This is a chapter on 4th wave grounded theory from my new book for the seminar. I am hoping you all can use it in your CABRINI assignment -- David

Organizational Research Methods:

Storytelling In Action

David M. Boje

March 30, 2017; Revised July 24, 2017

Book is due March 2018 to Routledge Publishers

Chapter 1 – 4th Wave Grounded Theory

There is no ‘ground’ and no ‘theory’ in Grounded Theory (GT)! Most every dissertation or qualitative study I review claims to do GT, but does not notice that GT has changed radically over the years. Now I ask, what GT wave are you doing? Each of the first three GT waves has it’s own epistemic fallacy.

  • First wave GT (1967-1993) commits induction fallacy by doing qualitative method to generate theory propositions out of practice that go untested and ignore historical context (Glaser & Strauss, 1967). It fails Karl Popper's critique of inductive logic for failing to do falsification or verification of inductive propositions. Glaser and Strauss (1967: pp. 2-3) say “the discovery of theory from data systematically obtained from social research” is an idea they picked up from Merton, for whom the meaning of ground is non-theoretical social practice, out of which theory can be generated.
  • Second wave GT (1994-2009)adds deductive fallacy of logical positivism reductionism. It applies existing theory frameworks, and then uses positivistic coding to fit in interview and observation content into abstract schemata. Strauss and Corbin (1994: 21) gave GT a hermeneutic facelift Theory and practice are said to build in a reciprocal relationship with one another. This ‘reciprocal theory/practice’ approach was short lived.
  • Third wave GT (2010-2017)tries to rescue 1st and 2nd waves (still unfurling) with ‘social constructivism’ epistemology. Mills et al. (2008: 27-8) prefer a social constructivist turn in GT, and accuse Strauss and Corbin (1990, 1998) of never addressing which paradigm (i.e. positivism, interpretivism, hermeneutics, etc.) underpins their thought. Annells (1996) noticed early on how GT’s postmodern (social constructivist) turn had begun to break with symbolic interactionism and other sociological theories. 3rd wave GT keeps the positivistic coding dogma, which itcontinues to dualize from its subjective interpretivism, then fails to do falsification or verification.

These first GT waves are disembodied ‘ways of knowing’, not grounded in ‘Being-in-the-world’ spatially, temporally, and materially, the inseparability of ‘spacetimemattering’ in the field of Being. In the first three waves of GT, organization research has sacrificed the body, the living story of embodied existence in order to generate so-called ‘GT’ that is a positivistic ontology to objectify inductive inquiry. The marriage of positivism to first three GT waves, results in a dualism between (inter) subjectivity and objectivity.

I submit that GT is disembodied organization research, too quick to construct inductive typologies into abstract category schemata, render storytelling inquiry too desevered from embodiment. To construct theory using inductive method and positivistic analytic coding procedures is the objectification of intersubjectivity. In this book I propose a 4th wave GT, as an embodied ontology and a dialectic approach. We want to make an ‘ontological turn’ to GT we are calling ‘Fourth wave.’ I am an ontologist.

The main contribution of the book is a dialectics approach we are calling ‘Fourth Wave Grounded Theory.’

  • Fourth wave GTtakes the turn to‘ontology’, putting context on center stage, exploring embodiment and sociomateriality (Boje, Saylors, Svane, & Hillon, in review). We propose several ontological foundations to 4th wave. They share an intersubjectivity inquiry in which there is verification of propositions, and in some cases falsification. Gephart has many such breakthroughs, pointing out the political importance of friendships, for example by referring to one person as “closest friend…” and others as “not regarded by him as friends…” (1978: 561). He also presages the intersubjectivist paradigm that drives 4th wave GT by seeking to “minimize the possibly one-sided nature of descriptive accounts” (p. 562). The differences are in how to approach dialectics. Here again there are several contenders; (Follett, Heidegger, Žižek, Brier, and Bhaskar respectively have different revisions of Hegelian dialectics).

In sum, we find that much of existing research that claims to use GT is without ontologic substantive ‘ground’ in its method, and thus lacks the substance needed to develop formal ‘theory’.

