Combining Grounded Theory Coding and Fuzzy-Set Qualitative Comparative Analysis to Understand Decision-Making Complexity

Abstract

This case study is based on a research project that analyzed how expert evaluators combine different modes of thinking when screening ideas for innovation. The findings of this research project are detailed in the journal article, "How experts screen ideas: the complex interplay of intuition, analysis and sensemaking" by Sukhov et al. What makes the research project interesting is that it combined three concepts that have been used to study idea screening (intuition, analysis, and sensemaking) and analyzed what these concepts look like in practice and how they are combined to find high-quality ideas. This case study focuses on the methodological choices that enabled implementing this research project. At the heart of the research project was a mixed-methods research design that combined grounded theory coding with fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (also referred to as fsQCA) to elaborate different idea screening activities and show how they are used to make decisions on idea quality. Reading this case study helps to understand how to combine these analytical techniques and develop research designs that elaborate different dimensions of data and show how these different dimensions are used together. These ideas can be applied in three primary ways. First, this research design provides a systematic way to analyze datasets that consist of rich qualitative data and multiple cases. Second, it enables studying how alternative (or even competing) theories work together to explain empirical phenomena. Third, this study outlines one way to use fsQCA on qualitative data.