Select and analyze two documents that are relevant to your broad area of research. These
should not be research-based academic papers but might be policy documents, company
reports, consultancy reports and so on (Not academic papers. Use policy documents or
consultancy reports or company reports etc.). Use qualitative analysis to analyze and compare
the two documents. Write-up a report on your findings and conclusions and consider what you
have learned as a researcher through your experience of trying out this qualitative research
method. Critically reflect on the findings and your experience of conducting this comparative
study. This assignment enables students to learn from operationalizing a widely used
qualitative method: qualitative document analysis, using secondary, publicly available
documents. The length of this research report assignment is a maximum of 1,500 words for the
title and text, plus the reference list (formatted accurately using the Harvard style).
My research topic is “Post-mergers and acquisitions(M&A) management of emerging market
multinational enterprises–in Chinese firm’s context”.
Research questions:
1) what are the main problems and challenges encountered by emerging market multinational
enterprises at post-M&A stages in developed countries?
2) How do emerging market multinational enterprises strategically deal with
post-M&A integration?
The purpose of this assignment is to undertake qualitative comparative document analysis.
Therefore, please use a qualitative approach in your analysis, whether you do content or
thematic analysis. Please do not use a quantitative approach to content analysis, i.e. please do
not search for and count keywords, pages or frequencies. Using a quantitative approach to
content analysis is not appropriate for this assignment.
Some questions relevant to the assignment:
Do I need to discuss my philosophical stance in my comparative document analysis?
Documents are created by someone to be used by someone – they transfer meaning to authors
and/or readers. The best assignments will touch on this issue in the analysis of the documents.
Can I put the coding structure in the appendix or in the main body of my comparative document
analysis?
The coding framework can be presented in text to stress what is important within the data.
What if some important information to help me interpret the documents resides somewhere else
(i.e. not in the documents)
A good document analysis will consider the content of the documents and the conditions under
which the documents were developed. Showing an understanding of the context gives you an
understanding of latent meanings (for example, what the authors intended). You can therefore
include citations to context (i.e. introductions to the authors) as context for your analysis.
Do I need to include the definitions of codes and themes and sample word for word data
extracts?
Describing the codes helps you demonstrate methodological rigor. The decision related to where
you describe the codes and themes lies with you. In reporting your findings, explain the themes
generated in the analysis, and do present data extracts /data snippets as illustration of the
themes in your analysis. When you present relevant data extracts, do it word for word – no
paraphrasing for the purpose of this assignment. You will have to include data extracts in your
analysis.
Do I need to include my chosen documents in the appendix or as a link at the bottom of my
assignment?
Yes, please include a hyperlink to the documents if you can. Please reference the documents
using Harvard, but also please include a hyperlink if you can.
Reflection section
The reflection part is a space for you to critically reflect on how the findings and your experience
of conducting the exploratory study have informed your thinking about your future dissertation.
What this means is that this is meant to be a personal, reflective section – for example, what did
you learn about the strengths and weaknesses of the comparative document analysis method?
Did you enjoy using it? Did you find it easy to use? If yes, how? If not, why? Are you likely to be
using it in the future in your own research? Please bear in mind the section is only meant to be
300 words long.
Thematic Vs content analysis
Both techniques are okay to use. Document analysis yields data: Organised into two forms of
analysis. Theme (categories). Content (case examples). Now, you need to decide which one is
better for the purpose of your research. The technique you choose must be fitting with your
research question.
You can do a thematic analysis of text if you want to understand what the documents describe.
Thematic analysis allows for a good understanding of the content of the data. You develop your
themes inductively, without referring to any predetermined / pre-identified areas of interest. You
develop themes, which may also have sub-themes, each with some defined boundaries that you
develop iteratively over time.
You can use content analysis if you want to understand what the documents describe and how
they portray whatever they describe. In content analysis, you develop a coding framework and
match elements of your data with the codes. This might mean doing a detailed line by line
coding, to make sure that your analysis is based on the data and not on your assumptions. Even
though content analysis is more deductive, in a qualitative tradition it is okay to add new codes to
make sure they fit the data.
At the end of the day, the choice is yours. Ensure your technique allows for answering your
research question.
Qualitative content analysis is a deductive approach that involves first developing a coding
framework using a variety of data sources and then matching the data extracts with the codes. All
the data that relate to the coding framework should be studied in detail, ideally line-by-line.
Qualitative content analysis may involve adding new codes to the framework to make sure it fits
the data in the process of pilot analysis, but this process of adding new codes should be finished
in the piloting phase after which you should not add any new codes.
In contrast, thematic analysis develops codes inductively, without reference to any predetermined ideas or interest areas. Broad themes and sub themes are identified from the data,
developed iteratively and over time.