FROM THE EDITORS:
WHAT GROUNDED THEORY IS NOT
ROY SUDDABY
University of Alberta
Editor’s Note. Three years ago, I invited Robert
(Bob) Gephart to write a “From the Editors” column
designed to help authors improve their chances of
success when submitting qualitative research to
AMJ. Judging from the increasing number of quali-
tative studies that have been accepted and pub-
lished in AMJ since that time, I would like to think
that his article, “Qualitative Research and the
Academy of Management Journal,” has had a pos-
itive impact.
Continuing in this tradition, I asked Roy Sud-
daby—an excellent reviewer (and author) of quali-
tative research—to tackle another “big issue” that
the editorial team has noticed with respect to qual-
itative submissions to AMJ: overly generic use of
the term “grounded theory” and confusion regard-
ing alternative epistemological approaches to qual-
itative research. Like Bob before him, Roy has, I
believe, produced an analysis that will greatly ben-
efit those who are relatively new to qualitative re-
search or who have not yet had much success in
getting their qualitative research published. Hope-
fully, Roy’s analysis will help even more authors to
succeed, thus allowing AMJ and other journals to
continue to increase the quality of insights pro-
vided by rich qualitative studies of individual, or-
ganizational, and institutional phenomena.
Sara L. Rynes
I was not particularly surprised to observe that
most of the articles identified as “interesting re-
search” in a recent AMJ survey were the product of
qualitative methods (Bartunek, Rynes, & Ireland,
2006). New discoveries are always the result of
high-risk expeditions into unknown territory. Dar-
win, Columbus, and Freud, each in different ways,
were conducting qualitative inquiries.
I am continually surprised, however, by the pro-
found misunderstanding of what constitutes quali-
tative research. Such confusion is most apparent
when authors claim to be using “grounded theory.”
In the manuscripts I review for AMJ I have seen the
term “grounded theory” used to describe analysis
via correlations, word counts, and pure introspec-
tion. I am not suggesting that these techniques can-
not be used in a grounded theory study. But I note,
with some concern, that “grounded theory” is often
used as rhetorical sleight of hand by authors who
are unfamiliar with qualitative research and who
wish to avoid close description or illumination of
their methods. More disturbing, perhaps, is that it
becomes apparent, when one pushes them to de-
scribe their methods, that many authors hold some
serious misconceptions about grounded theory.
What are these misconceptions? Before reviewing
them, I offer you a short description of what grounded
theory is. Like most difficult subjects, grounded the-
ory is best understood historically. The methodology
was developed by Glaser and Strauss (1967) as a
reaction against the extreme positivism that had per-
meated most social research. They disputed the view
that the social and natural sciences dealt with the
same type of subject matter. Specifically, Glaser and
Strauss challenged prevalent assumptions of “grand
theory,” the notion that the purpose of social research
is to uncover preexisting and universal explanations
of social behavior. In making their challenge, Glaser
and Strauss looked to the pragmatism of Charles
Saunders Peirce (1839 –1914) and early symbolic in-
teractionists, particularly George Herbert Mead
(1863–1931) and Charles Cooley (1864 –1929), each
of whom rejected the notion that scientific truth re-
flects an independent external reality. Instead, they
argued that scientific truth results from both the act of
observation and the emerging consensus within a
community of observers as they make sense of what
they have observed. In this pragmatic approach to
social science research, empirical “reality” is seen as
the ongoing interpretation of meaning produced by
individuals engaged in a common project of
observation.
Glaser and Strauss (1967) proposed grounded
theory as a practical method for conducting re-
search that focuses on the interpretive process by
analyzing the “the actual production of meanings
and concepts used by social actors in real settings”
(Gephart, 2004: 457). They argued that new theory
could be developed by paying careful attention to
Thanks to Sara Rynes for suggesting and commenting
on this paper. Thanks also to Chet Miller, Jean Bartunek,
Kristine Fitch, Chris Quinn-Trank, and Marvin Washing-
ton for very helpful comments on early drafts.
娀 Academy of Management Journal
2006, Vol. 49, No. 4, 633–642.
