Capturing the wisdom of the field: trends, opportunities and threats in positivist field study research

Abstract

In this chapter, we consider the implications of big data and technology for positivist field research in performance measurement. These trends are changing the performance measurement questions we can study, as well as how we can study them, as they increase the availability of data sources and advance the capabilities of computer-assisted data analysis. We argue that these trends bias against field research in general and the qualitative analysis of data specifically, in that they make it more costly for researchers. We further argue that qualitative field data and qualitative analysis and interpretation of field data is as truly central as ever to extracting the "wisdom of the field". It remains critical as a way of informing, building, and refining theory, questioning underlying findings based on these new data sources, challenging the interpretation of computer-based, quantified, approaches to the analysis of this data, and identifying questions of importance to practice.

Keywords: Field study methods, qualitative data, qualitative analysis, CAQDA, performance measurement, big data, text analysis, computer assisted qualitative data analysis, positivist field research