The Textual Approach: Risk and Blame in Disaster Sensemaking
- 1 December 1993
- journal article
- research article
- Published by Academy of Management in The Academy of Management Journal
- Vol. 36 (6) , 1465-1514
- https://doi.org/10.5465/256819
Abstract
This article presents and illustrates the textual approach to qualitative research. In this approach, ethnography is used to observe organizational events and to gain access to related textual or documentary data for subsequent analysis. The documents are then analyzed via an integrated combination of methods: theoretical sampling, computer-facilitated qualitative data analysis, and expansion analysis. I illustrate the approach with an ethnographic study of “sensemaking” during a public inquiry concerning a fatal pipeline accident. The analysis shows how the textual approach can be used to generate insights into organizational sensemaking about risk and blame.Keywords
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