633
the contrast between “the daily realities (what is
actually going on) of substantive areas” (Glaser &
Strauss, 1967: 239) and the interpretations of those
daily realities made by those who participate in
them (the “actors”). They also rejected positivist
notions of falsification and hypothesis testing and,
instead, described an organic process of theory
emergence based on how well data fit conceptual
categories identified by an observer, by how well
the categories explain or predict ongoing interpre-
tations, and by how relevant the categories are to
the core issues being observed. Most significantly,
Glaser and Strauss offered a compromise between
extreme empiricism and complete relativism by ar-
ticulating a middle ground in which systematic
data collection could be used to develop theories
that address the interpretive realities of actors in
social settings.
The method described by Glaser and Strauss
(1967) is built upon two key concepts: “constant
comparison,” in which data are collected and ana-
lyzed simultaneously, and “theoretical sampling,”
in which decisions about which data should be
collected next are determined by the theory that is
being constructed. Both concepts violate long-
standing positivist assumptions about how the re-
search process should work. Constant comparison
contradicts the myth of a clean separation between
data collection and analysis. Theoretical sampling
violates the ideal of hypothesis testing in that the
direction of new data collection is determined, not
by a priori hypotheses, but by ongoing interpreta-
tion of data and emerging conceptual categories.
Grounded theory, therefore, is a method that is
more appropriate for some questions than others.
Clearly, it is most suited to efforts to understand the
process by which actors construct meaning out of
intersubjective experience. Grounded theory
should also be used in a way that is logically con-
sistent with key assumptions about social reality
and how that reality is “known.” It is less appro-
priate, for example, to use grounded theory when
you seek to make knowledge claims about an ob-
jective reality, and more appropriate to do so when
you want to make knowledge claims about how
individuals interpret reality.
Such fine distinctions between abstract catego-
ries are perhaps more easily seen through concrete
examples. From my reviewing experience for AMJ
and other management journals, I have identified
six common misconceptions about grounded the-
ory. Although I make no claim that these categories
are exhaustive, they accurately reflect my experi-
ence and offer, I think, a reasonable assessment of
common errors researchers make in conducting
and presenting grounded theory research.
SIX COMMON MISCONCEPTIONS
Grounded Theory Is Not an Excuse to Ignore the
Literature
A common misassumption is that grounded the-
ory requires a researcher to enter the field without
any knowledge of prior research. There are several
variants of this myth, each based on the false
premise that the researcher is a blank sheet devoid
of experience or knowledge. An extreme variant is
the notion that not only must the researcher enter
the field with a blank mind (i.e., without knowl-
edge of the literature and absent prior experience),
but that she or he must also enter the field with a
blank agenda (i.e., without a defined research ques-
tion). A less extreme, but more problematic, ver-
sion suggests that the researcher must defer reading
existing theory until the data are collected and
analyzed. This notion is reflected in manuscripts
whose authors avoid any mention of prior literature
until their papers’ discussions or concluding sec-
tions. In a similar variant, researchers use grounded
theory to tackle a subject that is in “well-tilled
soil”—that is, a subject that has attracted a long and
credible history of empirical research—and use
grounded theory as a justification for ignoring prior
research in formulating their study.
Leaving aside the question of whether it is even
possible to disregard one’s prior knowledge and
experience, the idea that reasonable research can be
conducted without a clear research question and
absent theory simply defies logic. Such research, as
Ronald Coase famously observed, is likely to pro-
duce a random “mass of descriptive material wait-
ing for a theory, or a fire” (Coase, 1988: 230). To-
tally unstructured research produces totally
unstructured manuscripts that are unlikely to make
it past the desk editor at any credible journal of
social science.
The notion of using grounded theory as an ex-
cuse to forgo examining extant literature is perhaps
more problematic because it is often based on a
researcher’s desire to discover something new. This
desire most often manifests when researchers use
grounded theory to tackle well-established areas of
empirical inquiry—leadership, for example. In
most cases, the researchers honestly hope to gain
fresh insights by keeping out of the ruts early trav-
elers have worn. They thus avoid formal reviews of
relevant literature in their manuscripts to create the
impression that their observations and analytic cat-
egorizations of data were not colored by previous
ideas.
