Transcript Longitudinal Tracer Studies: Research Methodology of the

Longitudinal Tracer Studies:
Research Methodology of the
Middle Range
Professor Luiz Moutinho
Foundation Chair of Marketing
University of Glasgow, Scotland
The tracer is a methodological middle-range
approach that takes account of relevancy
and which involves practitioners in the
research process. The methodological
approach is consistent with middle-range
theory and thinking, and involves skeletal
prior theory, tags, a practioner network, and
continuous reflexivity. The longitudinal
tracer study can be a useful middle-range
solution to help close the researcherpractitioner gap.
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The longitudinal tracer is a
middle range methodology
for involving practitioners
more closely with the
research process.
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Longitudinal Tracer Studies
Tracer studies were used in longitudinal
research during the 1960s at Imperial College,
University of London by Joan Woodward, to
explore and to clarify the nature of
management control systems (Woodward,
1970a). The tracer approach was developed
during this work as a response to data overload
problems, which were largely because the
interviews had been focused on too much social
science theory (Woodward, 1965). Researchers
had found themselves bogged down by the
broad scope and detail of the collected data.
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Longitudinal Tracer Studies
The data were not just difficult to
conceptualize, but were also difficult to
translate onto paper as a coherent
account of what had actually happened.
So a more practice-focused approach was
adopted for later work, which was based
on the ‘actual as much as the perceived
character of the work of the people
interviewed’. (Woodward, 1970b, p 251).
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‘[A tracer study involves] the isolation of a
particular order or batch of products,
central to and representative of the firm’s
… activity, and by following its progress
through the planning, execution and
feedback stages of the control system,
observing the way in which people become
involved in plans, decisions and tasks
relating to it. (Kynaston Reeves and
Woodward, 1970, p 40)’
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Following the progress of an organizational
phenomenon is what defines quintessentially a
longitudinal tracer study. It is the direction of an
observed path of organizational activity rather than
theory that primarily influences the selection of
interviews, and which sets the boundaries for the
extent of field observations. The interview questions
are centred on the perceptions of the respondents in
terms of the jobs they have to perform rather than
prior theory.
Hornby and Symon (1994) discussed the use of
“tags”.
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Tracer studies are a method of identifying and
describing organizational processes (such as
decision-making and communication) across
time and stakeholder group by the use of
tag(s) . . . [for] following the unfolding
process through the organisation; prompting
the discussion of the process with
organisational members; and identifying
further important sources of information.
(Hornby and Symon, 1994, p 167)
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A tag enables a researcher to focus more narrowly on
those aspects that are primarily centred on the
specific element such as a management objective
that an organisation-wide process is there to
support. It serves to focus interview data in order to
make them more manageable for transcription and
analysis. It also helps to focus the research task to
identify relevant documents and the people who are
important to key events and critical activities.
However, while a tag is used to identify the
participants in the process, Hornby and Symon argue
that the tracer studies are not concerned with
analysing in detail the nature of the connectedness of
the individual, as, for example, in social network
analysis:
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[t]racers are concerned with shedding some light
on the process in which a group of individuals
has taken part. This means that the focus of the
study is not the connections between people, but
the context within which these connections take
place in relation to a given process. Tracers are
not about providing a detailed analysis of
relationships, but are a means of exploring the
attitudes and ideas of individuals in relation to a
process in which they have all participated in
some way. (Hornby and Symon, 1994, p 171).
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The use of tags enables the research
process to follow a specific and uniquely
appropriate path. The speed of
response and the role of a tag as an
involving point of focus for a
respondent during interview help to
resolve potential problems associated
with time lapse and memory. The tracer
approach also enables researchers to
constantly verify prior information.
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While the tracer approach places an
emphasis on empirical rather than
theoretically derived data, the role for
pre-determined or prior theory remains
important. It is used to help choose
tags as an influence on the content of
questions used for interview and to
provide a framework for data analysis.
It is the scale of prior theory that
matters.
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The question is how to bridge
the researcher-practitioner
gap. One solution is middle
range thinking.
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Middle Range Thinking
Bacharach (1989) argues that
management researchers who seek to
influence practice are really craft-persons
who look for limited or middle range
explanations for organisational
phenomena. Typically, rigour is to some
extent compromised for relevance and
the achievement of solvable problems.
Weick (1989) suggests that
organisational research should:
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‘move toward theories of the middle range . . .
Theories [that] are solutions to problems that
contain a limited number of assumptions and
considerable accuracy and detail in the
problem specification. The scope of the
problem is also of manageable size. To look
for theories of the middle range is to
prefigure problems in such a way that the
number of opportunities to discover solutions
is increased without becoming infinite.
(Weick, 1989, p. 521)’
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The idea of middle range theories
originated with the sociologist,
Robert Merton (1957).
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Worries about theoretical relevance in
sociology also provided a context for
grounded theory (Glaser and Strauss,
1967). In this approach a distinction is
made between formal and substantive
theory, where the latter is wholly
generated from data without reference
to formal or prior theory. In fact, theory
is more pragmatic than most people
think.
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One uses a model precisely in order to
escape from reality into something more
tractable, but nevertheless useful, from
which is should be possible to work back
to reality. Rationality operates not on
reality, but on abstractions. What is
required is an abstraction that is good
enough; and what is good enough
depends upon the problem, or more
generally on the stage reached in the
attempt to solve it. (Loasby, 1976, p 38).
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More recently, Laughlin (1995,
2004) extends the middle range
idea to ‘thinking’ rather than
‘theory’, by using middle range
combinations of theory,
methodology and change.
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The notion of skeletal generalisations
was first raised by Laughlin (1995).
This is theory that imparts some prior
broad understanding of the phenomena
to be investigated. It is a particularly
useful idea for longitudinal tracer
research, which Laughlin conveys well
in the following:
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‘a methodology which sets ‘skeletal’ rules
for processes of discovery which still allows
for variety and diversity in observational
practice. [The] design and use of skeletal
theories, which cannot stand on their own
but need empirical flesh to make them
meaningful and complete, is a way to
preserve both the strengths of the high and
low perspectives while avoiding their
respective weaknesses.
(Laughlin, 1995, pp 82-83)’
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In this sense the ‘skeletal’ theory guides
the discovery process but in such a way
that can be relative to the ‘fit’ of the
detailed ‘flesh’ that is being added. This
is in marked contrast to reliance on
‘complete’ prior theories where the
empirical detail is seen only as a way to
either confirm or falsify the theory.
(Laughlin, 2004, p. 268)’
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The tags act as a form of nonprobability sampling for the
collection of data.
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Because longitudinal tracers
work over an extended time, it
is never certain which direction
and which respondents will
become involved and remain
involved.
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Reflexivity concerns essentially
the influence of the research on
the researched subject.
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The Researcher-Practitioner Relevance Gap
Some of the recent literature makes a distinction
between Mode 1 and Mode 2 research (Gibbons
et al. 1994), notably Tranfield and Starkey
(1998). Mode 1 is discipline based and rigorous,
while Mode 2 is transdisciplinary and focused on
practitioner relevance. Tranfield and Starkey,
following Becher (1989), argue that management
research has a weak theoretical unity, with a low
sense of knowledge progression, a lack of
disciplinary cohesion and shared purpose for
research, and has a low concentration of
researchers on particular topics (see also Whitley,
1984).
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The gap can only be bridged by
a position that is high in both
theoretical/methodological
rigour and practical relevance.
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Hornby and Symon developed more
specifically the idea for tagging
organizational phenomena. This serves
to limit the role for prior theory and is
consistent with middle range thinking,
which suggests a skeletal approach for
prior theory.
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