Grounded Theory and Situational Analysis

Sage Research Methods Foundations
Grounded Theory and Situational Analysis
Contributors: Adele E. Clarke, Kathy Charmaz

Pub. Date: 2019
Product: Sage Research Methods Foundations
DOI: https://doi.org/10.4135/9781526421036825838
Methods: Grounded theory, Situational analysis, Theory
Keywords: situational theory
Disciplines: Anthropology, Business and Management, Communication and Media Studies, Computer
Science, Counseling and Psychotherapy, Criminology and Criminal Justice, Economics, Education,
Engineering, Geography, Health, History, Marketing, Mathematics, Medicine, Nursing, Political Science and
International Relations, Psychology, Social Policy and Public Policy, Science, Social Work, Sociology,
Technology
Access Date: October 22, 2023
Publishing Company: SAGE Publications Ltd
City: London
Online ISBN: 9781529747409
© 2019 SAGE Publications Ltd All Rights Reserved.

Sage Sage Research Methods Foundations
© 2020 SAGE Publications Ltd
Abstract
This entry presents two empirical approaches to qualitative analysis: grounded theory (GT) and situational
analysis (SA). GT is a systematic method of theory construction through analyzing data, introduced by Barney
Glaser and Anselm Strauss in 1967. GT is inductive, comparative, abductive, and interactive, involving (a)
tacking back and forth between collecting and analyzing data, (b) making comparisons throughout the re-
search process, (c) creating and checking theoretical categories, (d) constructing theoretical understandings
of puzzling findings, and (e) sustaining interaction with data and nascent theorizing. Primary focus is on hu-
man action conceptualized as “basic social processes,” proceeding by coding data, generating categories
based on codes, and ultimately integrating categories into a GT of the substantive area.
Developed by Adele Clarke, SA is an extension of GT and shares its pragmatism and interactionism, including
a relational ecological framework. SA also braids in Strauss’s social worlds/arenas theory and Michel Fou-
cault’s work on discourse analysis and practice. Taking nonhuman elements explicitly into account positions
SA as posthumanist. Giles Deleuze and Felix Guattari’s rhizome and assemblage concepts emphasize re-
lationalities. SA maps “the situation” as the key unit of analysis. Situational maps lay out the major human,
nonhuman, discursive, historical, symbolic, cultural, political, and other elements. Social worlds/arenas maps
lay out collective actors and their arenas of commitment—organizational and institutional dimensions. Posi-
tional maps lay out major positions taken, and not taken, in discourse data in the situation vis-à-vis particular
contested or controversial issues.
Both methods critically engage the changing landscapes of contemporary qualitative inquiry.
Introduction
This entry focuses on two empirical approaches to analysis in qualitative inquiry: grounded theory (GT) and
its extension, situational analysis (SA). GT was initiated more than half a century ago by Barney Glaser and
Anselm Strauss (1967) and is today the most popular approach to qualitative analysis in many disciplines and
transnationally. SA was developed by Adele Clarke (2003, 2005) after the interpretive (largely poststructural)
turn in the social sciences, humanities, and beyond, extending GT to include relational analyses of the situ-
ation of inquiry as a whole. Both GT and SA continue to seriously engage new developments in scholarship
and challenges in qualitative inquiry (Clarke, 2019a).

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GT has been elaborated by a number of scholars, especially Kathy Charmaz (2000, 2006/2014; Morse et al.,
2019), whose constructivist approach explicitly brings subjectivity and reflexivity into GT. While GT’s primary
roots are in sociology, it immediately spread to nursing and then to organizations and management studies;
education, library, and information science; counseling psychology; computer and information science; social
work; public health; science, technology, and medicine studies; and LGBT and queer studies. GT also merits
its own Handbook of Current Developments in Grounded Theory (Bryant & Charmaz, 2019) and major new
texts (e.g., Birks & Mills, 2015; Bryant, 2017; Charmaz, 2014; Locke, 2001). GT works have also been widely
translated.
SA was initially developed as a methodological extension of Straussian and constructivist GT by Clarke (2003,
2005, 2009, 2019a). SA focuses on mapping data to generate analyses of the complexities, relationalities,
and ecologies of a situation. It has been expanded by Clarke, Carrie Friese, and Rachel Washburn (2015,
2018; Clarke & Friese, 2007). SA too is now used in a wide array of disciplines and specialties including those
previously noted, as well as interdisciplinary research, critical inquiry, ethnic, women’s, gender and sexuality
studies, and environmental and food studies. There is an edited volume of SA research (Clarke, Friese, &
Washburn, 2015) and translations. There is also a set of four edited volumes of GT and SA research (Clarke
& Charmaz, 2014).
This entry describes each method, provides a synopsis of its analytic strategies, notes its distinctive claims,
and discusses its position in qualitative inquiry today. The entry concludes with a discussion of the common-
alities of constructivist GT and SA and how they can be used separately or together.
GT
Description of GT
GT is a systematic method of theory construction in which researchers develop theories about their data
through analyzing these data. Its founders, Glaser and Strauss (1967), introduced the method to demonstrate
that qualitative research could be used to generate theory in sociology and that qualitative analysis could be
conducted with rigor. This method begins with analysis of inductive data but goes beyond induction. GT is
an iterative, comparative, abductive, and interactive research method because it involves (a) iterative tack-

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ing back and forth between collecting and analyzing data, (b) making comparisons throughout the research
process, (c) creating and checking new theoretical categories, (d) constructing theoretical understandings of
puzzling findings, and (e) sustained interaction with the data and nascent theoretical analysis.
The term grounded theory refers to both the process of using the method and the product of this process, the
completed theory accounting for the data analytically. The method is primarily concerned with data analysis,
although its pivotal role in constructing and collecting data is beginning to be explicated (Charmaz, 2014).
The quest to develop theoretical analyses shapes the kind of data grounded theorists need to develop their
budding ideas. Studying their analyses aids researchers to decide what further data they need to flesh out the
theoretical categories. Grounded theorists engage in analysis from the beginning of data collection through
writing the final report.
GT articulates the methods that sociologists Glaser and Strauss used in their acclaimed studies of dying in
U.S. hospitals. The method builds on Glaser’s positivist training in quantitative research and Strauss’s back-
ground in pragmatist philosophy and Chicago School/interactionist field research. Glaser contributed the sys-
tematic approach. Strauss’s pragmatist heritage gave the method its emphasis on studying people’s actions
and meanings as they dealt with their lives.
The method consists of several distinctive strategies and invokes comparative analysis throughout the re-
search process. GT offers a systematic yet flexible approach to conducting qualitative research and mixed
methods studies. Several proponents also advocate using it with quantitative data, although few researchers
have conducted quantitative GT studies. In addition to its major purpose of theory construction, GT strategies
can be adopted for a variety of other purposes such as conducting descriptive ethnographies, analyzing case
studies, doing policy research, and sharpening critical essays.
The strategies of GT offer flexible guidelines for constructing an original theoretical analysis. These guidelines
demystify the research process while simultaneously encouraging researchers to develop fresh ideas about
their data and the empirical and conceptual issues raised by them. Thus, the data and the grounded theorist’s
fledgling analysis guide theory construction. This approach stands in sharp contrast with the logical deductive
model of research design of using preconceived theories to shape the form, direction, and content of data
and analysis.
The GT method fosters studying actions and processes. Using the method also keeps the researcher active

