2. ‘’Une marque est plus qu'un nom ou un logo - c'est une promesse et un contrat avec chaque client avec qui vous avez affaire. Et si les gens estime
Richard Branson
SUDDABY, ROY
Professor of Business:
University of Alberta
Director-Canadian Centre of
Corporate Sustainability and
Social Entrepreneurship
Associate Editor-Academy of
Management Review
Adjunct Professor:
Department of Sociology
Visiting Professor:
Uppsala University
Visiting Professor:
University of Sydney
What Grounded Theory is Not
Suddaby, Roy
2
3. ‘’Une marque est plus qu'un nom ou un logo - c'est une promesse et un contrat avec chaque client avec qui vous avez affaire. Et si les gens estime
Richard Branson
ISSUE
« Overly generic use of the term “grounded
theory” and confusion regarding alternative
epistemological approaches to qualitative
research »
What Grounded Theory is Not
Suddaby, Roy
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4. POSITIVISM VS GROUNDED THEORY
Dispute
Positivism
Auguste Comte (19th century)
Glaser
and Strauss(1967)
Scientific truth results from
both the act of
observation and the emerging
Scientific truth consensus within a
reflects community of observers as
an independent they make sense of what they
have observed
external reality Charles Saunders Peirce (1839–1914)
George Herbert Mead (1863–1931)
Charles Cooley (1864–1929)
What Grounded Theory is Not
Suddaby, Roy
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5. DESCRIPTION
- Interpretive process by analyzing the actual production of
meanings and concepts used by social actors in real
settings
- Refusing positivist notions of falsification and hypothesis
testing
- Theory emergence based on how well data fit conceptual
categories identified by an observer
- Whose relevant categories explain or predict ongoing
interpretations
suited to efforts to understand the process by which actors
construct meaning out of intersubjective experience
not suited to make knowledge claims about an objective reality
What Grounded Theory is Not
Suddaby, Roy
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6. COMPROMISING THEORY
Reality driven
Constant
data Theoretical
comparison Sampling
and analysis
COMPLETE RELATIVISM Hypothesis driven
What Grounded Theory is Not
Suddaby, Roy
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7. MISCONCEPTIONS
Myth
#1 Grounded theory requires a researcher to enter the field
without any knowledge of prior research:
Blank mind (i.e., without knowledge of the literature
Grounded and absent prior experience),
Theory Is Blank agenda (i.e., without a defined research
question).
Not Researcher must defer reading existing theory until the
data are collected and analyzed
an Excuse
to Ignore
Totally unstructured research produces totally
the unstructured manuscripts
Literature
What Grounded Theory is Not
Suddaby, Roy
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8. MISCONCEPTIONS
Best Practices
#1 Grounded theory is linked to substantive theory
(particular limited domain of inquiry) and should be
started by substantive one:
Grounded giving initial direction in developing relevant categories
and properties and in choosing possible modes of
Theory Is integration
Not How to avoid researcher’s perspective contamination?
an Excuse to avoid research that adheres too closely to a single
substantive area ( -> several)
to Ignore to be continuously aware of the possibility that you are
the being influenced by preexisting conceptualizations of
your subject area.
Literature to try not to overextend the objective of grounded
theory research
What Grounded Theory is Not
Suddaby, Roy
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9. MISCONCEPTIONS
Common Mistakes
#2 Producing obvious and trite output
Confusion between grounded theory and
phenomenology (rich in raw form data, focusing on the
Grounded relationship between the language used and the objects
Theory Is to which language relates, interviews as sole form of
data collection.)
Not Staying at the phenomenology stage, failing to analyze
Presentation the data (constant interplay between data collection and
analysis that constitutes the constant comparative
of Raw method)
Data Having stopped collecting data too early (category
saturation process)
What Grounded Theory is Not
Suddaby, Roy
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10. MISCONCEPTIONS
Common Mistakes
#3
Testing hypothesis
Using interpretive methods to analyze “realist”
Grounded assumptions
Theory Is The mode of presentation may also create the
unfortunate impression that grounded theory methods
Not can be mixed with a positivist research agenda
Theory
Grounded theory is not to make truth statements
Testing, about reality, but, rather, to elicit fresh understandings
Content about patterned relationships between social actors and
Analysis, or how these relationships and interactions actively
construct reality
Word Counts
What Grounded Theory is Not
Suddaby, Roy
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11. MISCONCEPTIONS
Best practices
#3
Grounded
Theory Is Grounded theory is best used when no explicit
hypothesis exist to be tested
Not To proceed to a constant testing tentative ideas and
Theory conceptual structures against ongoing observations
To avoid with a positivist research agenda, the process
Testing, of data analysis - including coding techniques and
Content category creation
Analysis, or
Word Counts
What Grounded Theory is Not
Suddaby, Roy
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12. MISCONCEPTIONS
Common Mistakes
#4
Grounded
Theory Is Qualitative software programs can be useful in
Not Simply organizing and coding data, but they are no substitute
for the interpretation of data (which
Routine categories to focus on, where to collect the next
Application iteration of data and, the meaning to be ascribed to
units of data)
of Formulaic
Technique to
Data
What Grounded Theory is Not
Suddaby, Roy
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13. MISCONCEPTIONS
Common Mistakes
#5
Grounded theory was designed as a method that might
Grounded occupy a pragmatic middle ground between some
slippery epistemological boundaries and require
Theory Is researchers to develop a tacit knowledge (practitioners
Not Perfect have to know terrain well)
What Grounded Theory is Not
Suddaby, Roy
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14. MISCONCEPTIONS
Best practices
#5 Abduction (the process of forming an explanatory
hypothesis as the only logical operation which introduces
Grounded any new idea) is required to conduct research and has
become incorporated into grounded theory as “analytic
Theory Is induction”, the process by which a researcher moves
Not Perfect between induction and deduction while practicing the
constant comparative method
What Grounded Theory is Not
Suddaby, Roy
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15. MISCONCEPTIONS
Recommandations
#6 Grounded theory requires:
intuitive skills or pattern-perceiving abilities
considerable exposure to the empirical context
Grounded researchers to engage in ongoing self-reflection to
ensure that they take personal biases, world-views, and
Theory Is assumptions into account while collecting, interpreting,
Easy and analyzing data
extensive and ongoing commitment to a line of
theoretical research and an empirical site
What Grounded Theory is Not
Suddaby, Roy
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