ABSTRACT

This book provides an overview of qualitative research models and their applications in organization and management studies. Focusing on the philosophical underpinnings and practical implications of diverse qualitative methods, this comprehensive text offers a guided tour of the options available to qualitative researchers, highlighting aspects of research design, execution, and analysis in each tradition.

In clear, readable prose, the author offers insight into the ambiguities, tensions, and interconnections of diverse qualitative research traditions without resorting to oversimplification. The book’s four main sections include examples and applications specifically designed for the field of management. Each chapter is devoted to a specific methodology, describing techniques and applications as well as current controversies and emerging issues. Summary boxes and practical examples will help the reader to navigate this terrain and generate research that is both relevant and of high scholarly quality.

With its detailed and easy-to-understand coverage, this will be the text of choice for students working with qualitative methods in organization studies, consumer research, public administration, information systems, and media and communication studies. Instructors teaching qualitative approaches in a research methods course and researchers wanting to acquaint themselves with non-positivist traditions will also find this a useful resource.

chapter 1|11 pages

Qualitative Research as Craft

Beyond Positivist Traditions and Research Styles

part I|92 pages

The Interpretive Traditions

chapter 2|12 pages

Symbolic Interactionism

Searching for Self and Meaning

chapter 3|14 pages

Hermeneutics

The Interpretation of Texts

chapter 4|21 pages

Dramaturgy and Dramatism

Social Life as Theater and Stage

chapter 5|17 pages

Ethnomethodology

The Accomplishment of Ordinary Lives

chapter 6|22 pages

Ethnography

Cultural Understandings of Natives

part II|19 pages

Traditions of Deep Structure

chapter 7|15 pages

Semiotics and Structuralism

The Grammar of Social Reality

part III|111 pages

The Critical Traditions 1

chapter 8|25 pages

Historical Materialism

Class, Conflict, and Domination

chapter 9|26 pages

Critical Theory

Hegemony, Knowledge Production, and Communicative Action

chapter 10|27 pages

Feminism and Gender Studies

Sex and Sexuality in the Social World

chapter 11|29 pages

Structuration and Praxeology

Transcending Dualisms Within Frameworks of Power

part IV|96 pages

Traditions of the “Post”

chapter 12|22 pages

Postmodernism

Playing With Images and the “Truth”

chapter 13|28 pages

Poststructuralism

Discourse, Discipline, and Deconstruction

chapter 14|26 pages

Postcolonialism

Unpacking and Resisting Imperialism

chapter 15|12 pages

Conclusion

Tradition, Improvisation, and Quality Control