Grounded Theory

Presented By
Abida Ellahi
Objectives:
 Introduce Grounded Theory (GT) as a method of
qualitative data analysis used in social research

What the session will cover

 A overview of Grounded Theory, including its core
principles with practical example

What the session will not cover

 Benefits and limitations
Definitions
 Grounded theory (GT) is a systematic qualitative
research methodology in the social sciences
emphasizing generation of theory from data in the
process of conducting research (Goulding, 1988)

 Thephrase "grounded theory" refers to theory that is

developed inductively from a corpus of data
 Strauss & Corbin (1990) defined grounded theory
method (GTM) as a qualitative research method that
uses a systematic set of procedures to develop an
inductively derived GT about a phenomenon.

 analyticalapproach
 based on grounding the analysis in the data
 inductively reaching conclusions from these data
Development

 Grounded theory was developed by two sociologists,

Barney Glaser and Anselm Strauss.

 Their collaboration in research on dying hospital

patients led them to write the book Awareness of Dying.
 In this research they developed the constant
comparative method later known as Grounded Theory;
The Discovery of Grounded Theory (Glaser & Strauss,
1967)
Methods
 The basic idea of the grounded theory approach is to
read (and re-read) a textual database (such as a corpus of
field notes) and "discover" or label variables (called
categories, concepts and properties) and their
interrelationships.

 The ability to perceive variables and relationships is

termed "theoretical sensitivity“.

 Field Notes
Open Coding

 Open coding is the part of the analysis concerned with

identifying, naming, categorizing and describing
phenomena found in the text. "what is this about? What
is being referenced here?"
 Text Fragment 1

Pain relief is a major problem when you have arthritis. Sometimes, the
pain is worse than other times, but when it gets really bad, whew! It
hurts so bad, you don't want to get out of bed. You don't feel like doing
anything. Any relief you get from drugs that you take is only temporary
or partial.

PAIN.
pain as having certain properties,
INTENSITY:
consequences
PAIN RELIEF.
drugs
DURATION (could be temporary), and
EFFECTIVENESS (could be partial).
Axial Coding

 Axial coding is the process of relating codes (categories

and properties) to each other.

 Example above: it seems obvious that the phenomenon

of interest is pain, the causal conditions are arthritis, the
action strategy is taking drugs, and the consequence is
pain relief.
Selective Coding

 Selective coding is the process of choosing one category

to be the core category, and relating all other categories
to that category.

 The essential idea is to develop a single storyline around

which all everything else is draped
Memos
Memos are short documents that one
writes to oneself as one proceeds through
the analysis of a corpus of data.
Field note
code note
theoretical note
Example
Grounded Theory about Information
and communication technology (ICT)

Shannak & Aldhmour (2009).

ICT andthe Jordanian manufacturing

companies
 The researchers started their research without any
representative samples by interviewing people in
Jordanian manufacturing companies without developing
any specific hypotheses about ICT.

 The researchers could not use the survey or structured or

semi-structured interviews at the beginning of this
research because they did not have specific themes, so
that they could not ask or design their questions or
formulate their hypotheses.

 However, after the first stage of this research, the

researchers were able to design their semi-structured
interviews
Open Coding
During this stage the interviews were analyzed
by using line by line coding and the data were
broken into segments which are call.

Researchers tried to find the actions in each

segment of data and coded them by using
simple, short and active words which reflect
these actions
“our company decided to use ICT tools
to offer products that improve efficiency
and cut costs for the customer”.

This incident includes these actions:

deciding, using, offering, improving and
cost-cutting.
“At the beginning (1984) we used the mainframe then,
let us say exactly from 1995 we started using a
microcomputer, called a personal computer”.

 “The number of users increased from 30 in 1984 to 250

in 1995, but in 2003 the number of users increased to
500”.

