Special Issue:
Delivering Sustainability through Ecosystem Innovation
Qualitative Methods
107 Items
What is qualitative research?
Qualitative research is a method of scientific enquiry that is employed in several social sciences (e.g., sociology, management, ethnography) and which consists in gaining an in-depth knowledge of social phenomena. Qualitative researchers generate words (rather than numbers) as data for analysis.
Interpretative vs. positivist approach
Qualitative researchers usually adopt an interpretative approach in their research.
This means that they assume that the phenomena they observe are socially constructed and that they both influence the phenomena they study and are influenced by it.
Their focus is on understanding the meaning(s) of these phenomena. They are interested in specific, unique, or extreme cases (as opposed to “normal” cases).
Positivist researchers consider that the phenomena they study are observable, measurable and objective, i.e., they exist independently of them.
They aim at discovering patterns, regularities (or laws) in the social world, by using the hypothetic-deductive approach and the quantitative methods used in the natural sciences (e.g., regression analysis, variance models…).
Variance approach vs. process approach
Qualitative researchers usually do not aim at measuring things (e.g., the proportion of employees whose level of stress is above a threshold), or at studying the impact of some independent variables on some dependent variables (e.g., the impact of job satisfaction on performance), as quantitative researchers who adopt a “variance” approach usually do.
They usually do not search for variance in their data (see Eisenhard’s approach for an exception), and instead prefer studying processes whereby “things” become what they are (e.g., organizational change process).
In short, quantitative researchers usually adopt a variance approach and try to predict the levels of an outcome variable from a set of independent (or explanatory) variables (also called predictors).
Qualitative researchers instead, usually favour a process approach and aim at understanding how outcomes occur thanks to a deep knowledge of the process that generates the outcomes; they study “events” rather than variables. (For more information, see Mohr, 1982).
Practice approach
Qualitative researchers in the Management field increasingly study actors’ practices, i.e. their arrays of activities (see, e.g., Bourdieu, Giddens, Schatzki).
What types of data do qualitative research collect?
Social scientists and management researcher have access to different types of qualitative data, including, among others, structured or un-structured research interviews transcripts, participant or non-participant observation notes, field notes, archival data, focus groups, and all kinds of so-called “secondary data” (e.g., reports, texts, pictures, video and other materials).
Diversity of qualitative research methods
There is a wide range of research methodologies that qualitative researchers can adopt, such as ethnographic approach (e.g., Van Maanen), grounded theory developed by Glaser and Strauss, critical discourse analysis (e.g., Fairclough), etc.
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