Grounded Theory

Philosophical Roots and Sociological Context

GT methodology falls within the tradition of qualitative research. Karen Locke has shown that qualitative researchers adhering to the modernist and interpretative schools have successfully used the approach. Within the qualitative research tradition, the interest of modernists is in establishing how the world might be predicted and controlled, while the interpretivists focus on the subjective reality experienced by social actors. The latter are concerned with lived experiences and seek varying accounts of those experiences, in contrast to the positivist approach, the aim of which is to seek out underlying variables and causal factors of phenomena. GT has intellectual connections to pragmatism and symbolic interactionism, both of which are considered to belong to the interpretivist school. Pragmatists, in general, implicitly assume that models are built from parts of other models and empirical data on the basis of trial and error complemented with some heuristics and intuition. Symbolic interactionism is both a theory of human behavior and an approach to inquiry about human conduct and group behavior. It tackles issues related to the individual in society, but is not concerned with the shape of society. Nevertheless, it recognizes its holistic nature, emphasizes the mutual causation between individuals and their environments, and acknowledges the evolutionary nature of social change. All this highlights the importance of studying the process of change, and the idea that inquiry is always context-bound and that facts should be viewed as both theory- and value laden.

The argument put forward by Glaser and Strauss about the nature, purpose, and possible development of a theory arose from these approaches. However, the GT approach is distinguishable among the interpretivist methodologies [Page 430]in the sources of data used and in the use of literature to inform and locate the developed theory. In contrast to pragmatism, GT is explicit on the iterative use of the inductive and deductive modes of reasoning.

GT is based on the acceptance of the complexity of social life. In its true sense, it emphasizes context and the social construction of realities. It promotes the notion that the building of realities is an ongoing process of negotiation, reevaluation, and refinement of and between individuals. Consequently, the attributes of the researcher and his or her effects on the phenomenon under study and on the presentation of the findings are considered highly relevant.

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