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in the research process, which facilitates the successful completion of GT projects. The defining actions of
using GT include the following:
• engaging in simultaneous data collection and analysis;

• beginning with inductive data and analysis;
• constructing analytic codes through scrutinizing and comparing data;
• using data to develop new conceptual categories;
• elaborating ideas in writing throughout the research process, called memo-writing;
• making constant comparisons to refine and develop analytic ideas;
• creating theoretical categories that take data apart and account for them conceptually;
• sampling to develop, refine, and check theoretical categories (known as theoretical sampling), not to
represent particular demographic populations;
• looking for variation in the researcher’s categories and/or examined process;
• completing a strong literature review appropriate for the substantive and theoretical areas of the re-
searcher’s GT (Charmaz, 2014).
Grounded theorists use simultaneous data collection and analysis to develop their analyses and, thus, suc-
cessively focus on data collection to answer emergent analytic questions. Data collection and analysis each
inform, focus, and advance the other. Grounded theorists gather and code data, identify leads to pursue, and
then collect more data to develop these leads. Tacking back and forth between collecting data and analy-
sis prompts asking increasingly incisive analytic questions and making progressively more abstract compar-
isons and thus raises the level of abstraction of the nascent theoretical categories. Through studying their
nascent analyses, grounded theorists ascertain what kinds of data are needed next to flesh out their theoret-
ical categories. This tacking back and forth enables them to establish the properties of their theoretical cate-
gories. It also helps to explicate the assumptions on which their categories rest, delineate variation in these
categories, demonstrate relationships between categories, and outline their consequences. Throughout the
process, grounded theorists check whether the data confirm their analytic statements. The iterative process
continues as comparisons are made at progressively more abstract levels of analysis and keeps researchers
interacting with their data and evolving theoretical categories.
GT relies on the constant comparative method at each level of analysis throughout the research process.
Grounded theorists compare data with data, such as comparing interview statements or observed incidents
with other statements and incidents, data with code, code with code, code with category, category with cate-

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gory, and category with concept. After developing their ideas, they compare their categories, arguments, and
entire analysis with those in relevant scholarly literatures.
In the years since Glaser and Strauss introduced GT, three versions of the method have appeared. First,
Glaserian objectivist GT retains and extends the positivist elements of the original statement. Glaser’s (1978)
book, Theoretical Sensitivity, portrays the method as a variable approach using indicators of each concept (or
variable) and introduces overlapping theoretical coding families to use to achieve theoretical integration of an
analysis. Throughout the years, Glaser has consistently argued for (a) taking the role of a neutral observer
and active analyst, (b) viewing GT as an inductive method, (c) constructing abstract theories and eschewing
descriptive studies, (d) delaying the literature review to avoid importing preconceptions into the research, and
(e) pursuing theoretical generalizations that are abstract of time, place, individuals, and collectivities.
Second, Strauss and Juliet Corbin’s (1990/1998) manual, Basics of Qualitative Research, presents acces-
sible postpositivist methodological directions for conducting GT studies. Strauss and Corbin’s book brought
GT to diverse disciplines and professions across the globe and thus extended the reach of qualitative inquiry.
Their book departed from the original statement of GT by imposing prescriptions and procedures. Since then,
Corbin (Corbin & Strauss, 2015) has modified her stance and comes much closer to constructivist GT, a re-
cent version of the method. However, Strauss and Corbin’s 1990 and 1998 editions continue to inform hun-
dreds of GT studies and thus are included in Figure 1. (See also Strauss, 1987.)
Third, Charmaz (2000) pioneered constructivist GT and developed it individually and together with Antony
Bryant (Bryant, 2017; Bryant & Charmaz, 2019; Charmaz, 2006/2014). Constructivist GT builds on the prag-
matist foundations of GT and integrates developments in qualitative inquiry since GT’s inception in 1967. Its
proponents adopt Glaser and Strauss’s (1967) methodological strategies of coding data, memo-writing, and
theoretical sampling. Constructivist GT shifts the epistemological foundation of the method to a relativist, in-
terpretivist position that addresses how embodied individuals and groups respond to problems in their mate-
rial worlds. This version of GT aims for abstract understandings and, like Clarke’s (2005) SA, assumes any
analysis is located in time, place, and the situation of inquiry.
In contrast to earlier versions of the method, constructivist grounded theorists attend to the production, quality,
and use of data; research relationships; the research situation; representation of the research participants;
and the subjectivity, reflexivity, and social locations of the researcher. Constructivist grounded theorists also
answer procedural criticisms of the earlier versions of GT and argue that key GT strategies can be adopted
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without including other procedures and practices of their predecessors.
The comparisons in Table 1. outline points of divergence among the three approaches.
Table 1. Comparison of three main versions of grounded theory.
Strauss and Corbin Postpositivist

Charmaz and Bryant Constructivist
Glaser Objectivist Grounded Theory Grounded Theory as Represented in
Grounded Theory
1990, 1998 Editions
Positivist foundations Positivist-pragmatist underpinnings Pragmatist foundations
Decrees no preconceptions allowed from prior Explicates researcher’s taken-for-granted pre-

Acknowledges possible prior influences
theories or literatures; leaves researcher’s tak- conceptions; argues for critical engagement
can spark research
en-for-granted preconceptions unexamined with earlier theories and literature
Acknowledges researcher’s subjectivity and

Advocates minimizing the researcher’s
Assumes an unbiased observer separate from participation in coconstructing the data with
subjectivity; offers strategies to reduce
the data participants; scrutinizes researcher’s position-
bias
ality
Overlooks reflexivity; outlines tensions