‘Storytelling In Action’ is 4th wave ontological and dialectical inquiry, in, around, and between organizations. It is ontological, the meaning of Being-in-the-world, in context, in situation. It is dialectic between institutional narratives, a person’s living story, and the body. It is dynamic because there is always more than one story, always a counternarrative to every master or dominant narrative an organization tries to hide behind. ‘Storytelling in Action’ has dynamical processes that define and shape other organization processes. ‘Storytelling in Action’ interpenetrates across embodiment, sociomateriality, socioeconomics, to globality, because of multifractality and storytelling dialectics, all the way to world making.

Figure 3: Storytelling In Action

Grounded Theory and Action Research methods have ignored ‘Storytelling-Action’, including its processes, dialectics, multifractality.

‘Storytelling in Action’ is situated, Being-in-the-world. Storytelling-scale is ways to move forward in relation to other scales. Another notion of storytelling-scaling is called fractal that is always in relation to a moving multifractal (scales within scales of self-sameness and differentiation). Here is my Storytelling-scale-in-Action Manifesto:

1. There is no ‘ground’ and no ‘theory’ in Grounded Theory because (multi) fractal-scale is the ground of storytelling, and is being ignored.

Each year hundreds of dissertations are written claiming to do Grounded Theory (GT), Ethnographic interviewing, life story (or life history) interviewing, focus group interviewing, phenomenal interviewing, semi-structured interviewing, narrative interviewing, or some related interview practice that are actually just pretty terrible interviewing habits that do not live up to the claimed ‘ethical’ or ‘rigor’ ideals of their apologists. GT was created as a practical method to build substantive theory from the ‘interpretative’ analysis of qualitative made into ‘data’. GT has had three waves, all turned toward logical positivism. In its first wave Inductive Positivism (1965 – 1989), GT is indicative of inductive-storytelling-pragmatism, and not intended to be theory. Rather GT is a means of constructing theory out of data using careful coding logical positivistic analyst procedures. Second wave Reciprocal Theory/Practice (1990-2009) turns more positivistic, casting about the published theory for concept themes and codes to use on collected storytelling. Third wave Social Constructivism (2010-now), GT turns toward social constructivism, yet is still mired in positivism, a line-by-line open coding of subjects’ storytelling, without any kind of critical context analysis, such as the classic sort of social construction (Berger & Luckmann, 1966) which was decidedly dialectical and sociological. In this book, I join my colleagues (Saylors, Svane, & Cai-Hillon, in review) in proposing a Fourth wave GT, one we call ontological storytelling. There are many ontologies. Here I mean the sociomateriality, and embodied storytelling, which is dialectical and dialogical (Boje, 2008, 2014).

2. There is no Action and no Theory in Action Research, not anymore, because storytelling-scale-in-‘Action’ is being ignored.

I believe the early days of Action Research (AR), rooted in Paulo Freire is still somewhat to be found ‘participative AR’ had both action and theory. However, do a critical read of the AR handbooks and journals, and you will be hard pressed to find either action, theory, and for that matter, systematic research. It is a shallow approach, overrun these days by social constructivism, the sensemaking by analyst’s of other people’s storytelling, often collected in a static interviewing situation, with the organizational researcher, attempting to be non-existent. AR has married Appreciative Inquiry (AI), where one collects five positive stories to any worker’s negative story. It serves the authors of the master narratives of any complex organization, but leaves too many untold stories out of the inquiry. I cannot recommend it as an organization research method. Of course AR exists as a myriad of modes, and I prefer Freire, where the expert researchers, actually let the peasantariat and the farmworker, the factory wage slave all participate as more that in-place metering devices for analyst’s social constructions.

3. Qualitative storytelling is losing ground to Quantitative narratology because qualitative storytelling is ignoring its advantage, its ways of assessing and enacting scalabilities.

