The Promise of Eye-Tracking Methodology in Organizational Research

What is it about?

Self-report methods continue to be widely used by organizational scholars, although their limitations are well-documented. Explicit calls have therefore been made for more frequent utilization of behavioral data and building on multi-method data sources. In this context, eye tracking (ET) represents one promising source of behavioral data. ET is widely employed in disciplines such as psychology and marketing, but only rarely used in organizational research. The paucity of ET studies in organizational research is surprising as other disciplines have used ET in areas of high relevance to organizational research, such as information search and decision-making, learning, training, and expertise. Furthermore, technological advances in recent years have greatly lowered the barriers for using eye tracking (ET) as a research tool in laboratory and field settings. Given that the costs for ET equipment are on a steady decline and that data quality and ease of use have also improved considerably over the years, we argue that the time is right to expand the standard methodological tool kit of organizational scholars by bringing ET to their minds and hands.

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Why is it important?

Our research is innovative in the sense that we introduce ET, and thus a new mode of behavioral data, to the field of organizational science. We further offer a novel taxonomy for ET research that integrates the more specific perspectives on ET as presented in prior work. Our paper serves as a knowledge brokering paper that reviews and synthesizes past research, and provides future avenues for the application of ET in organizational research.

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