Treats reflexivity as optional or a hindrance to Emphasizes reflexivity throughout the research
between balancing objectivity and sensi-
emergent analysis process
tivity to nuances in the data
Treats GT as inductive-deductive.
Views GT as inductive Strauss (1987) recognizes the method Views GT as inductive-abductive
as abductive
Rejects adding application procedures—em- Creates methodological strategies to answer

Adds procedures to apply to data
phasizes emergence emergent questions
Pursues theoretical explanations that are ab- Aims to construct and integrate con- Aims to offer abstract understandings attuned
stract of time, place, individuals, and collectivi- cepts, show relationships between them to difference and variation. Views theories as
ties—erasing difference. Aims for substantive to generate explanations and predic- embedded in the historical, social, cultural, and
and formal explanatory middle-range theories tions. Seeks to identify and explain vari- situational conditions of their production

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ation
The Distinctive Claims and Contributions of GT
Distinctive claims about GT were evident in Glaser and Strauss’s (1967) original pronouncements to their fel-
low sociologists. Not only did they describe explicit guidelines for conducting sociological research, but they
also put forth a compelling argument rejecting 1960s research conventions in sociology that undermined the
value of qualitative research and narrowly prescribed how and when it should be conducted. Moreover, Glaser
and Strauss presented justifications legitimizing inductive qualitative inquiry, explicated their qualitative pre-
decessors’ implicit analytic strategies, and made them understandable. Thus, their exegesis of GT informed
a wide range of researchers about how they could conduct rigorous qualitative research. In short, Glaser and
Strauss made lasting contributions with their arguments that qualitative research could be conducted system-
atically and must be judged according to its own canons.
Innovatively, Glaser and Strauss attacked the division between constructing theory and conducting research,
which had become separate specializations. They viewed this division as arbitrary and argued that qualitative
research could generate theory. Thus, Glaser and Strauss also challenged assumptions that qualitative re-
search was merely descriptive. Mid-century sociological theorists pondered how societies maintained social
order but did not ground their theorizing in empirical data, an approach that Glaser and Strauss disputed.
Glaser and Strauss’s strategies thereby democratized theory construction, which had become the bailiwick of
an elite few. Moreover, they democratized qualitative inquiry by providing readers with a framework for learn-
ing to do qualitative research that did not require mentoring at an elite university. Previously, doctoral students
had learned qualitative inquiry through an oral tradition based on mentoring and immersion in field research.
Over the years, Glaser (1978, 2013) has claimed that GT is an inductive method that aims for parsimonious
theoretical generalizations abstract of time, place, individual, and collectivities. He views theory as emerging
from data when researchers use GT strategies. To avoid preconceiving the data, Glaser remains adamant
that researchers must not conduct a literature review before commencing data collection or entertain earlier
theories as explanatory frameworks. He continues to emphasize comparative analysis and emergent cate-
gories. Glaser views his version of GT as the only authentic version and all others as remodeling GT.

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In contrast to Glaser’s insistence that GT was an inductive method of theory generation, Strauss (1987)
claimed it was also a method of verification. This position became more prominent in his coauthored manuals
with Corbin. Like Glaser, Strauss and Corbin saw data as separate from its production and aimed to devel-
op theory from data. Unlike Glaser, Strauss and Corbin acknowledged that researchers may be influenced
by their prior experience and knowledge as data sources among others. They were also interested in the in-
terplay between microlevels and macrolevels. Strauss and Corbin also created several new technical proce-
dures to apply to the data. However, applying procedures to data rather than their emerging from the analysis
marked a disjuncture from earlier GT texts.
Constructivist GT (e.g., Bryant, 2017; Charmaz, 2014) builds on Glaser and Strauss’s (1967) iterative, com-
parative, emergent, and open-ended original strategies; moves GT further into interpretive qualitative inquiry;
and answers criticisms about earlier procedures and objectivist assumptions. Thus, constructivist grounded
theorists’ distinctive claims counter explicit dictates and implicit assumptions inhering in earlier versions of the
GT method. Constructivists claim that how grounded theorists use the strategies reflects an epistemology,
whether or not they acknowledge it. From the constructivist view, every method rests on an epistemology.
Other major claims of constructivist GT include the following:
• adopting the methodological strategies of GT does not necessitate embracing an objectivist episte-
mology;
• engaging in reflexivity throughout the research process increases researchers’ awareness of their
own preconceptions and the implications of their research decisions;
• holding prior knowledge does not preclude scrutinizing data with an open mind;
• explicating and examining the researcher’s own positionality is a fundamental strategy for identifying
preconceptions;
• subjecting earlier works to rigorous critique and identifying un- or underexamined topics is both more
feasible and more useful than delaying the literature review;
• coding is a heuristic tool, not a mechanical ritual;
• co-constructing data acknowledges the pivotal role of language because researchers must examine
their own words and meanings as well as attempt to grasp those of their participants;
• situating the research in the historical, social, and situational conditions of its production defines and
locates the scope and relevance of the analysis.
Constructivist grounded theorists (Bryant, 2017; Charmaz, 2000, 2006/2014) observe that researchers bring

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their disciplinary, philosophical, theoretical, and research interests into their studies. Rather than limiting re-
search, these interests can enrich it when they are subjected to rigorous critique. Constructivist grounded
theorists advocate a critical stance of “theoretical agnosticism” (Henwood & Pidgeon, 2003, p. 138) toward
earlier works rather than claiming theoretical “innocence.” Exemplars of constructivist GT include the work of
David L. Ager (2011) in business, Jennifer Lois (2010) in sociology, Virpi Timonen and colleagues (2013) in
social policy, and Robert Thornberg and colleagues (2013) in education.
All versions of GT provide explicit tools for studying empirical processes and may address micro, meso, or
macro levels of society. The method can help researchers make connections between points in a process and
across individual, collective, and societal levels.
GT Strategies
Coding
Coding means labeling fragments of data to create a conceptual handle that accounts for them. The re-
searcher creates codes through breaking the data apart and explicating what they are about. GT coding de-
velops from the researcher’s engagement with and interpretation of the data. This coding encourages re-
searchers to dissect the data and create fresh interpretations of them. Some interpretations may be tenta-
tive, but because of simultaneous data collection and analysis, researchers can check their interpretations as
they gather more specific data and make their codes more precise. The inductive, interpretive approach of
constructing initial GT codes contrasts with quantitative coding in which the researcher applies preconceived
codes to the data.
Coding in GT consists of at least two phases: initial and focused coding. Initial coding consists of labeling
bits of data in a close but quick reading. Initial coding brings spontaneity into the analysis, as the researcher
works to explicate bits of data, whether they consist of texts, images, nonverbal cues, or numbers. Focused
coding means taking promising codes and checking them against large batches of data.
During initial coding, grounded theorists give their data a close reading and analysis, often by using line-by-
line coding to see the data anew. Line-by-line coding means constructing a code for each line of data. It is
a heuristic device for researchers to engage with the data and to explicate their interpretations of what each
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fragment of data means or might indicate. Line-by-line coding forces researchers to interact deeply with their
data and fosters asking questions of these data. The following excerpt, “Initial Coding: Line by Line Coding,”
depicts coding from a study of staff at an institution for patients with severe brain injuries in the United King-
dom.

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Source: Tweed and Charmaz (2012, p. 138); © 2012 John Wiley.

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This illustration of initial coding sticks closely to the data and uses gerunds (the noun forms of a verb) to
depict what is happening in the interview fragment. The codes consist of short, specific, active labels which
can serve as tools for further analysis such as making comparisons with other data. Note that the research
participant describes typical patient behavior, other staff members’ views, and gives her own interpretation of
what each means. Using gerunds helps to take the data apart and to see connections between codes such
as between “misbehaving cloaks loss” and the staff’s “misreading behavior.”
Initial coding often opens unforeseen areas of analytic focus, raises intriguing new research questions, and
leads to serendipitous findings. The GT mandate is to follow what is going on in the data. Thus, the researcher
may identify several fruitful lines of inquiry.
Although initial codes vary in their analytic strength, key initial codes often become core categories of a
fledgling GT. However, when researchers’ initial codes are very concrete and descriptive, recoding their ini-
tial codes to explicate tacit actions and meanings helps to raise the level of abstraction to construct focused
codes. Grounded theorists conduct line-by-line coding until they identify certain codes as having sufficient an-
alytic power to account for the data. Then, they may treat these codes as focused codes to examine large
batches of data, which expedites the analytic process. Those codes that fit and illuminate these data can then
be raised to tentative theoretical categories and given close analytic attention in memos.
Memo-Writing
Memo-writing consists of researchers’ analytic notes about their developing ideas. From the beginning of the
research, grounded theorists write memos about their codes and categories. Memo-writing not only fosters
examining and clarifying codes and categories but also charts researchers’ growing analytic sophistication
throughout the research. Researchers can explore their ideas and develop imaginative interpretations of their
data in memos and subsequently check these interpretations with further data. Memo-writing enables re-
searchers to identify and depict implicit patterns and processes in their data.
In early memos, grounded theorists define their codes, look for the assumptions and actions each code sug-
gests, make comparisons between data and codes, raise analytic questions, and identify areas for which they
need to gather more data. Grounded theorists bring raw data into their memos to scrutinize them and then

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compare them with other data. The constant comparative method takes concrete form in memo-writing.
Early memos typically contain conversations researchers hold with themselves as they explore their data and
codes. Later memos tend to be more analytic, focusing on categories and subcategories. Thus, they may
subsequently become sections of journal articles and book chapters.
GT expedites writing publishable reports because researchers can use their memos to form each report. By
writing memos, researchers connect their coding and the first draft of their reports. Well-crafted memos elab-
orate the content and form of the researcher’s categories, supply empirical evidence of the category, trace
its connections to other categories, and discuss its implications, all of which can readily be transposed to a
report. The following Sample Memo Excerpt demonstrates this.
Sample Memo Excerpt
Explaining All-Encompassing Loss
Explaining all-encompassing loss means making explicit unknown or forgotten meanings of the mag-
nitude of patients’ loss. Explaining here means pointing out types of loss patients have experienced,
delineating their extent, and making these losses known and understood. Explaining all-encompass-
ing loss means taking the patient’s perspective and looking at what is lost. Loss resides in the chasm
between the life once lived and current institutional existence. Participant D points out, “I think, I
don’t think enough emphasis is placed on that fact that these people have lost their life. And basical-
ly through that they have perhaps experienced a huge range, huge range of losses and because of
their behavior they may have alienated people so that there is just this massive aspect of loss that
they all have.” Thus, loss can result in spiraling consequences. Awareness of losing one’s life, one’s
way of being in the world causes patients enormous suffering that they may express through frustra-
tion, anger, and aggression, which leads to being rejected and further suffering, and subsequently
more acting up. Misbehaving cloaks loss, and staff then misread the patient’s behavior ….
Explaining all-encompassing loss not only asks the listener to envision losses, but also to envision
who a patient was before experiencing brain impairment. Thus, staff would gain a different image of
the patient than that of the person they encounter in their daily work. Explaining links the past with

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the present and accounts for the present. (In contrast to Participant D’s accounting for the present
by looking at the past, Participant B considers impairment but concentrates on the present, not the
magnitude of loss, nor the suffering it may cause.) Participant D adopts the role of the teacher who
elucidates for the interviewer why patients act as they do. To what extent can or does she make her
views known and heard? How does she deal with co-workers who fail to grasp these meanings of
loss? (Tweed & Charmaz, 2012, pp. 140–141; © 2012 John Wiley and Sons)
This memo excerpt illustrates several aspects of memo writing. The memo begins with a definition of the
examined code and explicates what Participant D suggests in her interview statement. A direct quote lends
substance to the discussion of loss. The comparison with Participant B indicates what is left out of participant
B’s interview. Silences can be difficult to identify in interview data but may be crucial for understanding the
research topic. Contrasting concerns among interview participants can give a researcher leads to discover
silences in the data and their consequences as well as variation. This excerpt also contains questions the
researcher can explore in later data collection. By writing memos, researchers define their next steps and
exert control over their data collection and analysis. Writing memos is a major strategy for making qualitative
analysis manageable.
Theoretical Sampling and Theoretical Saturation
Theoretical sampling is one of the most useful but most misunderstood GT strategies. To conduct theoretical
sampling, a researcher must have constructed a tentative theoretical category (or categories) of their fledgling
GT. The purpose of theoretical sampling is to fill out this category. Thus, grounded theorists conduct theoreti-
cal sampling to define and check the properties of the category. These properties may consist of characteris-
tics or the subprocesses constituting a larger process.
In early depictions of GT, the originators encouraged researchers to conduct theoretical sampling by going
across substantive fields to collect the necessary data. Yet this approach is not practical for many re-
searchers. They can, however, conduct theoretical sampling after doing early analytic work within the same
study. Once they have their tentative categories, they can then focus their data collection strategies to fill out
these categories. Theoretical sampling can also can be used to define variation in the theorized patterns and