It is a fact that organizational researchers are trained in more hours of statistics and (post) positivistic topic seminars than they are in qualitative inquiry. The result is the student is exposed to so few hours of qualitative storytelling we call interpretivism, that a shallow understanding of social constructivism, is all there is time for. In can tell you that in past 21 years, in our organizational Ph.D. program, the number of statistics required courses increased to five, and the number of quantitatively design and topic seminars to five, leaving me to teach two courses in qualitative arts. That is 10 to 2. Even while I teach qualitative storytelling, I find the students ensconced in statistics, such as structural equation modeling, advanced regression equations, multivariate analysis of variance, etc. are so stressed, so overtaken by quantitative logical positivist propaganda, they can barely focus on a counter-approach. They hear, again and again, “If you cannot measure it, it does not exist” and “You cannot publish qualitative work, best to learn your equation modeling, so you will get a ‘real’ job”. I usually start with Robert Gephart’s (1988) Ethnostatistics, since most of the students in the seminars I teach, have already opted out of any qualitative future in their career, and are signed to the quantification, positivistic, and deductive life. Most top-tier universities with organization research doctoral seminars have not one philosophy of science course, and not one qualitative research seminar. Is it any wonder most of the journal reviewers, have no clue what to do with Fourth wave ontological storytelling, except to put it in the reject pile.

4. There is Storytelling in Action that is more than Case Analysis because storytelling-is-scaling, in a scaling-context that is beyond the prison of case study.

The (post) positivist method folks reduce qualitative work to case analysis. There is some respect for doing comparative case analysis to build a justification to quantify all the derived themes, and do something rigorous, like structural equation modeling. Since we are told in method courses, you cannot generalize from a case, its better to skip case work, and just have 100 undergraduates pretend to be executives, as they fill out a survey, that can then be analyzed using structural equations. To me, that is a shallow use of quantitative storytelling, and a marginalization of some amazing interpretative storytelling work. If it’s not case method, then what is it? Think about physics, they don’t use surveys, and there is a good deal of qualitative inquiry, interpretations of what is happening, along with a good deal of math. No sane physicist would say, ‘we need to conduct a survey, and do a regression’. One way out of the case study dead end is ‘storytelling scalability.’ Storytelling has scale: size, extent, landscape, encompassment, interconnectedness, entwinement, and other scalar relationships. Storytelling, be it master narrative, living story, or antenarrative --- has scaling relations among events, persons, actions, and institutions.

5. Storytelling lives in the scaling-action, not in the mindless surveys, nor in the semi-structured interviews that are blind to scalability.

Storytelling in action means the storytelling has its own generativity, its own aliveness, in the sociomaterial and socioeconomic, and sociopolitical practices of an organization. Storytelling is definable as ‘scale-using processes that are ideological and situated in space, in time, and in materiality (or mattering).’ All storytelling processes are ideological and situated in scaling. Scaling-action speaks louder than words. Too much storytelling work is about words, not enough about embodied action storytelling-scalability. I think Argyris tried to differentiate an Action Science from an Action Research. You have heard of the difference between ‘espoused theory’ and ‘theory in use.’ The ‘in use’ is the storytelling-scaling in action. An espoused master narrative, may try to pass for a-perspectival, a one-scale told that fits all situations, and is universal. To get at storytelling-scaling-action, means observation, participant observation is even better, and being able to interpret the action landscape to contextualize scaling indexicality and scaling experiencing, and the recurring fractality, and unique storytelling scaling-actions.

6. There is always a Counternarrative to every Master Narrative at some multifractal context.

There is a need to bring together storytelling in action with ideology. There are storytelling scales within scales, fractals within multifractals. A master narrative constructs a scaling model of real-time interaction, contextualizes experiences, places actors and listeners in a narrow or wide scale of experience. Master narratives (mainly top down scales) are rampant in organizations, but so are the counternarratives (often seeking to become bottom-up or inside-out counter-master narratives). Hegemony is about ideology, and there are counter-hegemonic ideologies that engage and enact scaling. Master-narratives and -counternarratives place experience in scaling contexts, in socially, and oftentimes economically positioned situatedness. Master narratives have their own gaze, portending to be the gaze form nowhere, or the gaze from some scaling perspectivity, which is of course, an ‘authoring ideology’, and an ‘authorizing ideology’ that claims to posit its point of view in scaling inclusiveness and exclusiveness. That raises a question, is there a difference between master narratives scaling (& counternarratives) and the scaling of hegemonic and counterhegemonic ideologies? Are master narratives hegemonic in scaling? Yes, but not always. There are some differences, and differences do matter in inter-scaling between ideologies and narratives.

