Content analysis is a research technique used to make replicable and valid inferences by interpreting and coding textual material. By systematically evaluating texts (e.g., documents, oral communication, and graphics), qualitative data can be converted into quantitative data. Although the method has been used frequently in the social sciences, only recently has it become more prevalent among organizational scholars.
Content analysis is valuable in organizational research because it allows researchers to recover and examine the nuances of organizational behaviors, stakeholder perceptions, and societal trends. It is also an important bridge between purely quantitative and purely qualitative research methods. In one regard, content analysis allows researchers to analyze socio-cognitive and perceptual constructs that are difficult to study via traditional quantitative archival methods. At the same time, it allows researchers to gather large samples that may be difficult to employ in purely qualitative studies.
Although content analysis is increasingly used by management researchers as a tool to analyze text and qualitative data, many researchers are unfamiliar with the various content analysis techniques and how to deal with challenges inherent in its application. These challenges include finding adequate measures, developing proxy dictionaries and coding schemes, working with texts from various sources, ensuring reliability and validity, and conducting manual versus computer-aided content analysis.
Content analysis is a class of research methods at the intersection of the qualitative and quantitative traditions. It is promising for rigorous exploration of many important but difficult-to-study issues of interest to organizational researchers in areas as diverse as business policy and strategy, managerial and organizational cognition, organizational behavior, human resources, social-issues management, technology and innovation management, international management, and organizational theory.
from Duriau, Reger, & Pfarrer, 2007.
A Content Analysis of the Content Analysis Literature in Organization Studies: Research Themes, Data Sources, and Methodological Refinements. Organization Research Methods, 10: 5–34.
Content analysis techniques can help bridge the gap between large-sample archival research, which may suffer from internal validity issues, and small sample research, which allows for the collection of primary data and in-depth analyses but may suffer from external validity problems. Analyzing the content of a firm’s press releases, media coverage, or stakeholder blogs can enhance archival research (which has been criticized for failure to provide insight into cognitive processes), while maintaining the advantages of using large samples.
from Pfarrer, Pollock, & Rindova, 2010.
A Tale of Two Assets: The Effects of Firm Reputation and Celebrity on Earnings Surprises and Investors’ Reactions. Academy of Management Journal, 53: 1131–1152
Our use of advanced content analysis techniques to code affective content of articles and blog posts continues to extend recent organizational research on social perceptions management that recognizes the importance of trying to open the “black box” that is often present in strategy research.
from Zavyalova, Pfarrer, Reger, & Shapiro, 2012.
Managing the Message: The Effects of Firm Actions and Industry Spillovers on Media Coverage Subsequent to Wrongdoing. Academy of Management Journal.
Queen’s University
Andrevski’s research interests include competitive dynamics, strategic entrepreneurship and alliance networks. He uses a content analysis approach to examine competitive aggressiveness and entrepreneurial behavior of firms over time.
University of Alberta
Deephouse used content analysis to examine the social evaluations of business organizations, specifically the legitimacy and reputation of Twin Cities commercial banks, the reputation of accounting firms, and stakeholder-specific evaluations of Wal-Mart.
Imperial College London
Kennedy’s research combines strategy and organization theory to understand how new product market categories, organizational forms, and related social movements come to be seen as social realities. He uses content analysis of media and online commentary to analyze the emergence of shared understanding of terms used to refer to these important social structures.
Northwestern University
King's research focuses on how social movement activists influence corporate governance, organizational change, and legislative policymaking. He also studies the ways in which the organizational identities of social movement organizations and businesses emerge and transform in response to their institutional environments.
Towson University
Kiyatkin uses content analysis to examine organizations’ conceptions of the purpose of business and attention to social issues. Her recent research compares levels of organizational attention to corporate citizenship, transparency, environment, equal opportunity, family benefits, workplace safety, and philanthropy.
University of Oklahoma
McKenny’s research using content analysis has focused on how researchers can use computer-aided text analysis to measure organizational phenomena directly at the organizational level.
University of San Diego
Meyskens uses content analysis to analyze social ventures and corporate social responsibility trends. Specifically she has used Nvivo and manual content analysis to evaluate the profiles of social entrepreneurs and social venture business plans to better understand their partnerships and resources used to attain a competitive advantage. She also has content analyzed the websites of organizations to better understand their corporate social responsibility practices.
Penn State University
Misangyi researches how managerial and organizational actions influence and are influenced by their external environments. He has used content analysis techniques to examine the effects that charismatic language in organizational discourse (e.g., CEO vision statements in letters to shareholders) has on external organizational participants.(e.g., securities analysts).
University of Otago
O’Kane uses a combination of content analysis and grounded theory to explore the social impact of computer-mediated communication on the relationships and communication between employees within an organisation. Paula supports this through the use of Computer-Aided Qualitative Data Analysis Software (CAQDAS). She also has a keen interest in examining the impact of CAQDAS software within research projects.
University of Georgia
Pfarrer uses content analysis to examine external perceptions of firm actions related to reputation, celebrity, and crisis management. His recent research has analyzed traditional and web-based media accounts of stakeholders’ reactions to earnings surprises and product recalls.
Imperial College London
Phillips uses content analysis in research on organizational discourse, including theoretical and empirical applications.
Penn State University
Pollock uses content analysis to investigate the social construction of markets and the media’s impact on public impressions of the firm. Specifically, he has analyzed CEO celebrity, earnings surprises, and the role of market ”experts” in shaping impressions about IPO performance and survival.
University of Maryland
Reger uses content analysis to examine external perceptions of firm actions related to reputation dynamics. Along with Vincent Duriau and Michael Pfarrer, her paper exploring the uses of content analysis in management research won the 2007 best publication award from Organizational Research Methods. She first used content analysis in 1993 (with Marjorie Lyles) to study upward influence in joint ventures. Her recent research analyzes traditional and web-based media accounts of stakeholders’ reactions to product recalls and alternative energy.
University of Texas-Austin
Rindova uses content analysis to examine patterns of organizational sensegiving and media sensemaking. She has conducted both open-ended and structured content analysis for theory development and theory testing.
University of Oklahoma
Short’s research focuses on multilevel determinants of firm performance, strategic decision processes, entrepreneurship, research methods, franchising and family business.
Northwestern University
Weber examines cultural and institutional dynamics at the level of markets and fields. He uses content analysis to identify repertoires of meaning (cultural toolkits), and to relate these repertoires to social structures. He has used documents produced in different languages by firms, financial analysts, movement activists and newspapers; and analyzed them for sensemaking, framing and justification repertoires as well as for associative meaning structures.
Texas Tech
Zachary uses content analysis to investigate phenomena related to issues of organizational identity and signaling by examining a variety of organizational narratives. His work has focused on operationalizing constructs using CATA and testing the performance implications of firm-level measures.
Rice University
Zavyalova uses content analysis to study management of social approval assets, such as reputation and celebrity. She specifically focuses on the process of social perception management after wrongdoing. In a recent paper published in the Academy of Management Journal, Zavyalova employed manual and computer-assisted content analysis techniques in the context of product recalls.