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processes and to specify relationships between theoretical categories.
Theoretical sampling makes GT an abductive method. The iterative process of the method supports making
imaginative interpretations of data and checking to see whether these interpretations hold up when tested
against new data. The originator of abduction, Charles S. Peirce (1938/1958) describes researchers as en-
gaging in abductive reasoning when they make an imaginative leap when trying to account for a surprising
finding that current theories cannot explain. Subsequently, they consider all possible theoretical explanations,
including one they construct. They then return to test their new hypotheses in the empirical world. Grounded
theorists’ tentative categories often consist of imaginative interpretations offering new understandings. Theo-
retical sampling is a way of testing the grounded theorist’s innovative interpretation.
Theoretical saturation means that the properties of the tentative category have been fully specified. No new
properties are emerging in new data gathered through theoretical sampling. At this point, the researcher can
stop collecting data on this category. Theoretical saturation differs from data saturation, with which it is often
confused. Theoretical saturation pertains to elaborating theoretical concepts. It relies on the iterative process
of increasingly refining and focusing data collection and analysis for theory construction. In contrast, data sat-
uration occurs when researchers pose essentially the same questions throughout data collection and elicit
similar answers without adequately interrogating these answers and successively building on them.
Theoretical sampling and theoretical saturation permit researchers to make stronger claims and thus make
their studies more robust. By writing increasingly theoretical memos, researchers generate the materials
through which they integrate their analyses. In short, theoretical integration means that grounded theorists
order their analyses according to the emergent pattern of how their categories fit together.
The Place of GT in Qualitative Inquiry Today
GT has had a profound influence on qualitative inquiry that far transcends both Glaser and Strauss’s (1967)
original statement and the method itself. Glaser and Strauss (1967) framed their arguments to speak to so-
ciologists of their day and did not realize the reach their method would ultimately have across disciplines
and professions transnationally. Since 1967, GT has become a widely adopted general qualitative method
throughout many disciplines and professions across the globe. Charmaz’s (2014; 2017a, 2017b; Charmaz,
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Thornberg, & Keane, 2017) efforts to show how GT can be used in social justice studies has resonated with
researchers from diverse fields and nations.
Perhaps the most visible influence of GT has been on the conduct of qualitative inquiry. Three key strategies
of GT that were revolutionary in 1967 have become standard features of qualitative inquiry and its lexicon:
(a) simultaneous data collection and analysis, (b) coding qualitative data, and (c) memo-writing. However, as
these strategies became general throughout qualitative inquiry, they became generalized. Most qualitative re-
searchers use these strategies for synthesizing and summarizing data in developing thematic analyses rather
than invoking the constant comparative method and focusing on constructing theories.
Over the decades, numerous qualitative researchers have presented their studies as using GT when they
conducted inductive qualitative research. Some of their claims reflected misunderstandings of the method;
others claimed GT allegiance to legitimize their research. Misunderstandings and misrepresentations of the
GT method will likely decrease in the future. Grounded theorists are increasingly explicating the method and
now published studies frequently discuss the author’s analytic approach as well as data collection techniques.
Researchers also commonly recognize the different versions of GT and state the version they follow.
Proponents of GT have emerged in a variety of disciplines. A growing number of authors have written GT
texts for their disciplines and professions. Their works attest to the method becoming a permanent part of
the methodological tool chest in numerous fields such as psychology (Henwood & Pidgeon, 2003; Tweed &
Charmaz, 2012), management (Locke, 2001), nursing (Birks & Mills, 2015; Stern & Porr, 2011), information
systems (Bryant, 2017), and applied linguistics (Hadley, 2017). In addition, major qualitative analysis software
programs are intended to support GT methods.
SA
During the qualitative renaissance in the late 20th century, established methods including GT were reinterro-
gated and revised to reflect changing theoretical and methodological landscapes. Theoretical interventions by
Peter Berger and Thomas Luckmann, Michel Foucault, Donna Haraway, Gilles Deleuze, Felix Guattari, Su-
san Leigh Star, and others provoked constructionist, postmodern, poststructural, feminist, critical, and other
turns. These turns then saturated qualitative inquiry under the umbrella the interpretive turn.

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As discussed earlier, constructionist (e.g., Strauss, 1987) and constructivist (Charmaz, 2000, 2006/2014) GT
emerged first. Drawing deeply on them and on the interpretive turn, Clarke (2003, 2005) framed SA as a new
approach to qualitative analysis extending these strands of GT. SA shares GT’s epistemological roots in prag-
matist philosophy and interactionist sociology, including a strong understanding of perspective, process, and
contingency within an overall relational ecological framework.
Distinctively, SA also braids in additional theoretical foundations. First is Foucault’s work on the conditions of
possibility, practices, the gaze of power, and especially going beyond the knowing subject (the interviewee) to
also analyze extant discourse materials in the situation of inquiry.
In addition, SA takes the nonhuman elements in situations explicitly into account, drawing from pragmatist
philosophy (e.g., Mead), Straussian sociology of work, and science and technology studies. This positions SA
as posthumanist—going beyond the idea that only humans “really” matter or “matter most.” Last, SA draws
on Deleuze and Guattari’s concepts of the rhizome and assemblage to further analysis of relationalities in the
situation. Thus, SA offers a hybrid relational and deeply ecological approach to qualitative inquiry.
Description of SA
To accomplish its new goals, SA has a quite different conceptual infrastructure from the action-centered “basic
social process” focus of GT. Although Glaser and Strauss (1967) did not emphasize context or situatedness,
Strauss (e.g., 1987) later did so. To further this new emphasis, Strauss and Corbin (1990/1998) developed the
conditional matrices—analytic devices intended to push grounded theorists to consider how various facets of
the context or broader situation “condition” or shape the action. Such facets might include an important up-
coming election or a new technology that will change practices in a specialty.
While the conditional matrices valuably pioneered new territory, Clarke found them inadequately empirical.
Instead, she formulated SA to center on “the situation as a whole” as the key unit of analysis instead of the
action focus of GT. SA, then, involves analysis of “the situation as a whole”—a somewhat enduring arrange-
ment of relations among many different kinds of elements across a number of events over time. Figure 1, the
situational matrix, details the analytic foci of SA.

