You want to apply Grounded Theory according to Glaser and Strauss (1967) in your academic work?
Very cool!
It will be a challenge, but also a very enriching experience for you.
Grounded Theory is not for the faint of heart, but at the same time, it is the most powerful and interesting of all qualitative research methods.
Today, we will focus on the origin of Grounded Theory, the approach by Glaser and Strauss from 1967, what remains relevant today, and the significance of the major dispute between the two.
After watching the video, you will not only be able to participate in discussions about Grounded Theory, but you will also know whether you should conduct your qualitative study following the recommendations of Glaser & Strauss (1967), Strauss and Corbin (1998), or a completely different author!
Grounded Theory according to Glaser and Strauss (1967)
It all began with a book that made its mark in the history of science. This book is called “The Discovery of Grounded Theory,” published in 1967. The authors, Barney Glaser and Anselm Strauss, were two American sociologists who addressed an important research problem in their work.
The problem was that empirical social science was dominated by the quantitative paradigm. Researchers were trained solely to test the existing major sociological theories of that time.
However, this posed a problem because why assume that these theories could explain everything? Wouldn’t it be more appropriate to develop new theories as well?
In their book, Glaser and Strauss propose a return to qualitative data and systematically derive new sociological theories based on individuals’ behavior.
The book is now over 50 years old and was written in a different temporal context.
So, if you are encountering Grounded Theory for the first time, I recommend starting with a book that translates their ideas into the present-day context.
What are the fundamental ideas from Glaser and Strauss’ book (1967)?
The goal of Grounded Theory is to develop new theory. Researchers should not make any theoretical assumptions when starting their research.
Analysis and conceptualization occur through the process of “constant comparison,” where each segment of data is compared with all existing concepts and constructs to determine if it enriches an existing category (by complementing/improving its attributes), forms a new category, or indicates a new relationship.
New data are selected through the process of “theoretical sampling”, where researchers decide how and where the next sample will be drawn for analytical reasons (Urquhart, 2013).
Surprisingly, the basic principle of Grounded Theory remains the same as conceived by Glaser and Strauss in 1967.
In addition to theory, a Grounded Theory project can also result in a theoretical model or a “rich description.” All three outcomes are accepted in scientific literature and have their own value.
Theory: A theory consists of descriptions, definitions of variables, their relationships, justifications for these relationships, and the theory’s boundaries.
Model: A model consists of definitions of abstract variables and their relationships.
Rich Description: This is the description of empirical observations without abstraction.
Developing a theory is the most challenging, followed by a model, and then the rich description (Wiesche et al., 2017).
Since Glaser and Strauss first described Grounded Theory, a lot has happened.
Nowadays, there are several variations and different opinions on how Grounded Theory should be conducted.
The fact that so many versions of Grounded Theory exist today is mainly related to two individuals: Glaser and Strauss themselves!
The big dispute between Glaser and Strauss
It sounds a bit like a soap opera, but the two authors grew significantly apart over time. This was mainly due to their different ideas about how to conduct the Grounded Theory approach.
In 1978, Glaser published another book alone, introducing new ideas on how to facilitate the inductive development of categories. His interpretation of Grounded Theory was that the process of coding should take place as freely and without pre-defined structure as possible.
In 1990, his old friend Strauss then published a book with Juliet Corbin. Because their students struggled with the open approach from the 1967 book, the two developed quite clear rules on how coding should be done, following open, axial, selective, and processual coding.
This development did not sit well with Glaser, and a dispute over the identity of Grounded Theory according to Glaser & Strauss erupted.
The reason was that the approach according to Strauss and Corbin was easier to implement, but it disregarded the original idea of free, unrestricted coding. Glaser, by the way, recommended only three steps: open, selective, and theoretical coding.
For Glaser, it was essential to abstract from the data and create concepts that could stand independently of the context. On the other hand, Strauss emphasized the need to consider the context and situational factors during the analysis.
Moreover, theory formation could also be less inductive, guided by existing theories and literature. This was, of course, a no-go for Glaser!
In 1998, Strauss and Corbin published a new book, where they came a bit closer to the old idea of Grounded Theory.
However, this did not help to settle the dispute.
Strauss and Corbin
Since then, the literature roughly distinguishes between the Glaserian and Straussian approaches.
The main difference between the two approaches are the coding techniques that are used to analyse the data.
For Glaser, the way to go is to apply open coding, selective coding, and theoretical coding.
Strauss and Corbin (1998), in contrast, recommend to apply open coding, axial coding, and then selective coding.
If you are interested in tutorials about all of these coding techniques, just let me know in the comments and will make a little series of videos about them.
Which Grounded Theory approach is the right one for you?
If you ask me which approach I would recommend, I must unfortunately say:
Neither of them.
Glaser and Strauss are the pioneers of Grounded Theory, and any further development of the method is based on their ideas.
However, there are much better resources available today to learn Grounded Theory from scratch or to understand it for the first time.
I would start with secondary literature. The best methodological book on Grounded Theory that I know of is “Grounded Theory for Qualitative Research: A Practical Guide” by Cathy Urquhart.
This book is perfect for getting started. After that, you can take a look at the old books by Glaser and Strauss for curiosity’s sake.
But the book by Urquhart might not be suitable for citation in your methodology section. The reason is that it is a methodological book that explains the different approaches and provides practical guidance.
However, it does not present its own methodological approach.
When I have used Grounded Theory, I mostly followed the Gioia method. This approach is precisely explained in just one article from 2013 by Dennis Gioia and his co-authors.
However, understanding the paper and the Gioia method requires prior knowledge. You need to be familiar with the fundamental ideas of Grounded Theory, such as constant comparison or theoretical sampling, to apply the Gioia method. You can find my own tutorial on the Gioia method on my channel.
An alternative to Gioia is the book “Constructing Grounded Theory: A Practical Guide through Qualitative Analysis” by Kathy Charmaz, published in 2006.
You can find all the references under this video in the description.