How to Demonstrate Rigor When Presenting Grounded Theory Research in the Supply Chain Management Literature

Abstract

Researchers have found that supply chain management (SCM) studies that employ inductive approaches lack a common structure and often fail to adequately describe their research process and methodology. The purpose of this article is to increase rigor in SCM research by deriving an interpretive structure of presenting grounded theory (GT) studies. The structure presented in this article allows researchers to clearly demonstrate the rigor and validity of their methodology, and to thus increase the confidence of reviewers and fellow SCM researchers in their findings.

Liabilities of Foreignness Revisited: A Review of Contemporary Studies and Recommendations for Future Research

“…Everincreasing economic integration brings about high levels of interdependencies determined by dynamic social processes. Because inductive research approaches are particularly appropriate for investigating phenomena that include complex social and behavioral dimensions (Kaufmann and Denk, 2011), we further recommend that scholars of foreignness increase their methodological pluralism. Careful inductive and longitudinal studies might change strongly held beliefs about why foreign companies achieve firm-specific advantages abroad and yield a better understanding of top managers' behavior in their social environments.…”

Love me, love me not: A nuanced view on collaboration in sustainable supply chains

“…Third, we have used different triangulation approaches as a way to ensure the credibility of the evidence collected (Shah & Corley, 2006). Finally, we analysed the data and theory in an iterative comparative process (Kaufmann & Denk, 2011). The authors agreed on the coding grid for analysis and compared their respective analyses and additional themes in order to reach agreement.…”

The non-adoption of supply chain management

“…The Straussian approach was adopted in this paper and involved significant iteration between data and literature. Such iteration is problematic for grounded theory researchers as referees and editors typically demand an orthodox structure for academic papers (Kaufmann and Whu, 2011). In particular, the need to present literature reviews as independent from data collection and analysis.…”