The Theory and Application of Process Research to the Study of IT Strategy-Making

This chapter presents an overview of process research and places a particular emphasis on reviewing the process method. Some insights into the nature of process are presented. The purpose of this chapter is to describe the process method in detail. Some of the methodological challenges involved in conducting process-oriented inquiry are highlighted. Appropriateness of the method to study strategy-related issues is presented which interlocks well with its suitability to investigate issues of interest in relation to IT strategy-making. Application of the process method cycle of research steps is recommended to distil rigorous and relevant theory. Alternative process research sense-making strategies are revealed at a very high-level only. Narrative analysis is presented as a viable sense-making approach to theorize process data and key features of this analytical strategy are revealed. Emerging issues and opportunities that intersect with the IT strategy-making construct are discussed.

Trendy Avatars and Their Hair

This case study uses multiple qualitative methods to examine cultural meanings of virtual goods in a virtual world or Massively Multiplayer Online Game (MMOG) with consumer marketing promotions. Through participant observation, avatar hair emerged as a key virtual good. Symbolic displays in social interaction showed different meanings and uses for types of hair available to users, including high-status rare hair, and versions aligned with marketing promotions and real-world brands. Study of online artifacts examined user-generated content, such as user forums and machinima. The long interview method subsequently was employed to gather insight from users. Findings demonstrate how different data from these online methods provide rich meanings for avatar hair related to symbolic interactionism and self-presentation. Methods explore co-production among users, platform, and marketing efforts. Cultural meanings, user self-displays, and corporate influences related to avatar hair are presented. Avatar hair emerged as a status artifact that often revealed levels of social skills or wealth in this virtual culture, at times connected with marketing promotions relevant outside of the virtual world. Methodological implications are explored for avatar-based participation, artifacts from social networking and other technologies, and ethical approaches.

Exploiting Enriched Knowledge of Web Network Structures

Understanding Web network structures may offer insights on various organizations and individuals. These structures are often latent and invisible without special software tools; the interrelationships between various websites may not be apparent with a surface perusal of the publicly accessible Web pages. Three publicly available tools may be “chained” (combined in sequence) in a data extraction sequence to enable visualization of various aspects of http network structures in an enriched way (with more detailed insights about the composition of such networks, given their heterogeneous and multimodal contents). Maltego Tungsten™, a penetration-testing tool, enables the mapping of Web networks, which are enriched with a variety of information: the technological understructure and tools used to build the network, some linked individuals (digital profiles), some linked documents, linked images, related emails, some related geographical data, and even the in-degree of the various nodes. NCapture with NVivo enables the extraction of public social media platform data and some basic analysis of these captures. The Network Overview, Discovery, and Exploration for Excel (NodeXL) tool enables the extraction of social media platform data and various evocative data visualizations and analyses. With the size of the Web growing exponentially and new domains (like .ventures, .guru, .education, .company, and others), the ability to map widely will offer a broad competitive advantage to those who would exploit this approach to enhance knowledge.

Online Focus Groups

The overall aim of this chapter is to provide a better understanding of how a specific technique of online research methodology, online focus groups, has been theoretically conceptualized and practically utilized in order to examine its advantages and disadvantages to improve future applications of this technique in qualitative and mixed methods research. The chapter offers an overview of qualitative and mixed methods empirical research using online focus groups in different disciplines and outlines the strengths and weaknesses of this data collection technique. In addition, based on the review of empirical and theoretical research, the current and emerging practices in and characteristics of using online focus groups for data collection are outlined and used to suggest future trends in using this data collection technique in qualitative and mixed methods research.

Software-Assisted Transcribing for Qualitative Interviews

This chapter introduces a guide to transcribing qualitative research interviews assisted by digital transcription software. It also provides practical advice on transcribing methods, conventions, and options. It is useful in its exploration of the challenges involved with transcribing, while it offers detailed solutions and advice for the novice researcher. The chapter also addresses key concerns, like the time it takes to transcribe, transcription tools, and digital versus analogue recordings. As a method chapter based on experiences from a case, it takes on a practical approach by demonstrating the benefits of data analysis software packages with examples and screenshots on how to specifically use the software package Express Scribe. The pros and cons of using a transcriptionist are also discussed. A real transcript is presented in the chapter, and the steps involved with developing and formatting it are offered in detail. The guidelines suggested in this chapter are concentrated on the pragmatic hands-on experience of a researcher with examples from a real life large-scale qualitative study based on in-depth interviews. The significance of transcribing within the analytical process and the methodological insights of using Express Scribe eventually emerge as a developing concept from this work.

