I am doing case study research to understand the the process of ICT enabled organizational transformation. There will be four case studies in public and private sector organizations. I will conduct interviews of the management involve in the process of organizational transformation. I am considering organization as unit of analysis, can it be.
Yes, it ca be....
http://www2.uvawise.edu/pww8y/Resources/Methods/ResDesign/UnitsAnalysis.html
Please refer to the folowing article. The choice of your case study organizations will be very important.
Eisenhardt, K. M. (1989). Building theories from case study research. Academy of Management Review, 14(4), 532-550.
Good luck with your research! David
Have a look at David Boje's works. He focuses on the inter-organizational reality. It could challenge the unitarian view.
Organizations can certainly be a unit of analysis. However, in order to have statistical power the number of organizations should be at least 15 -20 per variable. So usually you go with 5-6 variables and hence must have 100 or more organizations. No wonder there are so few studies of this nature. However, for a qualitative analysis even a couple of them would be fine.
Yes, it can be done. Top members of those organisations who have competence to answer questions that have to do with the strategic issues of the organisations can respond to questions meant for the organisations. They must be those who know about the organisation's strategies, objectives and visions.
You are not providing enough information. Do you hypothesize that one organization is influencing transformation in another organization? If so, you need to answer the following questions... Through which means? Do they share Board members? Do their IT folks interact? Are the organizations involved in partnerships? joint ventures? alliances? What are the influence vectors between two organizations?
Here is a map of inter-organizational connections in the early Internet industry... these organizations helped each other transform/adapt to the new industry through common projects/learning.
http://orgnet.com/netindustry.html
The unit of analysis can be the organization or the ICT project. If you are more concerned with long term and global transformations, the organizational unit is better. If you rather want to show the mechanisms, dynamics, and social reactions inrelation to ICT, the project would be better. The danger with interviewing managers about organizations triggered by ICT is that you'll mainly get their opinions, and this will probably go in the direction you will push them towards.
Dear Abdul,
These articles may give you some ideas/background information:
Gillingham, P. (2014) Repositioning electronic information systems in human services organizations. Human Service Organizations: Management, Leadership & Governance, 38, 2, 125-134. DOI: 10.1080/03643107.2013.853011
Gillingham, P. (2015) Electronic information systems and human service organizations: the unanticipated consequences of organizational change. Human Service Organizations: Management, Leadership & Governance. Published online 22 Jan 2015. DOI:10.1080/23303131.2014.987412
It can be done but depending on context. You may carry out case study at organizational level. A single or limited number of organizations might be consider in case study. But if you want to consider many organizations (i) the respondents must be representative of their organization, and (ii) it can't anymore become case study
I recommend looking at critical realism as a philosophical approach. The references below may help. Good luck on your research
Roberts, J. M., (2014), ‘Critical Realism, Dialectics, and Qualitative Research Methods’, Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour, 44 (1), pp 1-23,
Edwards, P. K., O’Mahoney, J. and Vincent, S., (2014), ‘Studying organisations using Critical Realism: A practical guide’, Oxford University Press
Easton, G., (2010), ‘Critical realism in case study research’, Industrial Marketing Management, 39, pp 118 – 128
- Badges
- Science topic
- Similar topics
- Linguistics
- Composition Studies
- Publication