 Developing ICT utilization

Box Memo 1
Company’s efforts to use ICT
As the researchers have noted, based on interviewees’
experiences, there has been a growth of ICT
utilization which provides a clear indication of the
direction of the company’s efforts towards ICT
utilization and an expansion of its utilization to
include an increasing range of the company activities
Another manager stated:
“They found that the required skills and experiences
with hardware and software systems were difficult,
while some of them were absolutely aware of the
potential benefits of using ICT tools like internet, PC,
mobile, fax machine, database, and so on. They wanted
to understand computer utilization.

 lack of skills and experience

Problems that face ICT utilization
 The researchers have noted, based on interviewees’
experiences, in which they complained about the
inadequate training programs and absence of motivation
systems, so that most of the employees suffer from a
lack of skills and, to make matters worse, the experts
were leaving for other countries because of low salaries.
Other employees stated that:
 “I don’t know how to use ICT tools”.
 “I don’t like using automation systems”.
 “I’m afraid of using the new system”.
 “I didn’t use it before”.

 These incidents were given the code: using ICT

 ICT as an asset
 The researchers noted that there is a real utilization of ICT
tools because some of these companies (as interviewees
stated) deal with the ICT infrastructure as a main asset and
some of them spend much money on training programs as
shown in the companies’ budgets. Also, the ICT managers
confirmed that there is an actual and important decision
(they referred to some important documents and financial
statements) for buying and determining the companies
need for ICT tools in their work
Other interviewees stated that:
 “I will not accept the new system that affects our
position”.
 “I’m not quite satisfied with the way we work now”.

 Theseincidents were given the code: employees and

managers’ resistance to use ICT tools
Culture gap
The researchers have found that, based on the interviewees’ experiences,
particularly ICT managers, a gap exists between cultural and educational
level and ICT utilization, as ICT managers referred to the fact that most top
managers or decision makers (senior, chief, executive) had finished their
studies before1980. As a result, they claimed that ICT utilization faced
resistance from the employees and managers because there were not enough
lectures and courses to teach them about the importance of ICT utilization and
to increase their consideration of its impact on both their company and
themselves. Also, they complained about the lack of training programs and of
a motivation policy. Recently, ICT managers and ICT employees have
followed the strategy of asking top managers to contact them and the other
departments electronically, which means using e-mail and other ICT tools.
Moreover, this strategy also includes holding some training programs (most
of them are internal programs given via ICT departments but some are
external programs given by external trainers or by sending the managers to
other companies or countries) for ICT utilization and some courses and
lectures about ICT tools utilization.
123 concepts, but they minimized these concepts by
grouping and labeling them by a continuous comparison analysis
process to see the similarities and differences
Selective Coding
Theoretical Coding
 core category (effective utilization of ICT tools), sub-categories (internal
factors, external challenges, performance development) and competitive
advantage as a category, will be described and explained including the
framework for the new theory.

 The core hypotheses which stemmed from the theory generation process are:
 Hypotheses 1: There is an effective utilization of ICT tools in Jordanian
manufacturing companies.
 This hypothesis has three sub-hypotheses which are:
 There is a relationship between the effective utilization of ICT and ICT
level.
 There is a relationship between the effective utilization of ICT tools and
ability of utilization.
 There is a relationship between the effective utilization of ICT tools and the
purpose of ICT tools utilization.
References
 Shannak & Aldhmour (2009), Grounded Theory as a Methodology for Theory
Generation in Information Systems Research, European Journal of Economics,
Finance and Administrative Sciences Retrieved from
http://www.eurojournals.com/EJEFAS.htm

 Glaser,B.G. & Strauss, A.L. (1967) The Discovery of Grounded Theory. Chicago,
Aldine press

 Strauss, A,L. & Corbin, J.(1990) Basics of Qualitative Research: Grounded

Theory Procedures and Techniques. USA, Sage publications

 Goulding,C. (1998) Grounded Theory: the Missing Methodology on The

Interpretivist Agenda.