Grounded Theory

Grounded theory is a method for rigorously and qualitatively analyzing data to generate explanatory [Page 608]theory. Grounded theory draws upon the epistemological underpinnings of a range of methodologies, including ethnography, phenomenology, social interactionism, hermeneutics, heuristics, and systems theory. The data are usually qualitative, but increasingly from the early 2000s, quantitative data are being analyzed along with qualitative data in grounded theory analysis. However, the analysis is fully qualitative.

Historically, grounded theory analysis has mainly been used in the study of nursing practice and in educational research. Since the 1980s, however, it has been popular in social science research, including research on leadership.

Some components of the grounded theory method, such as open coding, theoretical sampling, and the comparison of categories, are used in much qualitative social science research. However, the full grounded theory method also involves the generation of high-order categories and the emergence of a basic social process and explanatory theory. The generally agreed-on stages of grounded theory analysis are the following:

• Initial data collection. This stage comprises interview, observation, participation, documentary, and questionnaire data.
• Open coding. The responses are coded into abstract categories (or variables).
• Theoretical sampling (sampling patterns and new data sources are determined by the emerging theory, not predetermined) from subsequent iterations of data collection. This stage is ongoing.
• Comparison and reduction of categories. For the sake of parsimony and to make the emerging categories as explanatory as possible, lower-level categories are merged and/or replaced by new categories that have greater theoretical relevance. This too is ongoing.
• Saturation of categories. This stage is reached when no new properties or dimensions of categories are found.
• Theoretical coding. This stage involves seeking the properties of categories and the relationships between them. It is at this point that researchers determine which categories are causes, consequences, contingencies, covariances, intervening conditions, and contexts.
• Emergence of high-order categories.
• Emergence of basic social processes. This takes place at the highest level of abstraction, where the phenomenon is investigated in its entirety.
• Theory generation.