Faculty

Assistant Professor Megan Tobias Neely
Department of Organization, Copenhagen Business School

Professor MSO, Anne Reff Pedersen
Department of Organization, Copenhagen Business School

 
Goals and Content

Qualitative analysis has traditionally been largely customary, passed down from scholar to scholar, often in graduate school from faculty to students in the course of doing research together. This course will provide students with a framework and tools for conducting qualitative analysis and generating conceptual and theoretical insights from that analysis.

A central goal of the course is to make visible and accessible the black box of qualitative analysis. To achieve this goal, we will systematically review leading approaches to qualitative analyses using examples from published research and applying the approaches to our own datasets. Students will get hands-on experience with analyzing their own qualitative datasets, which may include a range of qualitative methodologies from interviews to field observations to documents.

Drawing from different research traditions, the topics will include grounded theory, narrative analysis, phenomenological analysis, symbolic interactionism, and thematic analysis. The latter is especially useful given that many students combine a thematic approach with key concepts from their dissertation in their analytical work. Students will learn how each analytical approach yields distinct insights and how this will shape the findings, whether the goal of the research is purely descriptive or to generate conceptual claims.

Learning Objectives

After participating in the course, the students will achieve:

Prerequisites

The PhD student should be well versed in basic literature on qualitative methods and have already begun data collection. The student should apply the below upon registration:

A brief note (no more than 300 words), listing:

·       Your research topic and research question(s)

·       Precise description of the data you have gathered

·       Key concepts/theoretical perspective(s) that inspire your research

·       Five key questions on methodological/analytical issues in your project

The PhD student will be told if he/she is accepted to the course after the reguistration deadline.

If you are accepted you should work out a three-pages (maximum) analysis of data gathered in your PhD project. The three pages shall offer an analysis of interview quotes/sequences or text from documents. This data should weigh 1/3 of the presentation (approx. one page) and the analysis of the data should weigh 2/3 of the presentation (approx. 2 pages). Please upload your analysis together with your brief note of your project (the 300-words document). Deadline for this combined document is 19 January 2024.


Teaching style

The course will feature dialogue-based lectures, group discussions, and concrete feedback sessions. The three pages analysis of data provided by all participants will constitute the outset for discussions in the course (cf. ‘student presentations’), and you must be prepared to participate in discussions of your individual presentation as well as other students’ analyses.

Preliminary Lecture Plan
 

Monday: Introduction on the Black Box of Qualitative Analysis

Tuesday: Grounded Theory, Narrative Analysis, Student Presentations, and Discussion

Wednesday: Phenomenology, Symbolic Interactionism, Student Presentations, and Discussion

Thursday: Thematic Analysis, Student Presentations, Discussion, and Conclusions

Tentative Course Literature

Järvinen, M. & Mik-Meyer, N. (2020) Qualitative Analysis. London: SAGE. Please read chapters: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 10, 11 and 12. (Key book of the course)

Blumer, H. (1986) Chapter 1 “The methodological position of symbolic interaction” and chapter 3 “Society as symbolic interaction” in Blumer, H. (ed) Symbolic Interactionism. Perspective and method. Berkeley: University of California Press. (approx. 70 pages)

Clarke, A. E. (2003) Situational analysis: Grounded theory mapping after the postmodern turn, Symbolic Interactionism, 26 (4): 533-576.

Collins, C, Neely, M.T., & Khan, S. (2024) Case Selection in Qualitative Interviews and Participant Observation, Annual Review of Sociology, 50.

Gephardt, R. 2004. What is qualitative research and why is it important? Academy of Management Journal, 7: 454–462.

Holstein, J. A. & Gubrium, J. F. (1995) The active interview. New York: Sage.

Humle, D. M., & Pedersen, A. R. (2015). Fragmented work stories: Developing an antenarrative approach by discontinuity, tensions and editing. Management Learning, 46(5), 582-597.

Pratt, M. G. (2008) Fitting oval pegs into round holes: Tensions in evaluating and publishing qualitative research in top-tier North American journals, Organizational Research Methods, 11 (3): 481-509.

Pratt, M. G. (2009) For the lack of a boilerplate: tips on writing up (and reviewing) qualitative research, Academy of Management Journal, 52 (5): 856-862.

Schütz A (1944) The Stranger: An essay in social psychology, American Journal of Sociology, 49(6): 499–507.

Searle, C. & Silverman, D. (1997) Ensuring rigour in qualitative research, The European Journal of Public Health, 7 (4): 379-384.

Small, Mario Luis, and Jessica McCrory Calarco. 2022. Qualitative Literacy: A Guide to Evaluating Ethnographic and Interview Research. Please read chapters 1, 2, 3, and 5.

Vaara, E., Sonenshein, S., & Boje, D. (2016) Narratives as sources of stability and change in organizations: approaches and directions for future research. Academy of Management Annals, 10(1), 495-560.

Terry, G., Hayfield, N., Clarke, V. & Braun, V. (2017) “Thematic analysis” in Willing, C. & Rogers, W. S. (eds.) The SAGE Handbook of Qualitative Research in Psychology. London: SAGE Publications, pp. 17-37.

Braun, V. & Clarke, V. (2006) Using thematic analysis in psychology, Qualitative Research in Psychology, 3(2): 77-101.

Fereday, J. & Muir-Cochrane, E. (2006) Demonstrating rigor using thematic analysis: A hybrid approach of inductive and deductive coding and theme development, International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 5(1): 80-92.

Timmermans, Stefan, and Iddo Tavory. 2022. Data Analysis in Qualitative Research: Theorizing with Abductive Analysis. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

Registration deadline and conditions

The registration deadline is 19 december 2023. If you want to cancel your registration on the course it should be done prior to this mentioned date. By this date we determine whether we have enough registrations to run the course, or who should be offered a seat if we have received too many registrations.

If there are more seats available on the course we leave the registration open by setting a new regsitration deadline in order to fill remaining seats. Once you have received our acceptance/welcome letter to join the course, your registration is binding and we do not refund your course fee. The binding registration date will be the registration deadline mentioned above.