Unfortunately, this approach is also based on a
serious misreading of the seminal texts in grounded
methodology. Although Glaser and Strauss were
634 AugustAcademy of Management Journal
motivated against grand theory, their formulation
of grounded theory was never intended to encour-
age research that ignored existing empirical knowl-
edge. They distinguished between substantive the-
ory, or theory grounded in extant research in a
particular subject area (e.g., leadership), and
grounded theory, but they observed a direct and
necessary link between the two forms of theory:
Substantive theory is a strategic link in the formu-
lation and generation of grounded formal theory. We
believe that although formal theory can be generated
directly from data, it is more desirable, and usually
necessary, to start the formal theory from a substan-
tive one. The latter not only provides a stimulus to a
“good idea” but it also gives an initial direction in
developing relevant categories and properties and in
choosing possible modes of integration. Indeed it is
difficult to find a grounded formal theory that was
not in some way stimulated by substantive theory.
(Glaser & Strauss, 1967: 79)
The real danger of prior knowledge in grounded
theory is not that it will contaminate a researcher’s
perspective, but rather that it will force the re-
searcher into testing hypotheses, either overtly or
unconsciously, rather than directly observing.
Grounded theory methodologists describe a num-
ber of ways to prevent this from happening. One is
to avoid research that adheres too closely to a single
substantive area and, instead, draw from the sev-
eral substantive areas that are frequently reflected
in a given daily reality. Stephen Barley’s (1986,
1990) research on technology and structuring, for
example, succeeds because it draws from (at least)
two areas of substantive research—technological
change and structuration theory—that are both of-
ten germane in the same research contexts. Another
technique is to be continuously aware of the possi-
bility that you are being influenced by preexisting
conceptualizations of your subject area. Particu-
larly when working through well-tilled soil,
grounded theorists must retain the capacity to
“make the familiar strange” (Spindler & Spindler,
1982). A final solution is to try not to overextend
the objective of grounded theory research. That is,
researchers may shoot for “the elaboration of exist-
ing theory” rather than untethered “new” theory.
None of these approaches justifies ignorance of
existing literature or knowledge. The reality of
grounded theory research is always one of trying
to achieve a practical middle ground between a
theory-laden view of the world and an unfettered
empiricism. A simple way to seize this middle
ground is to pay attention to extant theory but
constantly remind yourself that you are only hu-
man and that what you observe is a function of
both who you are and what you hope to see.
Grounded Theory Is Not Presentation
of Raw Data
I occasionally see papers that start with an ap-
propriate and interesting question, are written well,
and follow a well-constructed method, but produce
findings that are obvious or trite. You’ve seen such
papers; they conclude that entrepreneurs are risk
takers, change is difficult, and leaders are charis-
matic. The common thread in such research is that
it tends to present incomplete or relatively undi-
gested data.
This unfortunate outcome is usually the result of
one of three errors in the practice of grounded
theory research. First, there may be some confusion
between grounded theory and phenomenology.
Phenomenological research emphasizes the subjec-
tive experiences of actors’ “lifeworlds” (Husserl,
1969; Schutz, 1972). Methodologically, phenom-
enologists attempt to capture the rich, if not mun-
dane, detail of actors’ lived experiences. They often
present data in relatively raw form to demonstrate
their authenticity and to permit a holistic interpre-
tation of the subjects’ understanding of experience.
Such data are typically analyzed through some-
what introspective techniques that permit a clear
focus on the relationship between the language
used and the objects to which language relates
(Moustakas, 1994).
Although grounded theory retains some sympa-
thy for phenomenological assumptions and tech-
niques, researchers using grounded theory are less
focused on subjective experiences of individual ac-
tors per se and are instead more attentive to how
such subjective experiences can be abstracted into
theoretical statements about causal relations be-
tween actors. The difference between these two
approaches can be seen in how each uses the tech-
nique of interviewing. In a phenomenological
study, in-depth interviews are a key means of prob-
ing individuals’ subjective experiences (Wimpenny
& Gass, 2000). The detail and nuance of the stories
interviewees elaborate and the specific words they
choose comprise the primary unit of analysis. Be-
cause phenomenology is an effort to probe the lived
experience of subjects without contaminating the
data (Moustakas, 1994), units of data are often pre-
sented in their raw form. In grounded theory, by
contrast, interviews with subjects may start with a
phenomenological interest in subjective under-
standings, but the primary interest is not in the
stories themselves. Rather, they are a means of elic-
iting information on the social situation under ex-
amination. In contrast to phenomenological stud-
ies, grounded theory studies rarely have interviews
as their sole form of data collection.
