Qualitative Research and Theory Building in Strategy, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship Research - 3 ECTS

Anders Dahl Krabbe, Assistant Professor, Department of Strategy and Innovation, CBS
Mark Lorenzen, Associate Professor, Department of Strategy and Innovation, CBS
Peter Kalum Schou, Professor, BI Norwegian Business School

 

Prerequisites
No prior qualitative methods training is required. Prior to the course, participants submit a short note (1–2 pages) describing their research topic, empirical setting, and current thinking about their research and potential for using qualitative methods.

 

Aim of the Course
Qualitative research is central to theory building in management research, yet the connection between qualitative practice and theoretical contribution is rarely taught explicitly. This course addresses that gap. The core question running through the course is: how does qualitative research advance theory, and how do you execute that process rigorously?

The course is rooted in the qualitative tradition of data-driven theory building reflected in top management outlets, but will consider a diversity of forms of reasoning, induction, abduction, and deduction, and how they operate at different stages of the research process and relative the maturity of the targeted theoretical conversation. The course is oriented toward the conventions and standards of mainstream management research. No prior familiarity with interpretive research traditions is assumed, though students working within such traditions are very welcome and will find much of direct relevance. The course does not presuppose or require alignment with interpretivist, phenomenological, or social constructionist traditions, but does not exclude those either. Students working with quantitative or mixed-methods designs will find the approaches in the course possible to translate into their own questions, theories and research settings. 

 

The course covers the foundational logic of qualitative inquiry and theory building, and then demonstrates how such methods play out across three levels of analysis, micro, meso, and macro. Each faculty member draws on their own published and ongoing work to show how theoretical contributions are built in practice: how puzzles are identified and confirmed empirically and theoretically, how to find the “story” in empirical material and identify promising paths toward theoretical contribution, how findings are linked to and positioned against extant theory, and how anomalies and theoretical models are justified. Students work with data from faculty projects in hands-on training tasks embedded in each module.

 

The course is valuable for PhD students who plan to conduct qualitative research, but equally for students working with other methods. Understanding how qualitative research can challenge and generate theoretical claims, what distinguishes theoretical from empirical explanations to a puzzle and how a theoretical model is identified, grounded and justified with qualitative data. The course is equally designed for PhD students whose primary methods are qualitative as well as quantitative. Much quantitative work in strategy, entrepreneurship and innovation is inspired by qualitative insights. This course expands students’ ability to understand where concepts come from, how mechanisms are identified, and what makes a puzzling empirical observation theoretically important to explain. 

 

Learning Objectives
Through the course, participants will:
1.    Understand the different logics of qualitative research and its relationship to theory building in mainstream management research
2.    Be able to identify and articulate a theoretical puzzle and distinguish it from an empirical observation or a literature gap
3.    Understand what constitutes a theoretical explanation as opposed to an empirical or descriptive account of a setting
4.    Know how to link qualitative findings to extant theory in ways that generate a genuine contribution
5.    Have direct exposure to how these moves work at the micro, meso, and macro levels of analysis through faculty research
6.    Understand the basis of sampling and analysis in qualitative research
7.    Be able to critically evaluate qualitative work against contribution and rigor standards relevant to top management journals
8.    Understand what qualitative research contributes to theory generation, and apply this understanding in their own work regardless of their primary methods

Course Content
The course is organized around five modules.

 

Module 1: Foundations: Qualitative Research and Theory Building (Anders Dahl Krabbe)
This module establishes the conceptual frame for the entire course. Topics include: the logic of qualitative inference and what makes it distinctive; the relationship between data, empirical patterns, and theoretical claims; how to identify a theoretical puzzle and what makes it compelling; how to distinguish theoretical explanation from empirical description; how to position a contribution relative to extant literature; and how to ground and justify an anomaly as the basis for a theoretical model. The module draws on examples from published research across strategy, innovation, and entrepreneurship and sets up the analytical vocabulary used throughout the rest of the course.

Module 2: Micro Level (Peter Kalum Schou)
This module demonstrates theory-building moves in qualitative research at the micro level, focusing on entrepreneurs, founders, and dynamics within and around firms. Drawing on his own research, Peter Kalum Schou shows how theoretical puzzles are identified and developed in practice, how empirical material is shaped into theoretical argument, and what the craft of micro-level qualitative research looks like from the inside of organizations. 

Module 3: Meso Level (Mark Lorenzen)
This module addresses theory building at the meso level, where firms are studied as embedded in geographical, industrial, or relational contexts. Drawing on his own research, Mark Lorenzen demonstrates how nested case study designs handle multi-level data and how theoretical arguments are constructed when the unit of analysis spans multiple layers. Topics include case selection logic, how context becomes theory rather than background, and the particular contribution opportunities that meso-level designs afford. 

 

Module 4: Macro Level Data (Anders Dahl Krabbe)
This module covers theory building at the macro level, where the phenomena of interest, industry emergence, category formation, technology evolution, institutional change, cannot be observed directly but must be reconstructed from naturally occurring data such as archival documents, trade publications, and historical records. 

Module 5: Participant Projects and Synthesis (All faculty)
This module returns to the foundational questions of Module 1 through the lens of participants' own research. Students present their projects and receive feedback from faculty and peers, with discussion centered on the sampling, analysis, and theory-building challenges specific to each project. The module closes with a collective synthesis across the micro, meso, and macro perspectives introduced in the course, inviting reflection on how the conceptual vocabulary developed throughout applies to the diversity of qualitative research represented in the room.

 

Teaching Methods
Interactive lectures, discussion of assigned readings, hands-on training tasks using real research data from faculty projects, participant presentations of own research, peer and faculty feedback.

 

Schedule (to be confirmed)
November 2 (9:00-16:00): Module 1 + 2 - Room 3.75
November 9 (9:00-16:00): Module 3 + 4 - Room K2.53
November 23 (9:00-16:00): Module 5 - Room K2.53

 

Course Literature (Preliminary)
Bansal, P., & Corley, K. (2012). Publishing in AMJ — Part 7: What's different about qualitative research? Academy of Management Journal, 55(3), 509–513.
Bansal, P., Smith, W. K., & Vaara, E. (2018). New ways of seeing through qualitative research. Academy of Management Journal, 61(4), 1189–1195.
Carton, A. M. (2025). The six dimensions of strong theory. Organization Science, 36(4), 1242-1270.
Cornelissen, J. P. (2017). From the editors: Developing propositions, a process model, or a typology? Addressing the challenges of writing theory without a boilerplate. Academy of Management Review, 42(1), 1–9.
Cornelissen, J. P. (2017). Preserving theoretical divergence in management research: Why the explanatory potential of qualitative research should be harnessed rather than suppressed. Journal of Management Studies, 54(3), 368–383.
Cornelissen, J. P., & Werner, M. (2025). What are mechanisms? Ways of conceptualizing and studying causal mechanisms. Organizational Research Methods, 29(2), 147–176.
Edmondson, A. C., & McManus, S. E. (2007). Methodological fit in management field research. Academy of management review, 32(4), 1246-1264.
Eisenhardt, K. M. (1989). Building theories from case study research. Academy of Management Review, 14(4), 532–550.
Eisenhardt, K. M., Graebner, M. E., & Sonenshein, S. (2016). Grand challenges and inductive methods: Rigor without rigor mortis. Academy of Management Journal, 59(4), 1113–1123.
Gephart, R. P. (2004). Qualitative research and the Academy of Management Journal. Academy of Management Journal, 47(4), 454–462.
Gioia, D. A., Corley, K. G., & Hamilton, A. L. (2013). Seeking qualitative rigor in inductive research: Notes on the Gioia methodology. Organizational Research Methods, 16(1), 15–31.
Howard-Grenville, J., Ketokivi, M., & Narayan, A. (2021). From the editors — Achieving fit and avoiding misfit in qualitative research. Academy of Management Journal, 64(6), 1679–1684.
Ketokivi, M., & Mantere, S. (2010). Two strategies for inductive reasoning in organizational research. Academy of Management Review, 35(2), 315–333.
Kipping, M., Wadhwani, R. D., & Bucheli, M. (2014). Analyzing and interpreting historical sources: A basic methodology. In M. Bucheli & R. D. Wadhwani (Eds.), Organizations in Time: History, Theory, Methods (pp. 305–329). Oxford University Press.
Klag, M., & Langley, A. (2013). Approaching the conceptual leap in qualitative research. International Journal of Management Reviews, 15(2), 149–166.
Langley, A. (1999). Strategies for theorizing from process data. Academy of Management Review, 24(4), 691–710.
Locke, K., Golden-Biddle, K., & Feldman, M. S. (2008). Perspective — Making doubt generative: Rethinking the role of doubt in the research process. Organization Science, 19(6), 907–918.
Mantere, S., & Ketokivi, M. (2013). Reasoning in organization science. Academy of Management Review, 38(1), 70–89.
Pratt, M. G. (2009). From the editors: For the lack of a boilerplate: Tips on writing up (and reviewing) qualitative research. Academy of Management Journal, 52(5), 856–862.
Rouse, E., Reinecke, J., Ravasi, D., Langley, A., Grimes, M., & Gruber, M. (2025). Making a theoretical contribution with qualitative research. Academy of Management Journal, 68(2), 257–266.
Timmermans, S., & Tavory, I. (2012). Theory construction in qualitative research: From grounded theory to abductive analysis. Sociological Theory, 30(3), 167–186.