Are post-modernist developments of grounded theory compatible with its conceptual and inductive nature?
Grounded Theory is one of the most widely used methodologies and is considered to be a major qualitative method (Morse 2001). Contrary to this widely held view, Grounded Theory is not a qualitative methodology but a general inductive methodology based on the perspective of participants that can use any data whether generated qualitatively or quantitatively (Glaser 2003). Grounded Theory has its roots in qualitative maths, explication de text and constant comparison and is not based on symbolic interactionism, which in this methodology is simply one of many theoretical codes (Glaser 2003). Their function is to conceptualise how substantive codes relate to each other as hypothesis (Glaser 1978). While many researchers claim to use the methodology, few follow all of the steps outlined originally (Glaser 1978). Influenced by post-modernism, researchers have attempted to write about and discuss Grounded Theory as a naturalistic inquiry based methodology. Different versions such as construct
