Methods in

business
research
Session 14.
Dr. Ubedullah Khoso
Chapter 8: Qualitative Research (Pervez
Gauri et al., 2020)
So far we have discussed
• Purpose of Qualitative Research
• To Understand and Gain Insights
• Emphasis on Exploration and Flexibility
• Unstructured Problems
• Qualitative Research Focus
• Gaining Insights
• Constructing Explanations and Theory
• Context of Discovery (Popper, 1961)
• Quantitative vs. Qualitative Data
• Explorative and Unstructured vs. Descriptive and Hypothesis
Testing
• Sequential Data Collection and Analysis vs. Interactive Approach
• Gradual Problem Clarification - Detective Analogy
Data in Qualitative Research
• Data as Carriers of Information
• Data carry information but require interpretation.
• Challenges in Qualitative Studies
• Qualitative researchers often face data overwhelm.
• Poorly understood research problems lead to data collection with redundancy.
• Qualitative data termed as 'attractive nuisance' (Miles, 1979: 590).
• Quantitative Data Characteristics
• Quantitative data are numeric and suitable for analysis.
• Efficient for representing information and meanings.
• Qualitative Data Utility
• Qualitative data valuable when concepts are ambiguous.
• Useful for gaining insights and understanding complex phenomena.
• Forms of Qualitative Data
• Qualitative data come in various forms: pictures, texts, verbal reports.
• Rich, full, earthy, holistic, and 'real' (Miles, 1979: 590).
• Closeness to the studied problem/phenomenon.
Analytical Procedure
• Purpose of Data Analysis
• Key purpose: Understand and gain insights from collected data.
• Data analysis brings order, structure, and meaning to data (Marshall & Rossman, 1995: 111).
• Challenge in Qualitative Studies
• Qualitative researchers often face data overwhelm.
• Characteristics of Analysis
• Analysis involves breaking down complex wholes into constituent parts/
• Analytical operations: Dissect, reduce, sort, and reconstitute data.

• Miles and Huberman (1994) suggest three key components:

• data reduction,
• data display,
• conclusion drawing, and verification.
Data Reduction
• Data reduction involves selecting, focusing, simplifying, abstracting, and transforming collected data.
• Essential for managing and giving meaning to extensive field notes or transcriptions.
• For example, in focus group interviews, lengthy transcripts must be processed to create meaningful
insights.
• Categories, Themes, and Patterns
• During this phase, researchers generate categories and identify themes and patterns within the data.
• Understanding or explanations of the studied phenomenon may emerge as categories and patterns are
uncovered.
• Caution in Analysis
• Researchers should exercise extreme caution and critical thinking during this phase.
• Multiple explanations are often possible, so striving for valid explanations is crucial (see Kirk and Miller,
1986).
• Use of Matrices
• Matrices can be employed to display data and illustrate relationships between different variables (see
Table 8.1 in Section 8.5.3, Ghauri and Firth, 2009).
Data Display
• Data display is an organized, compressed assembly of information.
• It allows for drawing conclusions and taking action.
• Data display can take various forms such as data matrices, figures, and more.
• For instance, in a study of a strategy process, data display may illustrate major
events and actors within that process.
Analytical Activities
• Categorization: Grouping data into meaningful categories or groups.
• Customer feedback, you categorize comments into groups like positive feedback,
negative feedback, and suggestions for improvement.
• Abstraction: Extracting essential information or concepts from the data.
• From a collection of interviews about job satisfaction, you abstract common
themes such as "work-life balance," "career growth," and "colleague relationships.
• Comparison: Analyzing data by identifying similarities and differences.
• Two different time periods to compare changes in customer preferences,
identifying shifts in preferences over time
Analytical Activities
• Dimensionalization: Assigning dimensions or attributes to data for deeper understanding.
• In a study on product reviews, you add dimensions like "product quality," "customer service," and
"price satisfaction" to evaluate factors contributing to overall satisfaction.
• Integration: Combining and synthesizing data or concepts to form a comprehensive view.
• Combining findings from multiple research studies on climate change to create a comprehensive
report that integrates data on temperature rise, sea-level changes, and carbon emissions.
• Iteration: Repeating analytical processes to refine insights.
• Repeatedly reviewing and revising a coding framework in qualitative data analysis to improve its
accuracy and completeness as new data is analyzed.
• Refutation: Challenging and testing hypotheses or assumptions for validity.
• Testing a hypothesis that increasing advertising spending leads to higher sales and finding evidence
that contradicts this hypothesis, suggesting other factors may be at play.
 Necessary Personal Attributes for Coding
Saldaña, 2013

• Organized
• Perseverance
• Able to deal with ambiguity
• Flexibility
• Creativity
• Rigorously ethical
• Extensive vocabulary
Coding as Data Concentration
Data Corpus

Codes

Categories

Themes

Theory
What is a code?
Data Corpus

Codes

A code is most often a word or short phrase that symbolically

assigns a summative, salient, essence-capturing, and/or evocative
attribute for a portion of language-based or visual data.
Saldaña, 2013
What is a code?
Data Corpus

Codes

A label that captures the essence of a small portion of content.

Carroll, 20 minutes ago
An example…
1
Well, if you are not familiar with the internet—there is a couple
people who are just not comfortable with it—they are just not
going to use it.

1
technology use
(topic coding)
1
technology use: opposition (evaluation coding)
1
“not comfortable” (in vivo
coding)
Coding as Linking
I think really when I was analyzing it there is
technology for research there is technology for Collaboration
collaboration and there is technology for use in the Personal use
classroom personally. I didn’t really get why we were I don’t get it
having all of this exposure and really kind of quickly to Too quick
some of these other technological things you know.
And I don’t think quite honestly I haven’t done a lot of Practice
practice with it I did the ERIC things to get my research ERIC; wiki
and the wiki and the deli.ic.ious. But I haven’t really Del.ic.ious
seen how it is going to benefit the completion of this No benefit
particular project at this point.
Specific Personal
INT: Do you have anything specifically that the software use
technology has helped with in terms of the work for this
class?
ERIC
I would say specifically the use of the ERIC and the Library
library portal for this class specifically has been helpful.

INT: Have you guys done much in terms of email back

and forth?
Email
Our group has done email and we have used attaching Collaborating
our drafts and collaborating in our notes and Communicating
communicating with each other about have you tried
this have you tried that, that sort of thing just to kind of Touching base
touch base and make sure we are all on the same page.

INT: What do you think has been the hardest part that
you have struggled with in terms of the technology?
Coding as Linking
I think really when I was analyzing it there is
technology for research there is technology for
collaboration and there is technology for use in the
classroom personally. I didn’t really get why we were
having all of this exposure and really kind of quickly to
some of these other technological things you know.
And I don’t think quite honestly I haven’t done a lot of
practice with it I did the ERIC things to get my research
and the wiki and the deli.ic.ious. But I haven’t really
seen how it is going to benefit the completion of this
particular project at this point.

INT: Do you have anything specifically that the

technology has helped with in terms of the work for this
class?

I would say specifically the use of the ERIC and the

library portal for this class specifically has been helpful.

INT: Have you guys done much in terms of email back

and forth?

Our group has done email and we have used attaching

our drafts and collaborating in our notes and
communicating with each other about have you tried
this have you tried that, that sort of thing just to kind of
touch base and make sure we are all on the same page.

INT: What do you think has been the hardest part that
you have struggled with in terms of the technology?