Grounded Theory in Management Research (SAGE series in Management Research) [Paperback]

Karen Locke (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 8, 2001 | ISBN-10: 0761964282 | ISBN-13: 978-0761964285 | Edition: 1

This book describes the grounded theory approach for organization and management researchers needing to fully understand the possibilities and challenges of this method. It brings together the broadly dispersed discussions of grounded theory's logic and practices, restoring the grounded theory style of qualitative research for students and teachers of organization and management.

This book is particularly useful for graduate students involved in quantitative studies of organizational and managerial life, and for academics teaching research methods courses in management and organization studies.

Editorial Reviews

Review

'…resources for conducting grounded theory are spread across a number of disciplines… making it difficult for organization and management scholars to track them down. This book describes the grounded theory approach for organization and management researchers needing to fully understand the possibilities and challenges of this method. It brings together the broadly dispersed discussions of the logic and practices of grounded theory, restoring this style of qualitative research for students and teachers of organization and management' Management Research News

'Given its content and style of writing, this book will be useful not only to organisational scholars bit also to those such fields as sociology, nursing, education and psychology' - Mihaela Kelemen, Nurse Researcher

About the Author

Karen Locke is W. Brooks George Professor of Business Administration at the College of William and Mary’s school of business, where she is a member of the management area. She joined the faculty there in 1989 after earning her Ph.D in organizational behavior from Case Western Reserve University. Her work focuses on developing a sociology of knowledge in organizational studies with an emphasis on the production of scientific texts and on the use of qualitative research for the investigation of organizational phenomena. She has published in journals such as Academy of Management Journal, Organization Science, and Studies in Organization, Culture and Society, and has authored Grounded Theory In Management Research. Her current work continues her interest in the processes of qualitative researching and focuses on exploring and explicating their creative and imaginative dimensions. Karen also serves as an associate action editor for Organizational Research Methods and as a member of the editorial board of Academy of Management Journal.
Personal website: http://business.wm.edu/homepage.asp?PID=425

Product Details

• Paperback: 160 pages
• Publisher: Sage Publications Ltd; 1 edition (March 8, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0761964282
• ISBN-13: 978-0761964285
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.2 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,277,876 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A masterful job of explaining grounded theory, April 8, 2004

By 

Howard Aldrich (Chapel Hill, NC USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Grounded Theory in Management Research (SAGE series in Management Research) (Paperback)

Karen Locke manages, in a little over 100 pages, to simultaneously explain grounded theory, document its roots, show the conditions under which it can be used, and still maintain a critical stance toward it! She includes an extensive discussion of Barry Turner's work on disaster; an account of Glaser & Straus's procedure called 'coding,' unpacks the various varieties of grounded theory (there's not just one!), and shows great familiarity with the French influences on American social science in the past several decades.

Although she doesn't say it, her discussion implies that grounded theory is best learned from a mentor, when a novice is in an apprentice's role. My impression from some purported 'grounded theory' papers I've read in the past few years is that some junior scholars invoke it as a way of avoiding the hard work of doing what Glaser & Straus (& their followers) showed is really required to achieve a scholarly product. Some young scholars I've spoken with see it as a short cut, rather than as a serious & rigorous method in its own right. Locke does a great job of indicating how time consuming serious grounded theory work can be.

This is a great book for people just starting to think about doing grounded theory building.