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Please note: the information in the course manual is binding.
The major aims of the course are twofold: One, to introduce students to a systematic approach of starting, pursuing and completing a research project; two, to offer thorough guidelines for completing qualitative research projects of both an inductive and a deductive nature.
More concretely, students completing this course will have learned:
- to clearly identify the epistemological foundations underlying their research approach;
- to identify a relevant research question;
- to embed this question in the appropriate literature;
- to define the most important concepts of their research project;
- to select the most insightful cases;
- to discern the most appropriate empirical material to collect;
- to choose appropriate - inductive or deductive - analytical methods
- to assess the quality of qualitative research
- to design consistent questionnaires for inductive and deductive qualitative research projects;
- to interpret the results in the light of the existing literature.
In sum: to consistently pursue inductive and deductive qualitative approaches.
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Most real-world innovation problems require a systematic analytical approach in order to arrive at efficient solutions. Seeking to provide students with such approaches from a qualitative perspective, the course is divided into three parts:
The first part provides an overview of the epistemological basis underlying inductive and deductive research approaches. It furthermore advises students on how to write a (qualitative) research proposal: When beginning their MSc research project, students often come to a point where they feel ‘lost in the literature jungle’ because they find it hard to identify an appropriate research question and a useful research design. It is therefore the first major objective of this course to show the participants how to avoid such situations of deadlock by introducing them to a systematic approach of starting, pursuing and completing a qualitative research project.
The second part of the course focuses on inductive qualitative research in general and on grounded theory in particular. Students will become familiar with the acquisition and interpretation of qualitative data whenever open-ended research question are asked that require the formulation of propositions rather than clear-cut hypothesis testing. In particular, the quality criteria of inductive qualitative research will be discussed.
The third part of the course focuses on deductive qualitative research, in particular on the selection and assessment of comparative case studies. The various approaches to case selection discussed will illustrate how systematic case comparisons enable the identification of causalities through systematic controls of potential rival explanations.
Consequently, it is the second overarching objective of this course to offer thorough guidelines for completing qualitative research projects of both an inductive and a deductive nature. Using real-world examples, it will be illustrated how such research projects can be translated into theoretical contributions, as well as practical recommendations for managers and policy-makers.
Academic skills: Academic writing; appropriate citation of literature sources; critical assessments of scientific texts; peer-feedback
This course is an entry requirement for: Master’s Thesis IS (GEO4-2239X).
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