2006 635Suddaby
The second grounded theory application error
that I see as producing obvious and trite output is
failure to “lift” data to a conceptual level. Again,
this failure may arise from the epistemological
problem of confusing grounded theory with phe-
nomenology. It is more likely, however, that the
researcher has simply failed to completely analyze
the data. A key element of grounded theory is iden-
tifying “a slightly higher level of abstraction—
higher than the data itself” (Martin & Turner, 1983:
147. The movement from relatively superficial ob-
servations to more abstract theoretical categories is
achieved by the constant interplay between data
collection and analysis that constitutes the con-
stant comparative method. The failure of data to
coalesce into definable conceptual structures that
move beyond the obvious may well be the result of
a researcher’s failure to thoroughly work between
data and extant knowledge in an effort to find the
best fit or the most plausible explanation for the
relationships being studied (Locke, 2001).
Finally, the researcher who has produced sim-
plistic output may simply have stopped collecting
data too early. Unlike more traditional, positivist
research, grounded theory offers no clean break
between collecting and analyzing data. Rather, a
researcher must continue to collect data until no
new evidence appears. This process, called “cate-
gory saturation,” is one of the primary means of
verification in grounded theory (Strauss & Corbin,
1998). Premature departure from the field may well
result in data that are only partly analyzed and
therefore fail to elevate obvious categorizations to a
more abstract theoretical level.
Grounded Theory Is Not Theory Testing, Content
Analysis, or Word Counts
I regularly see papers in which the authors at-
tempt to use grounded theory methods to test hy-
potheses. These fall into a larger category of manu-
scripts whose authors have engaged in the sloppy
practice of methodological slurring (Goulding,
2002), using interpretive methods to analyze “real-
ist” assumptions. In most cases the manuscripts
begin with clear sets of positivist assumptions, in-
cluding hypotheses, and then proceed to report
“tests” of the hypotheses with sets of interviews or
counts of words in relevant publications. In other
cases manuscripts will start with interpretive pre-
mises, such as the social construction of reputation
in the popular business press, and then report word
counts, with the claim of having performed
grounded theory.
Although there is nothing wrong with combining
qualitative and quantitative methods—in fact, the
practice should be encouraged—there must be
some degree of congruence between the research
question (i.e., a researcher’s assumptions about the
nature of reality and how one might know reality)
and the methods used to address the question. A
realist ontology rests on the assumption that the
variables of interest exist outside individuals and
are, therefore, concrete, objective, and measurable
(Burrell & Morgan, 1979). An “interpretivist” ontol-
ogy rests on the contrasting assumption that human
beings do not passively react to an external reality
but, rather, impose their internal perceptions and
ideals on the external world and, in so doing, ac-
tively create their realities (Morgan & Smircich,
1980). From this perspective, the key variables of
interest are internal and subjective.
Keep in mind that the purpose of grounded the-
ory is not to make truth statements about reality,
but, rather, to elicit fresh understandings about pat-
terned relationships between social actors and how
these relationships and interactions actively con-
struct reality (Glaser & Strauss, 1967). Grounded
theory thus should not be used to test hypotheses
about reality, but, rather, to make statements about
how actors interpret reality. As Martin and Turner
(1986) observed, grounded theory is best used
when no explicit hypotheses exist to be tested, or
when such hypotheses do exist but are too abstract
to be tested in a logical, deductive manner. This is
where grounded theory is most appropriate—
where researchers have an interesting phenomenon
without explanation and from which they seek to
“discover theory from data” (Glaser & Strauss,
1967: 1).
There are some qualifications to my statement
that grounded theory is not theory testing, content
analysis, or word counts. Although grounded the-
orists do not use Popperian notions of falsification
as a technique for making statements about reality,
they do “test” their tentative ideas and conceptual
structures against ongoing observations. A key
component of the constant comparative method is
such critical evaluation of emerging constructs
against ongoing observations. Similarly, although
grounded theory is not to be confused with content
analysis or word counting, both techniques can
form part of grounded theory studies. The impor-
tant difference is that grounded theory describes an
overall method for systematically gathering and an-
alyzing data, but content analysis describes a spe-
cific context within which a distinct type of data
can be gathered and analyzed. Typically, in a
grounded theory study, content analysis is only one
of multiple contexts for acquiring data. Word
counting, which is a subset of content analysis, is
somewhat more problematic in that it bears posi-
636 AugustAcademy of Management Journal
tivist assumptions about the relationship between
word frequency and meaning, most of which vio-
late the interpretivist assumptions of grounded the-
ory (Krippendorff, 2003).
