Longitudinal Tracer Studies: Research Methodology of the Middle Range

1. Longitudinal Tracer Studies: Research Methodology of the Middle Range Professor Luiz Moutinho Foundation Chair of Marketing University of Glasgow, Scotland

2. 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 researcher-practitioner gap. Professor Luiz Moutinho

3. The longitudinal tracer is a middle range methodology for involving practitioners more closely with the research process. Professor Luiz Moutinho

4. 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. Professor Luiz Moutinho

5. 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). Professor Luiz Moutinho

6. ‘[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)’ Professor Luiz Moutinho

7. 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”. Professor Luiz Moutinho

8. 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) Professor Luiz Moutinho

9. 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: Professor Luiz Moutinho

10. [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). Professor Luiz Moutinho

11. 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. Professor Luiz Moutinho

12. 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. Professor Luiz Moutinho

13. The question is how to bridge the researcher-practitioner gap. One solution is middle range thinking. Professor Luiz Moutinho

14. 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: Professor Luiz Moutinho

15. ‘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)’ Professor Luiz Moutinho

16. The idea of middle range theories originated with the sociologist, Robert Merton (1957). Professor Luiz Moutinho

17. 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. Professor Luiz Moutinho

18. 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). Professor Luiz Moutinho

19. 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. Professor Luiz Moutinho

20. 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: Professor Luiz Moutinho

21. ‘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)’ Professor Luiz Moutinho

22. 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)’ Professor Luiz Moutinho

23. The tags act as a form of non-probability sampling for the collection of data. Professor Luiz Moutinho

24. Because longitudinal tracers work over an extended time, it is never certain which direction and which respondents will become involved and remain involved. Professor Luiz Moutinho

25. Reflexivity concerns essentially the influence of the research on the researched subject. Professor Luiz Moutinho

26. 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). Professor Luiz Moutinho

27. The gap can only be bridged by a position that is high in both theoretical/methodological rigour and practical relevance. Professor Luiz Moutinho

28. 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. Professor Luiz Moutinho

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