Abstract

Qualitative comparative analysis is increasingly applied in strategy and organization research. The main purpose of our essay is to support this growing community of qualitative comparative analysis scholars by identifying best practices that can help guide researchers through the key stages of a qualitative comparative analysis empirical study (model building, sampling, calibration, data analysis, reporting, and interpretation of findings) and by providing examples of such practices drawn from strategy and organization studies. Coupled with this main purpose, we respond to Miller’s essay on configuration research by highlighting our points of agreement regarding his recommendations for configurational research and by addressing some of his concerns regarding qualitative comparative analysis. Our article thus contributes to configurational research by articulating how to leverage qualitative comparative analysis for enriching configurational theories of strategy and organization.

Keywords

Qualitative comparative analysisQualitative researchLeverage (statistics)Management scienceQualitative analysisInterpretation (philosophy)Empirical researchKnowledge managementSociologyComputer scienceEpistemologySocial scienceEngineering

Affiliated Institutions

Related Publications

Replication as Strategy

Replication, a familiar phenomenon sometimes referred to as the “McDonalds approach,” entails the creation and operation of a large number of similar outlets that deliver a prod...

2001 Organization Science 1291 citations

Publication Info

Year
2018
Type
article
Volume
16
Issue
4
Pages
482-495
Citations
1034
Access
Closed

External Links

Social Impact

Social media, news, blog, policy document mentions

Citation Metrics

1034
OpenAlex

Cite This

Thomas Greckhamer, Santi Furnari, Peer C. Fiss et al. (2018). Studying configurations with qualitative comparative analysis: Best practices in strategy and organization research. Strategic Organization , 16 (4) , 482-495. https://doi.org/10.1177/1476127018786487

Identifiers

DOI
10.1177/1476127018786487