3. This slide highlights many of the qualitative techniques that are useful for data collection.
These six methods are to be discussed in the rest of this lecture
1) Grounded Theory is based on individual depth interviews. The researcher looks for repeating themes
that could shed light on the phenomenon being studied and that may eventually lead to proposing a
theory. If the final purpose of the study is not developing theory but just understanding the
phenomenon, this method may be called simply “Individual Depth Interviews (IDIs)” The Corbin and
Strauss interviews with Vietnam war veterans is an example of using individual interviews for grounded
theory
2) Group Interviews consist of interviewing more than one participant at once. Also, participants are
encouraged to interact by the moderator based on the idea that this interaction will lead to richer data.
There may be a need for several group interviews
3) Focus groups are panels of people led by a trained moderator and with direct research sponsor’s
involvement. The meetings tend to be long (about 2 hours) and because of this specific activities (e.g.
free association– what word comes to your mind when you see this picture?) are used to elicit deeper
feelings, knowledge and motivations. Focus groups are usually used as an exploratory methodology
4) Case Study. Combines different methodologies such as interviews, observations, document analysis, etc.
The goal is to obtain multiple perspectives of a single organization, situation, event, or process at a point in
time or over a period of time
5) Ethnography consists of the collaboration of interviewer and participant in the field. The interviewer will
participate in the situation under study. For example, should I want to study how managers decide how to
prioritize and allocate resources, I could ask for a “job” in a manager’s office, and ask the manager why
he/she decided to follow a specific action whenever a decision situation occurs.
6) Observation refers –as the name implies‐ to the use of observation of a phenomenon to understand it. For
example, if we want to learn how strangers get to socialize with each other, we may install ourselves in a
place where this situation may occur (e.g. the waiting room of a doctor’s office) and observe carefully the
interaction that develops.
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9. Observational studies can differ in terms of the extent to which the researcher participates in the phenomena
that s/he is observing.
1. Complete Participant. The researcher is part of the group being studied and is not identified as such. An
example would be the famous case of Festinger and colleagues joining a UFO cult and participating in
their activities to study the sociology of belief which was later published as “When prophecies fail” :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/When_Prophecy_Fails
1. Complete Observer. This is the other extreme, the observer does not participate at all in the activities of
the people being studied. For example, we could sit in a strategic location (ideally hidden) at lunch time
to study the social interaction of children during their break.
2. Observer as Participant. In this case, the researcher (the observer) is integrated into the team but
his/her status is clear. A simple example could be the role of embedded journalists during the Iraq war
that has resulted in a large number of books about the sociological aspects of this war. Similarly,
University of Pittsburgh professor Kathleen Blee observed women in Ku Klux Klan by participating in the
KKK activities without being a KKK member. Her work is documented in the book “Women of the Klan.”
3. Participant as Observer. In this case the observer is skilled enough to do the same job, at least up to a
point, as the rest of the participants but his/her role as researcher is fully identified for all the parties
involved. The researcher is quite aware of the contextual meaning of things taking place.
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12. The general sampling guideline for qualitative research is to keep sampling as long as your breadth and depth
of knowledge of the issue under study is expanding (this approach is also called theoretical sampling), and
stop when you gain no new knowledge or insights (called theoretical saturation). In other words, a
qualitative researcher will stop sampling (e.g. interviewing) when he or she has reached data redundancy.
For example, Corbin and Strauss– in their textbook on grounded theory‐ interviewed a Vietnam veteran to
understand the experience of the participants in this war. During the interview this participant mentioned his
pride of serving his country (he volunteered) and how different the attitude of conscript soldiers was. This
suggested to Corbin that now she had to add conscript veterans to her sample. This second participant
mentioned the traumatic experience of killing his first enemy combatant and how those who have never
killed anybody cannot understand. This suggested to Corbin that besides the consideration of volunteer/non‐
volunteer she would need to interview both veterans who had actually killed enemy soldiers and those who
had not. Notice that this also means the need for additional questions to the new type of participant. After
this, she did not find any new themes (insights) from the ones she had already identified (e.g. pride of
serving, killing experience) and for this reason she limited her sampling to the above participants (however, in
practice, a well‐developed interview study may involve up to 32 participants).
Harvard Business Cases you have been reading can be considered as “data” for a qualitative study. However,
it is not in itself a rigorous qualitative research study because:
1. The purpose is to educate and therefore the analysis is left out from the reader’s view on purpose
2. It’s a single isolated case and therefore is useful but insufficient by itself for a rigorous qualitative
researcher to build a theory without having other points of reference
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