Another important qualification to my comments
about methodological slurring arises from the way
in which grounded theory tends to be presented in
journal articles. Even though grounded theory re-
search is conducted iteratively, by analyzing and
collecting data simultaneously, it is usually pre-
sented sequentially. This gap occurs because the
norms of presentation in management (and other
academic) journals have positivist origins and im-
pose discrete and sequential categories of data col-
lection and analysis on authors trying to present
grounded theory research. In pure form, grounded
theory research would be presented as a jumble of
literature consultation, data collection, and analy-
sis conducted in ongoing iterations that produce
many relatively fuzzy categories that, over time,
reduce to fewer, clearer conceptual structures. The-
ory would be presented last.
Presenting grounded theory in this pure form,
however, would be neither efficient nor compre-
hensible to the majority of researchers who work in
the positivist paradigm. The norm that has evolved
is to present grounded theory in the traditional
discrete categories and in the same sequence as
quantitative research: theory, data collection, data
analysis, results. Doing so has the unfortunate con-
sequence of creating the impression of methodolog-
ical slurring, even when the constant comparative
method has been used. For those unfamiliar with
grounded theory techniques, the mode of presenta-
tion may also create the unfortunate impression
that grounded theory methods can be mixed with a
positivist research agenda.
There are ways of avoiding this incorrect impres-
sion while adhering to the sequential norms of
journal presentation. Foremost, the process of data
analysis, including coding techniques and category
creation, should be made apparent to the reader.
Authors can do this in their methods sections and,
in my opinion, such accounts are most effective
when the authors provide illustrative examples of
coding techniques and the evolution of conceptual
categories in a table or appendix.
Similarly, authors can note that, although they
are presenting theoretical concepts in a traditional
manner (i.e., up front in the study), the concepts
did, in fact, emerge from the study. Perhaps one of
the most eloquent versions of this statement came
from a manuscript recently reviewed in the Acad-
emy of Management Journal:
In framing our introduction and the following con-
ceptual overviews, we have employed the theoreti-
cal concepts that actually emerged from the study.
In the grounded, interpretive research approach
used here, the theoretical concepts and framework
are grounded in and emerge from the data and anal-
ysis that follow (Glaser & Strauss, 1967; Strauss and
Corbin, 1990), rather than being derived from prior
theory that guided data collection and analysis. A
“purist” rendition of interpretive research reporting
would, however, entail a lengthy and complex qual-
itative data presentation before the reader learns
what the major theoretical dimensions and contri-
butions are likely to be. In other words, the theory
would normally appear after the data presentation
(Dact, 1985). We suspend this interpretive reporting
hallmark for the sake of advance clarity, and employ
the more traditional presentational strategy of pro-
viding a theoretical overview first, to preview the
major findings and resulting model. It is important
to keep in mind, however, that these concepts actu-
ally emerged from the study itself (along with con-
sultations with relevant literature that were guided
by the emerging thematic analysis). (Anonymous,
provided by editor)
I like this caveat to the presentation of grounded
theory because it succinctly avoids the impression
of methodological slurring by identifying the
messy, nonlinear reality of grounded theory re-
search and, simultaneously, providing a practical
justification (i.e., comprehensibility) for presenting
the data and analysis in a traditional “sanitized”
format.
The key objection to mixing grounded theory
with hypothesis testing, however, is that doing so
tends to violate the notion of theoretical emer-
gence. That is, when a researcher uses grounded
theory techniques to “test” preconceived notions of
what is likely to be observed, chances are he or she
will “see” the intended categories and overlook
more emergent ones. This form of methodological
slurring tends toward “forced categories” in the
coding process (Glaser, 1992) and reduces
grounded theory technique from its intended pur-
pose of identifying new theory to one of simply
confirming extant understandings of a social phe-
nomenon as a consequence of the researcher im-
posing intentions on the data.
Grounded Theory Is Not Simply Routine
Application of Formulaic Technique to Data
Some manuscripts reinforce the myth that
grounded theory is a relatively mechanical tech-
nique. This myth has several manifestations. One is
to present grounded theory as a series of rigid rules,
such as “saturation is achieved when one has con-
2006 637Suddaby