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Figure 1. The situational matrix.

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Source: Clarke (2005, p. 73). Copyright 2005 by SAGE. Reprinted with permission.

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In SA, the conditions of the situation are in the situation. There is no such thing as “context.” The conditional
elements of the situation need to be specified in analyzing the situation itself as they are constitutive of it, not
merely framing it or contextualizing it, or contributing to it, or shaping it. They are it. Regardless of whether
some might construe them as local or global, internal or external, close in or far away, the fundamental ques-
tion is, “How do these elements appear—make themselves felt as consequential—inside the empirical situ-
ation under examination?” SA features analyses of the complexities and relationalities of these conditional
elements inside the situation and their ecologies.
Methodologically, SA both retains aspects of GT and adds new strategies. SA retains GT’s strongly systemat-
ic approach to analysis done through meticulous mapping rather than coding of data. Like GT, SA also relies
on abductive as well as inductive analytic strategies, theoretical sampling, theoretical saturation, and assidu-
ous memoing. SA addresses what Clarke saw as shortcomings of traditional GT method including tendencies
toward positivism, oversimplification, a lack of reflexivity, a lack of analysis of power, and a failure to engage
discourses. To address these shortcomings, SA acknowledges the embodiment and situatedness of the re-
searcher; grounds analysis in the situation as a whole; attends carefully to differences, complexities, power,
and variation in data; encourages and supports analysis of extant discourse materials in the situation (nar-
rative, visual and historical); and takes nonhuman elements (e.g., material things living and nonliving, tech-
nologies, documents, web sites) into account. Like constructivist GT, SA also does not believe researchers
should be tabula rasa—blank slates—in terms of prior knowledge of theory and substantive research areas.
Strong proposals and strong research are built on critically combining prior knowledge with informed analytic
openness.
But what is “the situation” in SA and why study it? First and foremost, qualitative research has long tended
to ignore the situatedness of phenomena studied (Denzin, 1970/2009), concentrating instead on action and
interaction (in GT), selves and identities (in autoethnography and social psychology), and specific cultures (in
ethnography). Theoretically inspired especially by John Dewey, C. Wright Mills, Norman Denzin, Donna Har-
away, and Brian Massumi, Clarke sought to create a method that emphasizes the situatedness of phenomena
and the ecologies of their heterogeneous relations as a sorely needed corrective.
In 1938, Dewey argued for a gestalt understanding of situations as generating “a life of their own,” similar to
the agency of discourses in Foucault and of the nonhuman in science and technology studies. This invisible
agency of the situation per se is the momentum of the relationality among the different elements in the situa-

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tion. In doing SA, the agency of the situation itself becomes palpable if not visible. Significant here, the varied
elements in a situation are not bounded and autonomous but porous and “coconstitutive” of each other. The
elements help make each other up through their shared presence and relations in the situation. Clarke cre-
ated SA toward generating understanding of precisely what coconstitutes and helps to shape what else in a
given situation—analyzing the relationalities involved and their ecologies.
To clarify, in SA, a situation is not merely a moment in time, a narrow spatial or temporal unit or a brief en-
counter or event (or rarely so). Instead, it usually involves a somewhat enduring arrangement of relations
among many different kinds of elements across a number of events over time. Most significant, each situation
has its own ecologies. These ecological relations are analyzed by doing the four kinds of maps, discussed
next.
SA Strategies
In SA, the situation of inquiry loosely conceptualized in the situational matrix (see Figure 1) is empirically con-
structed through making four kinds of maps: situational, relational, social worlds/arenas, and positional maps.

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Figure 2. Abstract situational map: Messy working version.
Source: Clarke, Friese, and Washburn (2018, p. 128). Copyright 2018 by SAGE. Reprinted with permission.
Situational maps (see Figure 2 for the messy working version) lay out all the major human, nonhuman, dis-
cursive, historical, symbolic, cultural, political, and other elements in the research situation of concern. What
appears in a situational map is based on what is in the empirical situation of inquiry—the researcher’s project.
An initial version of this messy map is made very early in the research design phase, noting everything the
researcher can think of about which at least some data should be gathered during the project. Later, after
some data have been gathered, the messy map is redone based on the actual empirical materials, and an

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ordered version listing the elements is also done using the messy map as data (see Table 2). (Both maps
may be redone multiple times across the life of the research.)
Table 2. Abstract situational map: Ordered version.
Individual Human Elements/Actors Nonhuman Elements/Actants
E.g., Key individuals and significant (unorganized) E.g., Technologies; material infrastructures; specialized information and/or knowledges;
people in the situation, including the researcher material “things”
Collective Human Elements/Actors Implicated/Silent Actors/Actants
E.g., Particular groups; specific organizations as found in the situation
Discursive Constructions of Individual and/or Col-

Discursive Construction of Nonhuman Actants
lective Human Actors
as found in the situation as found in the situation
Political/Economic Elements Sociocultural/Symbolic Elements
E.g., The state; particular industry/ies; local/region-

E.g., Religion; race; sexuality; gender; ethnicity; nationality; logos; icons; other visual and/
al/global orders; political parties; NGOs; politicized
or aural symbols
issues
Temporal Elements Spatial Elements
E.g., Historical, seasonal, crisis, and/or trajectory E.g., Spaces in the situation, geographical aspects, local, regional, national, global spatial
aspects issues
Major Issues/Debates (Usually Contested) Related Discourses (Historical, Narrative, and/or Visual)

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E.g., Normative expectations of actors, actants, and/or other specified elements; moral/
as found in the situation, and see positional map ethical elements; mass media and other popular cultural discourses; situation-specific dis-
courses
Other Kinds of Elements
TBA—as found in the situation
For the abstract situational map: Ordered/working version, the goal is not to fill in the blanks but for the re-
searcher to examine their own situation of inquiry thoroughly and systematically. Having the categories to
stare at often helps people to think more systematically about their data and their project and to write down
things they had simply taken for granted in the situation but that should be explicitly noted and taken into ac-
count.
These initial maps help researchers develop clearer and stronger plans of research, funding proposals, and
human subjects applications. Downstream in the research, based on fresh empirical data, the messy and
ordered situational maps are revised and expanded, detailed memos are written, and further theoretical sam-
pling to flesh out the analysis is planned (see Clarke, Friese & Washburn, 2018).
Later, messy situational maps are also used to analyze relations among all the different elements, called re-
lational mapping. That is, SA works against the usual simplification practices of the social sciences to get at
differences and complexities in the situation in distinctively interpretive and feminist ways. The relational maps
capture and provoke discussion of the many and heterogeneous relations in the situation and its complexities
(Clarke with Keller, 2014). Analytically interesting heterogeneous elements and their ecological relations can
thus be sought out and analyzed.

