From the data based on coding, categories (conceptual categories or concepts) have to identified. From the data only properties of categories are also identified. Then relations among categories are identified. The theory developed that can be expressed as a descriptive note or proposition. Glaser and Strauss prefer descriptive note. They say descriptive note provides an indication that theory needs to be further developed. A proposition indicates finality. But they stated that from descriptive note, propositions can be created as necessary say for testing purpose.
Quotations
Comparative analysis is a general method, just as are the experimental and statistical methods. (All use the logic of comparison.)
A concept may be generated from one fact, which then becomes merely one of a universe of many possible diverse indicators for, and data on, the concept. These indicators are then sought for the comparative analysis.
In discovering theory, one generates conceptual categories or their properties from evidence; then the evidence from which the category emerged is used to illustrate the concept. The evidence may not necessarily be accurate beyond a doubt (nor is it even in studies concerned only with accuracy), but
the concept is undoubteclly a relevant theoretical abstraction about what is going on in the area studied. Furthermore, the concept itself will not change, while even the most accurate facts change. Concepts only have their meanings respecified at times because other theoretical and research purposes have evolved.
Our goal of generating theory also subsumes this establishing of empirical generalizations, for the generalizations not only help delimit a grounded theory's boundaries of applicability; more important, they help us broaden the theory so that it is more generally applicable and has greater explanatory and
predictive power. By comparing where the facts are similar or different, we can generate properties of categories that increase the categories' generality and explanatory power.
While verifYing is the researcher's principal and vital task for existing theories, we suggest that his main goal in developing new theories is their purposeful systematic generation from the data of social research.
A grounded theory can be used as a fuller test of a logico-deductive theory pertaining to the same area by comparison of both theories than an accurate description used to verify a few propositions would provide. ·whether or not there is a previous speculative theory, discovery gives us a theory
that "fits or works" in a substantive or formal area (though further testing, clarification, or reformulation is still necessary), since the theory has been derived from data, not deduced from
logical assumptions. . .
The sociologist with theoretical generation ·as his major aim need not know the concrete situation better than the people involved in it (an impossible task anyway). His job and his training are to do what these laymen cannot do-generate general categories and their properties for general and specific situations and problems. Thesevcan provide theoretical guides to the layman's action
Grounded theory can be presented either as a wellcodified set of propositions or in a running theoretical discussion, using conceptual categories and their properties.
If necessary for verillcational studies, parts of the theoretical discussion can at any point be rephrased
as a set of propositions. This repht:asing is simply a formal exercise, though, since the concepts are already related in the discussion. Also, with either a propositional or discussional grounded theory, the sociologist can then logically deduce further hypotheses. Indeed, deductions from grounded theory, as it develops, are the method by which the researcher directs his theoretical sampling
Our approach, allowing substantive concepts and hypotheses to emerge first, on their own, enables the analyst to ascertain which, if any, existing formal theory may help him generate his substantive theories. He can then be more faithful to his data, rather than forcing it to fit a theory. He can be
more objective and less theoretically biased. Of course, this also means that he cannot merely apply Parsonian or Mertonian categories at the start, but must wait to see whether they are linked to the emergent substantive theory concerning the issue in focus.
the elements of theory that are generated by comparative analysis are, first, conceptual categories and their conceptual properties; and second, hypotheses or generalized relations among the categories and their properties.
A category stands by itself as a conceptual element of the theory. A property, in turn, is a conceptual aspect or element of a category. We have, then, both categories and their properties.
It must be kept in mind that both categories and properties are concepts indicated by the data (and not the data itself); also that both vary in degree of conceptual abstraction. Once a category or property is conceived, a change in the evidence that indicated it will not necessarily alt~r, clarify or destroy it.
It takes much more evidence-usually from different substantive areas-as well as the creation of a better category to achieve such changes in the original category. In short, conceptual categories
and properties have a life apart from the evidence that gave rise to them.
Lower level categories emerge rather quickly during the early phases of data collection. Higher level,
overridLllg and integrating, conceptualizations-and the properties that elaborate them-tend to come later during the joint collection, coding and analysis of the data.
The comparison of differences and similarities among groups not only generates categories, but also rather speedily generates generalized relations among them. It must be emphasized that these hypotheses have at first the status of suggested, not tested, relations among categories and !heir properties, though they are verified as much as possible in the course of research.
Joint collection, coding, and analysis of data is the underlying operation. The generation of theory,
coupled with the notion of theory as process, requires that all three operations be done together as much as possible. They should blur and intertwine continually, from the beginning of an investigation to its end.
Summary of Glaser, Barney G & Strauss, Anselm L., 1967. The Discovery of Grounded Theory: Strategies for Qualitative Research,
http://faculty.babson.edu/krollag/org_site/craft_articles/glaser_strauss.html
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