Although a growing number of leadership writers argue leader humility is important to organizational effectiveness, little is known about the construct, why some leaders behave more humbly than oth...

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Modeling how to grow: an inductive examination of humble leader behaviors, contingencies, and outcomes

“Systematic combining”—A decade later

Thematic analysis is characteristic of most qualitative research. Themes are groups of codes that recur through being similar or connected to each other in a patterned way. Thematic analysis ignores codes that do not recur yet may nonetheless be important. This paper proposes the concept of ‘saliency analysis’ as an enhancement of thematic analysis. Saliency analysis assesses the degree to which each code recurs, is highly important or both. Codes of high importance are ones that advance understanding or are useful in addressing real world problems, or both. Thus saliency analysis can expose what is non-recurrent but potentially important to the aims of a study.

Thematic analysis and its reconceptualization as 'saliency analysis'.

finfgeld-connett d. (2010) Generalizability and transferability of meta-synthesis research findings. Journal of Advanced Nursing 66(2), 246–254.

Abstract
Title. Generalizability and transferability of meta-synthesis research findings.

Aim.  This paper is a report of a critical analysis of the generalizability and transferability of meta-synthesis research findings.

Background.  Findings from a large number of qualitative research investigations have had little impact on clinical practice and policy formation. Single qualitative investigations are not intended to produce findings that are directly applicable to clinical practice, simple literature reviews of qualitative studies are not conducted using sophisticated methods to develop new cumulative knowledge, and methods for systematically compiling and synthesizing qualitative findings have just recently been developed in nursing.

Data sources.  This analysis of qualitative review methods was based on over 10 years of meta-synthesis research experience and a non-time-limited cross-discipline search of the English-language literature related to qualitative research and generalizability.

Discussion.  Generalizability of meta-synthesis findings is enhanced by insuring validity through systematic sampling, second-tier triangulation, maintenance of well-documented audit trails and the development of multi-dimensional theory. Generalizability of meta-synthesis findings is tentative until successful transference to new situations takes place.

Implications for nursing.  Nurse researchers are urged to conduct well-designed and executed meta-synthesis investigations that have the potential to generate findings that are relevant to clinical practice and policy formation. They are also encouraged to disseminate their meta-synthesis findings skilfully and work with practitioners and policy-makers to apply and evaluate them judiciously in clinical settings.

Conclusion.  Qualitative meta-synthesis is a way of putting together qualitative findings from disparate investigations so that they can more readily be used in clinical practice and policy formation.

Generalizability and transferability of meta-synthesis research findings.

Clinical utility is an increasingly used concept in health care, but one that lacks an agreed formal definition or conceptualization. In this article, I show that the term is commonly used as a synonym for studies of clinical effectiveness and/or economic evaluations and argue that further factors relating to everyday working practice should be included under its auspices. I go on to develop a multi-dimensional model that outlines four factors in practitioners' judgements about clinical utility: appropriateness, accessibility, practicability, and acceptability.

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A Multi-dimensional Model of Clinical Utility.

Earlier treatments of moderatum generalization (e.g. Williams, 2000a) explicitly addressed interpretivist sociology. This article extends that earlier argument by examining some of its implications for a wider range of qualitative research methods. It first adopts an empirical approach, providing concrete illustrations from the most recent volume of Sociology of what sociologists actually do when describing the meaning of their findings. In the light of this, we reconsider the significance of moderatum generalization for research practice and the status of sociological knowledge, in particular making the case that research design should plan for anticipated generalizations, and that generalization should be more explicitly formulated within a context of supporting evidence.

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Generalization in Qualitative Research

The recruitment of black and Asian migrant workers in the 1950s and 1960s to the least desirable sectors of the British labour market arguably ‐ for some commentators ‐ set in motion a cycle of cumulative disadvantage, with the disadvantage experienced by migrant workers inhibiting the opportunities of their sons and daughters. While some of the more recent commentators have concentrated on the persistence of disadvantage, others have begun to indicate the progress made by the minority ethnic groups relative to whites. This article evaluates the character of that progress for the period 1966–1991, through a secondary analysis of published data from the decennial census and the Labour Force Survey. Despite the disadvantaged start for the black and Asian minority ethnic groups, and despite the persistence of discrimination, they have made considerable progress over this time‐span relative to whites in terms of their membership of the Registrar General's socio‐economic groups. The decline in differe...

Declining racial disadvantage in the British labour market

As sociology diversified, and under other academic pressures, British sociologists became `hyper-specialized' in subject expertise and methodology. Exploring multidimensional social life requires knowing about more than one field and having skills in more than one method. The retreat from quantitative methods, however good our qualitative methods, loses opportunities to contribute to important issues, particularly those in the public arena, at the boundaries of the discipline, or which take numerical form. This argument is developed through three recent examples: a critique of Erikson's view of British sociology and the BSA; the socio-economic circumstances of minority ethnic groups; and the isolation of social mobility analysis from political discourse. An approach based on an integrated view of social divisions and expanded methodological pluralism, in which we moderate our claims to sociological generalization, is proposed as a way forward.

Social Divisions, Social Mobilities and Social Research: Methodological Issues after 40 Years

The consequences of major changes in employment, due to the decline of manufacturing and the growth of the service sector, have not been well-documented, nor theorized, in the sociology of ethnic relations, even in recent studies. For example, Blumer's classic argument that economic development adapts to ‘race relations’, rather than the reverse as predicted by the modernization school, has not been either empirically resolved or conceptually applied to the UK. By adapting data from the Labour Force Survey and the Census, the paper begins to fill this gap with a detailed account of three main minority ethnic groups, and a separate analysis of male and female employment. It is demonstrated that, contrary to assumptions that members of the minority ethnic groups suffered most from de-industrialization, they actually did rather well, and in some cases did better than the majority population. These findings are re-conceptualized as collective social mobility, as part of a review of a number of conceptual frameworks in the light of the data.

Socio-economic re-structuring and employment: the case of minority ethnic groups.

Sociological understanding of social mobility in Britain has depended heavily on the 1972 Nuffield Mobility Study. In the virtual absence of more recent data, analysis has drawn on this single stud...

Geoff Payne

Papers

Generalization in Qualitative Research

Declining racial disadvantage in the British labour market

Social Divisions, Social Mobilities and Social Research: Methodological Issues after 40 Years

Socio-economic re-structuring and employment: the case of minority ethnic groups.

Opening and Closing the Gates: Recent Developments in Male Social Mobility in Britain: