MICHAEL DEMPSEY - Cranfield University

understandable cognitive mechanisms are intervening between
stimulus and action. He then proposes procedures for analysis, which
can be summarized as follows:-
• Code each instance of active environmental stimulus
• Code each instance of action
• Seek to link all instances of stimulus and action
• Speculate as to possible underlying mechanisms which could
offer an explanation of the cognitive processes which intervene
between, and explain, links between instances of stimulus and
response
• Develop the theory, continually testing and modifying the coding
scheme. Focus on a cognitive process which offers a valid link
between stimulus and action
• Write the theory at three levels; (1) case narratives with
illustrative data examples (2) summary within-case and crosscase
tabulations (3) theoretical propositions and summary
process models.
Before explaining the methods of data analysis applied in this case, it is
appropriate to describe the analysis tool employed. This was QSR
NVivo version 2. N Vivo as a tool and its utility is described in Bazeley
and Richards (2000). The software stores documents in rich text format
and enables ideas to be coded and stored at nodes. ‘NVivo allows
management of nodes in logical trees. Nodes are cut, copied, merged
as the researcher gets a stronger feeling for what is going on with the
data.‘ (page 6). Categories for coding can be shaped ‘using a search
tool that enables you to specify the scope of the search and what you
want to do with the result.’ (page 6) As any of these processes are
taking place, the researcher can add memos, or databytes, which
attach to a specified piece of text and go with that text wherever it
appears, reminding the researcher of a salient piece of information
arising whilst the text was being explored. Back up CDs made at each
stage of analysis enable an audit trail to be constructed.
For this project, the software enabled a large amount of data to be
imported, stored, analysed and searched. The transcripts of all 56
interviews were imported into NVivo. Attributes were set up for each
interview, enabling each one to be analysed by reference to individual
or union characteristics. A tree of nodes was then established, based
on the propositions. Later, relevant documents collected from the four
case study unions were scanned into my system and imported into
NVivo; larger, bound, texts were set up as proxy documents
(summaries of key points, treated in the same way as any other text).
The analysis process adopted was as follows:-
1. Rough code data into substantial chunks of text. In this process
large amounts of text were coded to one or more of the nodes.
During the process, new nodes were added – for example when
interviewees described various managerial activities they
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