Methodological Issues Have we forgotten the place of thinking here?

Abstract

The article “grappling with the literature in a grounded theory study” (McCallin, 2003) has stimulated a lively discussion in the international grounded theory research community. In this paper, I reply generally to my colleagues’ responses and raise some further issues that I do not believe have been addressed to date. In particular, I question if current discussions about the place of literature review are incomplete if methodological matters are debated in isolation from issues of thinking. The purpose of this paper is to argue that although literature review is preferably minimised initially, simply focusing a study, in reality timing does not matter, as long as the analyst is critically analytical of literature at all times, and does not allow existing knowledge to preempt identification of the research problem or formation of the emergent theory. In a less than perfect world, some researchers who do not have the luxury of grounded theory supervision will review literature in advance, and others will include a review as per the methodological ideals. What is important however, is how literature is managed and how the researcher thinks about the material he or she is exposed to. In other words, is literature integrated theoretically into a study or simply regarded as the received view of science and material to be
accepted without question? The intent of the paper is not to remodel classical grounded theory but more to bring into the open some hitherto unexplained aspects of grounded theory thinking, which also affect what happens methodologically and ultimately, the rigor of the finished product. These issues are explored briefly.