ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses some of the ways that researchers go about examining textual material, cultural artifacts, body language, and similar types of written and unwritten communications, records, documents, signs, and symbols. The different sources of research data were grouped into four broad categories. The first category is written texts, books, periodicals, narratives, reports, pamphlets, mass media, and other published materials. The second category is formal and informal documents and includes personal messages and assorted types of archival information, such as personal notes and memos, government records and vital statistics, and other informal written materials, including e-mail. The third category is the wide variety of nonwritten communications, including graphic displays, photographs and illustrations, tools and other artifacts, and films and videotapes. The fourth category includes all nonverbal signs and symbols. The analysis approaches used in public and nonprofit organization research are the formal literature review; hermeneutic analysis of textual material; content, discourse, and narrative analysis; meta-analysis; archival analysis; and semiotic analysis.