Practical Wisdom of Tool and Task

The purpose of this chapter is to explain the effective use of digital tools to display and analyze mixed methods data and to identify the challenges and possibilities of doing a qualitatively driven mixed methods study of technology use in education. To frame this chapter, examples from a qualitatively driven mixed methods study of doctoral students, which explored how the use of mobile technology affected engagement in the class experience, are presented. Additionally, the authors discuss the limits, implications, and possibilities of inductively driven mixed methods, while dealing with issues of academic rigor and trustworthiness using Morse and Niehaus's (2009) guidelines for mixed methods research design and the ways in which digital tools enhance rigor and trustworthiness.

Leveraging Two Computer-Assisted Qualitative Data Analysis Software Packages to Support Discourse Analysis

The purpose of this chapter is to illustrate how Computer-Assisted Qualitative Data Analysis Software (CAQDAS) packages, such as ATLAS.ti or Transana, can be used to support the transcription and data analysis process of large interactional data sets – specifically data analyzed from a discourse analysis perspective. Drawing from a larger ethnographic study, in this chapter the author illustrates how carrying out the transcription and analysis process within a CAQDAS package (in this case, Transana and ATLAS.ti) allows for an increase in transparency within the transcription and data analysis process, while also meeting the particular needs of the discourse analyst. By using one particular case/research study, the author demonstrates how CAQDAS packages might function to support a researcher in generating a more systematic and transparent analytical process, specifically during the early stages of the analysis process. The author gives particular attention to interactional data (i.e., 300 hours of video and audio recordings of therapy sessions) collected in a larger study and demonstrates the potential benefits of working across two CAQDAS packages, specifically Transana and ATLAS.ti, to support both the nuanced transcription process and the larger data analysis process.

Capturing Definitions for a Sustainable Distance Education Ecosystem through an Online Delphi Study

In broadest terms, ecology is the scientific study of interactions among organisms and their environment, and ecosystem defines a community of living organisms in conjunction with the nonliving components of their environment interacting as a system. At present, both terms are references of many studies including education; various authors and studies investigating distance education with an ecological perspective refer to the ecosystem concept as frameworks for defining the operational components and processes. Among all these contributions, the concept of “waste,” one of the key concerns of sustainability, seems to be vaguely discussed. Having this as a standpoint, an online Delphi study was carried out in a research project at Anadolu University, Turkey, aiming to define a sustainable distance education ecosystem including the explanation of “waste” with reference to ecosystem definitions. The study was processed online and is explained by both presenting the results and discussing the benefits and also difficulties encountered.

Expressing Data, Space, and Time with Tableau Public™

Virtually every subject area depicted in a learning object could conceivably involve a space-time element. Theoretically, every event may be mapped geospatially, and in time, these spatialized event maps may be overlaid with combined data (locations of particular natural and human-made objects, demographics, and other phenomena) to enable the identification and analysis of time-space patterns and interrelationships. They enable hypothesis formations, hunches, and the asking and answering of important research questions. The ability to integrate time-space insights into research work is enhanced by the wide availability of multiple new sources of free geospatial data: open data from governments and organizations (as part of Gov 2.0), locative information from social media platforms (as part of Web 2.0), and self-created geospatial datasets from multiple sources. The resulting maps and data visualizations, imbued with a time context and the potential sequencing of maps over time, enable fresh insights and increased understandings. In addition to the wide availability of validated geospatial data, Tableau Public is a free and open cloud-based tool that enables the mapping of various data sets for visualizations that are pushed out onto a public gallery for public consumption. The interactive dashboard enables users to explore the data and discover insights and patterns. Tableau Public is a tool that enables enhanced visual- and interaction-based knowing, through interactive Web-friendly maps, panel charts, and data dashboards. With virtually zero computational or hosting costs (for the user), Tableau Public enables the integration of geospatial mapping and analysis stands to benefit research work, data exploration and discovery and analysis, and learning.

Querying Google Books Ngram Viewer's Big Data Text Corpuses to Complement Research

If qualitative and mixed methods researchers have a tradition of gleaning information from all possible sources, they may well find the Google Books Ngram Viewer and its repository of tens of millions of digitized books yet another promising data stream. This free cloud service enables easy access to big data in terms of querying the word frequency counts of a range of terms and numerical sequences (and languages) from 1500 – 2000, a 500-year span of book publishing, with new books being added continually. The data queries that may be made with this tool are virtually unanswerable otherwise. The word frequency counts provide a lagging indicator of both instances and trends, related to language usage, cultural phenomena, popularity, technological innovations, and a wide range of other insights. The text corpuses contain de-contextualized words used by the educated literati of the day sharing their knowledge in formalized texts. The enablements of the Google Books Ngram Viewer provide complementary information sourcing for designed research questions as well as free-form discovery. This tool allows downloading of the “shadowed” (masked or de-identified) extracted data for further analyses and visualizations. This chapter provides both a basic and advanced look at how to extract information from the Google Books Ngram Viewer for light research.