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Figure 3. Abstract social worlds/arenas map.

Page 26 of 40

Page 27 of 40
Social worlds/arenas maps are the second kind of SA map (see Figure 4). They lay out all of the collective
actors and the arenas of commitment in which they are engaged. Based on Strauss’s (1978, 1993) work,
such maps take up the social, organizational, and institutional dimensions of the situation invoking interpretive
interactionist assumptions: one cannot assume directionalities of influence, boundaries of social worlds and
arenas are open and porous, negotiations are fluid and ongoing (see Clarke & Star, 2008; Clarke, Friese, &
Washburn, 2018).
Ongoing negotiations from coercion to bargaining continuously destabilize social worlds/arenas relations
(Strauss, 1979). Things could always be otherwise—not only individually but also collectively, organizationally,
and institutionally. Social worlds/arenas maps portray such Foucauldian “conditions of possibility.” Exemplars
of SA research featuring social worlds/arenas maps include Jennifer Ruth Fosket’s “Situating Knowledge”
(2015) and Gabriela Alonso-Yanez, Kurt Thumlert, and Suzanne de Castell’s “Re-mapping integrative con-
servation: (Dis)-coordinate participation in a biosphere reserve in Mexico” (2016). Both projects ambitiously
took up SA method.

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Figure 4. Abstract positional map.

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Note: ++ = more so -- = less so

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Positional maps, the third kind of SA map, lay out the major positions taken, and not taken, in the discourse
data in the situation vis-à-vis particular contested or controversial issues (see Figure 4). Discourse data may
be generated by project research (usually interviews and observations) and/or may also be extant discourse
materials found in the situation under study (narrative, visual, historical) including documents of all kinds, me-
dia discourses, and websites. For example, social worlds routinely generate discourses documenting them-
selves and other worlds sharing their arenas of concern and activity, discussing controversial elements in the
situation, and tracing pertinent histories narratively and/or visually. They await analysis.
Discourse materials are typically dense, multiple, and potentially contradictory. The researcher therefore
makes multiple positional maps for the project. On each map, two axes of concern about an issue are laid out
and all the positions found in the discourse materials regarding those issues are put on the map. Position-
al maps center on complexities, differences, and controversies which are themselves heterogeneous. Thus,
positional maps offer improved means of representing positionality interpretively (see Clarke, Friese & Wash-
burn, 2018).
Significantly, positional maps are not articulated with persons or groups in these maps but rather seek to rep-
resent the full range of discursive positions articulated in the data on key issues in the situation as a whole.
Discourses can thereby be disarticulated from their sites of production, decentering them and making analytic
complexities more visible. These maps thus allow multiple positions and contradictory positions to be articu-
lated. Silences (what was not or could not be said) in the data are noted as “Missing Positions in the Data.”
Theoretical sampling can be used to seek out fresh data that may articulate those positions. But “Missing
Positions” are not uncommon and can be most interesting. Exemplars of SA projects centered on position-
al maps include Michael Fisher’s “PTSD in the U.S. Military, and the Politics of Prevalence” (2014), Carrie
Friese’s “Classification Conundrums: Classifying Chimeras and Enacting Species Preservation” (2010), and
Rachel Washburn’s “Rethinking the Disclosure Debates: A Situational Analysis of the Multiple Meanings of
Human Biomonitoring Data” (2015).
In constructing all the SA maps, researchers also attempt to analyze the stratification of power in the situation
by noting and locating any implicated actors in the situation. These are actors silenced or only discursively

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present in situations. They are constructed by others (individually or collectively) for others’ purposes in that
situation. There are two main kinds of implicated actors. First are those physically present but silenced, ig-
nored, or made invisible by those with greater power in the situation. Second are those not physically present
but solely discursively constructed. Neither is actively involved in self-representation—no one asks for their
thoughts or opinions on the issues. This concept of implicated actors provides a potent means of analyzing
the situatedness of less powerful actors and the consequences of others’ actions for them (for an exemplar,
see Washburn, 2013, 2015).
After constructing each map, the researcher follows through by doing analytic work with each map and writing
major memos about each map including discussion of what is on the map, what seems to be missing, and
what should be pursued. The ultimate goal is “thick analysis” (Fosket, 2015), and the emerging analysis of the
situation generated through each map is carefully memoed. Significantly, each map foregrounds different an-
alytic questions. For situational maps and the relational maps made with them, memos typically center on key
elements on the map and their relations with other elements. For the social worlds/arenas map, a memo is
done on each of the major social worlds and about each arena mapped, seeking to portray organizational and
institutional commitments and relationships. Each positional map merits its own memo, and the most interest-
ing positions are detailed with great care. Any or all of the memos may lead the researcher to pursue further
data on emerging threads of analysis typically using theoretical sampling. Fosket (2015) offers an excellent
experiential “how to” and visual guide to constructing and memoing SA maps. Another fully worked SA exem-
plar by Gabriela Alonso-Yanez is offered in Clarke, Friese, and Washburn’s Situational Analysis: Grounded
Theory After the Interpretive Turn (2018) text.
In sum, each kind of map does distinctive work in delineating and analyzing the situation under study. Situa-
tional maps detail all the elements in the situation—human and nonhuman—and relations among them. So-
cial worlds/arenas maps center on the relational ecologies of collective organizational and institutional entities
in the empirical situation. Social worlds and arenas are often ignored in qualitative inquiry, but they can be
highly consequential—often constituting the conditions or parameters of possibility of change in that situation.
Last, positional maps offer relational ecologies of the positions taken and not taken on contested issues in the
situation.
Together the maps and memos yield an integrated, in-depth analysis of the situation of interest. Write-ups
should confirm or refute key issues in prior research, feature fresh analyses that have not appeared in the

