MESSAGE FROM THE INSTRUCTOR: Hi, I'm David M. Boje, please feel free to e-mail  me with any thoughts, comments, suggestions, links, questions, etc. Always call me at home 532-1693 if you have a question or need something explained. This is home base for many qualitative researchers and teachers seeking to provide the opportunity for people to learn qualitative analysis.

You are training to have the best job on the planet, a research professor. It is my job to help you attain that job by equipping you with the most advanced qualitative analyses. This is a highly practical course on how to analyze qualitative (textual and interview)  materials in ways that result in publications for you. Several of the projects from this class have been published and become dissertation analyses. In 2000, two of my QM students are presenting All-Academy Showcase Symposiums at the Academy of Management Meetings in Toronto. In 2001 two students finished Ph.D.'s using methods learned in this class, in in 2002 another will finish.

Qualitative Methods are quite practical. The qualitative analyses you will master are as practical as any you might learn in SPSS or SAS. In fact our work in Ethnostatistics will allow you to learn to be a better quantitative researcher and theorist.  You can also use each analysis to address problems that may extend quantitative methods.  To learn why and when to apply each analysis, you will be learning several important qualitative philosophies. As Mark Twain said, "There is nothing more practical than a good theory." The course is organized around the chapters of my book, Narrative Methods for Organizational and Communication Research. London: Sage. You can order it most cheaply (soft back) via Amazon (also see reviews).

I assume that Qualitative Methods may be new to you. You are here to learn what is unknown to you, to apply your creative imagination. So as the guru on the guru on the mountain top said to the seeker, "if your cup is already full, I can not teach you." Anything unknown fear may come as a barrier to your growth.  Stretch your mind into the unknown of QM and you will discover a great treasure house that will serve you will throughout your career.  T

There are many qualitative rooms with many treasures in this mansion (WEEKLY ASSIGNMENT STUDY GUIDES). Please come into the QM mansion expecting to find positive qualities. Please open the door to each room in the qualitative treasure house with a sense of expectancy, enthusiasm, and excitement.

OFFICE HOURS: 5 to 7 PM - Monday.   Otherwise, please call 532-1693 for appointment

COURSE OBJECTIVES: at the end of this term, I expect you:

1. To understand the advantages and limitations of  eight qualitative methods
2. To learn to design and conduct qualitative research within the framework of three of the eight analysis approaches you will learn in this class
3. To have working knowledge of the capability of computer assisted textual data management and text analysis.
4. To produce a publishable (quality) product from qualitative data and analysis - use format for e-guide and APA 4th edition
5. To be able to assess qualitative journal articles using criteria, such as from the Academy of Management Journal
6. To be able to use qualitative analyses to construct better typologies, theories, and inquiry than when you first came to this class.

On occasion we will use a workshop format to deal with qualitative analysis techniques. This course utilizes the seminar approach. I view the graduate seminar as a lively place in which we encourage and constructively develop each others ideas. Effective seminars require participants to engage in the following behaviors:

ATTENDANCE POLICY - http://business.nmsu.edu/~dboje/503/attendance_policy.htm

We only meet once a week, so attendance is highly important. Attendance is 20% of your final grade. If you miss a class (or come too late), you owe me a 3 page makeup assignment based upon the topic of the missed class - use ASSIGNMENT STUDY GUIDE as a resource. You are also responsible for any analysis that was due that you may have missed. Missed buddy assignments are to be completed by email between you and then brought to class - Share feedback with your buddy.

1. 40 % A term project of your own design in which you apply one or more of the analyses being conveyed this term. Instructor will evaluate this. This will demonstrate your understanding of the course topics. NO TEAM PROJECTS, unless you are interviewing separate people, and transcribing and analyzing as individuals (working alone).  The best measure is actually completing the project and getting it published after the course has concluded( 25 pages maximum, with references and tables, appendices can be added as extra pages). NO GROUP PAPERS. You must write your own paper. Each paper is evaluated using AMJ criteria (but greatly softened for you, hand out in class). Note this project can be reviewed anytime during the term by submitting what you have, and you will be told your grade, and get this, given opportunity till the very last day to revised and resubmit, just like the real world of academic life. In short, if you solicit feedback, you can get your A, if you do what is asked of you.
2. 20% Attendance in class and constructive participation that is helpful to the instructor and to other students in the course. Must complete make up assignments and any buddy feedback assignments. Participation is primarily oral, any handouts, presentations, etc. are extra (see attendance policy). Assessment by buddies and by instructor.
3. 20% Complete weekly study guide module assignments on time (these are practice exercises, some of which may help in your term project). This will be a combination of peer and instructor assessment (see STUDY GUIDE). You will be assigned at buddy (a student in the class) who will write a constructive assessment of your assignment, with specific feedback. There are assignments for each week of class, but you will only do 50% of these. You will do half of them, and your buddy will do the other half. This means each week you either write up an assignment or write up a 1 to 2 page buddy assessment. Give the assessment to me and to your buddy in class. Missing an assignment or missing your buddy review has the same weight as missing class (see attendance policy).
4. 20% Class as a whole project - A class project (we will decide upon one together) in which we as a class actively participate and contribute.  This will be a combination of peer and instructor assessment.

