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Hall of Shoulders

Qualitative & Mixed Methods

Barney Glaser & Anselm Strauss

Barney Glaser & Anselm Strauss is known for grounded theory, the constant comparative method, theoretical sampling, theoretical saturation. **Purpose:** A citation-grounded application of Glaser & Strauss's methodology to contemporary space challenges, for use as an adversarial methods-review lens in the COLLEGIUM.

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Adversarial questions for candidates

The falsifiable questions this brain puts to a dissertation candidate. They seed the pre-Conclave initial review whenever a candidate's topic matches the Qualitative & Mixed Methods lens.

  1. 1

    Emergence vs. forcing. "You present these categories as grounded in your data. Show the chain from raw incident to category to property. Did the categories emerge from constant comparison of the data, or were they imported from an existing framework (commons theory, OODA, prospect theory) and then illustrated with examples? Demonstrate that your central concept *fits and works* in the substantive area, rather than being forced onto it." (Falsifiable: the candidate can or cannot produce the incident-to-category audit trail.)

  2. 2

    Theoretical saturation. "You stopped collecting data at N cases / interviews / scenarios. State your saturation claim precisely: which categories were saturated, what was the last new property each yielded, and what evidence shows that further data would not have changed your theory? Per Saunders et al. (2018), saturation is a predictive statement about the unobserved, so defend the prediction." (Falsifiable: there either is or is not a documented point at which new data ceased to yield new properties.)

  3. 3

    Theoretical sampling. "Justify why you went to your *next* data source. Was each sampling decision driven by what your emerging theory needed (to sharpen, test, or saturate a category), or was your sample fixed in advance for convenience or representativeness? For an envisioned future space domain that you cannot sample directly, defend your choice of analogue and the comparison logic that links it to the target." (Falsifiable: sampling decisions were or were not theory-driven and documented.)

  4. 4

    Substantive vs. formal reach. "Is your theory substantive (bound to this one space context) or do you claim formal/general reach? If you claim it generalizes, across which other substantive areas did you compare to abstract the formal theory? If you have not compared across areas, withdraw the general claim and state the substantive boundary." (Falsifiable: cross-area comparison was or was not performed.)

  5. 5

    Fit, modifiability, and the imported-frame test. "Strip out every a priori theoretical term you imported. Does your account still hold together on the categories your data generated? And conversely: as the space industry changes under you, which parts of your theory are modifiable in light of new data and which are you treating as fixed? A grounded theory that cannot be modified by new incidents is not grounded." (Falsifiable: the candidate can or cannot restate the core finding without the imported scaffolding.)

Core Concepts & Space Translation

Grounded theory: generating theory FROM data, not verifying theory imposed on data

The founding move is an inversion of the mid-century social-science default. Instead of deriving hypotheses from a grand theory and testing them, the analyst generates theory systematically from the empirical material itself, so that the resulting theory "fits" and "works" in the substantive area it came from. Theory is treated as an ever-developing process, not a finished product, and is judged by fit, relevance, workability, and modifiability rather than by deductive elegance. Key work: Glaser & Strauss, *The Discovery of Grounded Theory: Strategies for Qualitative Research* (1967; reissued 2017), doi 10.4324/9780203793206.

Space translation

See Space Applications below for how this framework translates to contemporary space governance, drawn directly from the dossier's applied-literature review.

The constant comparative method

The analytic engine of grounded theory. The analyst continuously compares each new incident in the data to previous incidents and to the emerging categories, refining category properties, merging or splitting categories, and writing memos as theoretical notions are repeatedly redesigned and reintegrated. Glaser positioned this explicitly as a "third approach" distinct from (a) coding-then-analyzing to test a hypothesis and (b) inspecting data informally for new properties. Key work: Glaser, "The Constant Comparative Method of Qualitative Analysis," *Social Problems* (1965), doi 10.2307/798843 (also 10.1525/sp.1965.12.4.03a00070).

Space translation

See Space Applications below for how this framework translates to contemporary space governance, drawn directly from the dossier's applied-literature review.

Theoretical sampling

Sampling is driven by the developing theory, not fixed in advance. The analyst decides what data to collect next, and where to find it, on the basis of what the emerging categories require: the question "where do I go next?" is answered by "what will most sharpen, saturate, or test the current categories?" This couples data collection and analysis into a single iterative loop rather than separating them. Key work: Glaser & Strauss, *The Discovery of Grounded Theory* (1967/2017), doi 10.4324/9780203793206.

Space translation

See Space Applications below for how this framework translates to contemporary space governance, drawn directly from the dossier's applied-literature review.

Theoretical saturation

The stopping rule. A category is saturated when additional data no longer yield new properties, dimensions, or relationships for that category; sampling continues until the major categories are saturated. Saturation is the warrant for stopping data collection and the claim that the theory is dense enough. Its logic, and its later contested operationalization, are examined critically by Saunders et al., who show saturation is essentially a predictive statement about the unobserved based on the observed, with four distinct conceptualizations in circulation. Key works: Glaser & Strauss, *Discovery* (1967/2017); Saunders et al., "Saturation in qualitative research," *Quality & Quantity* (2018), doi 10.1007/s11135-017-0574-8.

Space translation

See Space Applications below for how this framework translates to contemporary space governance, drawn directly from the dossier's applied-literature review.

Substantive vs. formal theory (and the Glaser/Strauss split)

Grounded theory distinguishes *substantive* theory (developed for a specific empirical area, e.g. dying in hospitals) from *formal* theory (developed for a conceptual area, e.g. status passage), with formal theory generated by comparison across substantive areas. The tradition itself later forked: Glaser's emphasis on emergence and minimal forcing of data versus Strauss & Corbin's more procedural, axial-coding approach. For a COLLEGIUM lens this fork matters because it bears on how much a priori structure a candidate may legitimately bring to "grounded" claims. Key work: Glaser & Strauss, *The Discovery of Grounded Theory* (1967/2017), doi 10.4324/9780203793206 (substantive/formal distinction stated in the founding text).

Space translation

See Space Applications below for how this framework translates to contemporary space governance, drawn directly from the dossier's applied-literature review.