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literature, and point to further directions for research generated through SA. While it is rare for publications to
center on a situational or relational map, they may be included. Both social worlds/arenas maps and position-
al maps and their analyses are common foci of articles and chapters. In addition, SA researchers sometimes
adapt an SA mapping strategy to more effectively represent an aspect of their particular project, called a pro-
ject map, which may be the focus of a publication (Clarke, Friese & Washburn, 2018).
The Distinctive Claims and Contributions of SA
A particular strength of SA is that it can be done not only with interview and ethnographic observational data
generated in the project but also with documents of all kinds and the full range of extant narrative, visual, and/
or historical discourse materials found in the situation. Most organizations are self-documenting, and public,
media, web site, and other institutional discourses are growing in importance due to wide and fast electronic
access. Because SA has the capacity for analyzing such discourses, the method is especially useful for mul-
tisite research which is increasingly common. Here several different kinds of data are collected. Using SA, the
data can be analyzed separately, comparing the outcomes, or all together to generate an overall analysis.
In sum, what is new and distinctive about SA includes
• doing the four kinds of analytic maps and working with them,
• enhanced reflexivity of the researcher,
• attention to elucidating differences and varied perspectives,
• moving beyond the knowing subject of interviews to include analyses of narrative, visual, and/or his-
torical discourses,
• “helping silences speak” and revealing active silencing by analyzing absent positions in maps,
• elucidating important nonhuman elements in the situation of inquiry (e.g., technologies, buildings, an-
imals, artifacts of daily life), and
• pursuing critical analyses of power, especially through analyzing implicated actors.
Social science research needs to reveal differences, relationalities, and diversities in order to generate more
equitable social policies that can themselves take differences and complexities explicitly into account. SA
supports such goals.

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The Place of SA in Qualitative Inquiry Today
Thanks in part to its GT heritage, SA is already a well-established method in the panorama of qualitative in-
quiry across many disciplines and specialties. SA is taught in Denmark, Germany, Austria, Sweden, Norway,
France, the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Taiwan, and Japan, as well as the United States and
Canada. Clarke’s SA book and some articles have also been translated.
Many researchers have found SA particularly useful in critical qualitative research that not only questions the
assumptions of positivism but also of neoliberalism and attempts to grasp the complexities of new forms of
political economic entanglement. Critical SA projects may also analyze through feminist, queer, and related
lenses (e.g., Clarke, Friese & Washburn, 2015). SA lends itself to such projects by its distinctive emphases
on elucidating complexities and diversities, by attending to nonhuman actors and elements, by analyzing im-
plicated actors, and by eliciting researchers’ reflexivity (Clarke, 2012; Clarke with Keller, 2014).
SA also works well in decolonizing, Indigenous, postcolonial, and other liberatory projects. Mapping all the
actors and discourses in the situation under study regardless of their power ruptures taken-for-granted hier-
archies and promotes epistemic diversity, the recognition that there are many ways of knowing the world and
many hierarchies of value, not only those currently dominant. Including extant discourse materials (narrative,
visual, and/or historical) can be especially valuable in such projects. SA also works well in collaborative re-
search as maps lend themselves to sharing and commonly provoke broader engagement in the research.
Moreover, SA projects can be jointly designed with participants to better meet participants’ own goals as well
as mapped collaboratively (Bainbridge, Whiteside & McCalman, 2013).
Constructivist GT and SA Moving Forward Together and

Separately
In the increasingly transdisciplinary and transnational landscape of qualitative inquiry, both constructivist GT
and SA are used ambitiously, across many disciplines and national boundaries. Both rely on abductive strate-
gies and theoretical sampling to further analysis. Both constructivist GT and SA seek to generate “sensitiz-
ing concepts” (Blumer, 1969) for theoretically provocative yet provisional analytics. Unlike Glaser (2013) and

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Strauss (1993, 1995), both also view grounded theorizing as an ongoing process, rather than seeking formal
theories as the ultimate analytic goal.
While each method can, of course, be used on its own, constructivist GT (Charmaz, 2014) and SA (Clarke,
Friese & Washburn, 2015, 2018) can be used together in the same, usually larger, project. In addition, re-
searchers can combine these methods in a single article that both maps the situation of inquiry and analyzes
basic social processes of action within it. Alternatively, a dissertation or book-length project could include
chapters developed by using GT and SA separately (without combining them in the same chapter). Some
researchers may wish to plot their own ways of using the two approaches together.
Both constructivist GT and SA offer distinctive contemporary approaches to understanding situated social
lives today. While they emphasize different facets of analysis, both bring reflexive feminist and critical social
justice lenses to bear upon qualitative inquiry (e.g., Charmaz, Thornberg & Keane, 2017; Clarke, 2012,
2019b).
Further Readings
Bryant, A. (2017). Grounded theory and grounded theorizing: Pragmatism in research practice. Oxford, Eng-
land: Oxford University Press.
Bryant, A., & Charmaz, K. (Eds.). (2019). Handbook of current developments in grounded theory. London,
England: SAGE. (Original work published 2007)
Charmaz, K. (2014). Constructing grounded theory: A practical guide through qualitative analysis (2nd ed.).
London, England: SAGE. (Original work published 2006)
Charmaz, K., Thornberg, R., & Keane, E. (2017). Evolving grounded theory and social justice inquiry. In N.
K.Denzin & Y. E.Lincoln (Eds.), Handbook of qualitative research (5th ed., pp. 411–443). Thousand Oaks, CA:
SAGE.
Clarke, A. E., & Keller, R. (2014). Engaging complexities: Working against simplification as an agenda for
qualitative research today. Adele Clarke in conversation with Reiner Keller. FQS Forum: Qualitative Social
Research, 15. doi:10.17169/fqs-15.2.2186
Clarke, A. E. (2019a). Situating grounded theory and situational analysis in the history of interpretive qualita-
tive inquiry. In A.Bryant & K.Charmaz (Eds.), SAGE handbook of current developments in grounded theory

Page 35 of 40
(2nd ed.). London, England: SAGE.
Clarke, A. E. (2019b). Situational analysis as a critical interactionist approach to qualitative inquiry. In M. H.Ja-
cobsen (Ed.), Critical and cultural interactionism. London, England: Routledge.
Clarke, A. E., Friese, C., & Washburn, R. (Eds.). (2015). Situational analysis in practice: Mapping research
with grounded theory. London, England: Routledge.
Clarke, A. E., Friese, C., & Washburn, R. (2018). Situational analysis: Grounded theory after the interpretive
turn (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.
Morse, J. M., Stern, P. N., Corbin, J., Bowers, B., Charmaz, K., & Clarke, A. E. (2009). Developing grounded
theory: The second generation. London, England: Routledge.
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