DOCTORAL STUDENT RESPONSIBILITIES AND PERFORMANCE EXPECTATIONS

1. Each student is to write an article of "publication quality" based on one of the qualitative methodologies examined in this course. No group papers will be accepted. The paper, along with the data analyzed, is to be turned in during the last week of the course & be presented during final exam week.
1. Demonstrate mastery of one or more QM methods & QM philosophies of science.
2. Demonstrate mastery of the philosophical & fundamental assumptions of QM, including critical theory, poststructuralism, & postmodernism in class discussion, in written assignments, & in the publication project.
3. Define & integrate what qualitative inquiry is, its philosophy of science assumptions underlying its use.
2. To gain hands-on experiences of qualitative research methods you will complete weekly practice exercises in participant observation, discourse analysis, focus groups & other experiential exercises. No group work on assignments.
3. Each student is responsible for assigned readings & course assignments (no group work). You will, from time to time, be asked to lead a 20 minute discussion, respectful and thoughtful debate are crucial for the successful integration of scholarly materials, based upon the assignment you complete (there are weekly assignments, but you do half of these).
4. May or may not do the following: The class and I will collaborate in a joint project that we work on during the term. I envision weekly short analysis assignments (3 pages is good) that will lead us to generate a corporate product. If and when we find a collaborative environment, we will modify weekly assignments to fit. This will be a collective effort that will lead to publication (to those who stay with the project to its acceptance, revision, and publication). You and I will propose several projects and vote on one to enact this term.
5. You are expected to demonstrate your qualitative analysis learning in ways that leads to the positive learning experience of the entire class and for me. I dot not accept students putting each other down (or me down). Professional conduct is a graded part of your participant and attendance. If at any time during the seminar you are not excited about the course, please call me at home 532-1693 and speak to me directly.

QM is an old and well established methodology in Anthropology (ethnographic methods), Sociology (ethnomethodology), Folklore (narrative, myth, and ritual), Linguistic (sociolinguistics), & in English (rhetoric, hermeneutics, deconstruction). The philosophical roots bridge phenomenology, critical theory, poststructuralism, and postmodernism. For a quick overview, check out the website at "QM Resource"  at http://maple.lemoyne.edu/~hevern/nrmaster.html

QM is a detailed description of situations, events, people, and behaviors. It includes what people say about their experiences, attitudes, beliefs, and thoughts through recordings, documents, transcripts, records, and narrative histories. Qualitative data sources include observation and participant observation (fieldwork), interviews, texts, and the researcher's diary of impressions and reactions. QM is open-ended and does not impose, outsider, expert, academic, predetermined, categories (called Etic categories) such as the response choices that comprise typical questionnaires or tests. QM begins with specific observations and builds towards general observations and explorations of the people's grounded, categories-in-use (called Emic categories). Etic-emic is a basic distinction in Anthropology. Emic studies are more nomadic: The nomad is not at all the same as the migrant; for the migrant goes principally from one point to another, even if the second point is uncertain, unforseen, or not well localized. But the nomad goes from point to point only as a consequence and as a factual necessity; in principle, points for him are always relays along a trajectory. -- G.Deluze & F. Guattari A Thousand Plateaus (p. 380).

RELEVANCY TO MANAGEMENT: Deconstruction (Derrida) is being widely practiced in management. For example, assumptions and theories about technical rationality, emancipatory principles in information systems, IS-User relationships. Management under modernity is becoming what Foucault (1979) calls the "normalizing gaze" or institutional surveillance. Management, in some cases, is used to electronically monitor and gaze bank tellers, customer service representatives, market cashiers, and even professors. Electronic surveillance includes counting keystrokes of workers, monitoring calls between customers and employees, and video surveillance of unsuspecting employees. Management can be studied as a set of discursive practices that construct realities in ways that are beneficial or harmful to organizational members. Management can also be viewed as a disciplinary power emerging from a set of discursive practices. Management viewed as a discourse, relies upon talk, documents, performances that convey semantic meanings of what constitutes quality, efficiency, and information.

RELEVANCY TO MARKETING: Professors Dholakia, Firat, Sherry, Jr., and Venkatesh do critical theory (Habermas), poststructuralist (Foucault, Derrida) and postmodern (Baudrillard, Kristeva, Lyotard, Jameson) work in marketing (see attached QM Marketing Reading List). They look at postmodern consumer culture in shopping environments, clothing and fashion, and information capitalism. They look at consumer cultures in terms of Baudrillard's concepts of hyper-real, Lyotard and Foucault's "decentered" and Jameson's "fragmented culture." Hyperreality, to take one concept, defines the emergence of the symbolic and the spectacle and marketing's role in the creation of something which is "more real" than "real:" the "hyper-real."

Disney  is a commonly referenced example. Modernist concepts of consumer culture, on the other hand, assume a rational process based upon economic exchange values rather than one based upon signs, spectacle, and representations. Modernism concepts of consumer and producer were socially constructed during the Enlightenment era of history. In this seminar we will question the assumptions of modernist consumption: how gender and ethnicity are constituted in advertising, fictitious constructions of modernity, functionalist theories of global marketing, dualistic theories of consumers and markets, etc. What is marketing after modernity? If the structural-functional concepts of marketing are being deconstructed in postmodern business, then there is a retheorizing of marketing happening now. Topics of relevance to marketing include: the role of symbolism in consumption, fragmented consumer, Hyper-reality and spectacle, advertising as a form of symbolic communication, consumer cultures, constructing and deconstructing the consumer, and global culturalism.