7. The Untold Stories exist beyond the hegemonic and counterhegemonic master narratives and counternarratives in scalabilities of Tamara-land.

Untold stories have yet to be told, sometimes are not allowed to be told, or too dangerous for the teller to be told. (Izak, Hitchin, & Anderson, 2015;Hichin, 2015; Izak & Hitchin, 2014). Linda Hitchin (2015) addends to untold story in research methods and organization storytelling practice. Untold stories are “boundless magnitude and scale” in organization relations. She draws on David Boje’s (1995, 2011, 2012) work in Tamara-land storytelling organization theory, antenarrative theory, and quantum storytelling theory. In Tamara-land theory, each new teller edits the original performed story others are telling by inserting their own scale-making, scale-trope, scale-metaphor, scale-characterization, and/or scale-emplotment. This indifference to the in situ story-scale performance, privileges a quieten a passive non-telling of untold stories because institutional storytelling often pretends to be a-perspectival (without scale, or a one scale fits all). Tamara-land theory situates story-scaling work enactment in the political, by embedding buildings, rooms, and landscape of the spatial and temporal shifting material (mattering) contexts of organizations. In organizations, bigger than the one room schoolhouse, participants in ongoing storytelling are not all in the same room, at once. Rather people in organizations, as in a Tamara play, are not one audience, in one room, witnessing story performances, in one scale. In the real ‘spacetimemattering’ of organizations, some people are in particular room, while others are in their own rooms, or in corridors, parking places, etc. distributed spatially and temporally in multifractal (multi-embedded scales that interact). People in Tamara-land, must decide which room or hallway to be in, whom to follow, to trace the shifting meaning of stories told in one room and another room, and that means they are scale-tracers, scale sensemakers, multifractal enactors. You cannot as an individual be in all the storytelling rooms, or all scales, at once. Some storytelling-scale choice is involved.

Storytelling in Action is the dynamic interplay between antenarratives, narratives and counternarratives, and webs of living story enacted in, around, and between organizations. Storytelling is a three-fold, or triadic phenomena with three domains. The first domain of storytelling is Narrative, the second is living story webs, and the third is the antenarrative processes allowing living stories to be reduced into narratives and living stories to persist beyond narrative reduction.

Figure 4: Triadic Storytelling in Three Aspects (original drawing by D. M. Boje, used by permission for this book)

Let’s start with the main culprit: Shallow Interviewing Schemes The classical semi-structured interviewing pedagogy of organization studies, in the main, has yet to understand the change in interviewing methods, that the Hawthorne Studies initiated when in July of 1929, after 1600 interviews, they halted the project. The Hawthorne Studies interviewers changed their interviewing method from semi-structured and structured interviews they called the ‘direct approach to questioning’ to the ‘indirect approach’ in which people told their accounts and stories, without interruption, without trying to herd the interviewee back so some a priori topics and sub-topics (p. 203). It is this ‘direct approach’ that might unlock the vista of multifractal storytelling-scaling. In the indirect approach to interviewing, participants were invited to talk spontaneously on topics that interested them, rather than be limited to a pre-determined list of structured questions, or semi-structured topics.

By October 1929, a second change in interviewing was initiated. Instead of taking notes on the positive or negative statements made regarding the a priori topics of supervision, working conditions, and company (and their sub-themes), the interviewer made verbatim notes on all topics that the participant brought up, using what we now call, ‘’non-specific questioning’ technique (see work by Henri Savall in the Socioeconomic interviewing chapter summarized below).

What was different about the answerable interviewing approaches in this book? Many begin with indirect, or ‘non-specific questioning’ approaches in order to put the interviewee in a conversation with the interviewer, rather than asking a list fo structured or semi-structured interview questions, which is the common [interrogation] interviewing practice, for studying organizations.

In this book, the role of the interviewer is reimagined, from interrogator to answerability in a dialogical and a dialectical process involving storytelling-scaling. The interrogator in semi-structured interviewing is actually forcing a topic-by-topic structured interviewing into an agenda that is not suited for organization studies of multifractality. In dialogical and in dialectical interviewing, there is co-inquiry, a non-specific questioning about scaling that is at the same time non-directive.