative. We therefore conclude Part II of the book with a call for more explicitly multimodal research in organization and management studies.
