My research aims to explore how the letter to stockholders is used as a strategic method of communication by organisations, and I wanted to conduct a thematic analysis of the letters to identify themes. I planned to search for themes within the letter and then link these to existing theory. I initially thought this would be inductive as the themes would be derived from the data, but if I link this to existing theory afterwards, does this change the approach? Would this oppose an interpretivist philosophical view?
That seemsO.K., as an example of data-driven thematic analysis, with subsequent linking to suitable theory.
Comparison or evaluation would be the key if I did not misunderstand your question. Reality sometimes could not live up to the dream. Fill in the gap between the theory and reality would be a good choice for your writing, perhaps.
A truly deductive approach would build a codebook from existing theory and then apply that to the data.
I do not know of any existing label for creating themes qualitatively and then comparing them to existing theory. In particular, qualitative researchers are often uncertain what to do when their inductively created conclusions happen to match an existing theory. It seems to me that this is a gap in our current methods, so I wish had some recommendations for you, but I do not.
I think your problem is one of data interpretation. In each research we compare the results with the literature to see if we have produced new knowledge.
By comparison, there are several possibilities - to complete or modify the existing theory, to contradict the existing theory or to produce a completely new one. If your results match the literature it means that an old theory also applies in the context you studied.
This means that you have verified (even if that is not what you set out to do) an old theory in a new context. Theories are provisional, must always be verified and their applicability expands with verification in new contexts. So it can be a win even when you discover something that coincides with literature.
- Badges
- Science topic
- Similar topics
- Cognitive Science
- Thinking