Speakers: Stine Grodal (Northeastern) and Henri Schildt (Aalto)
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Time:
- Wednesday, 15 October
- 9 am EST / 2 pm London / 4 pm Helsinki
- This webinar is scheduled for 90 minutes, including Q&A.
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Registration: Please register on Zoom here to receive a personalized link and a reminder prior to the event.
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The technological tools we use in empirical analyses shape the theories we create. While qualitative researchers have long employed software packages for data analysis, new artificial intelligence (AI) tools expand these opportunities. Yet, we know little about the impact of these tools' affordances on the process of theory development. We draw on insights from technology studies to distinguish between automated versus augmented approaches to using AI tools for qualitative research. Although enticing, automating qualitative coding undermines theory development by limiting the involvement of reflective humans. In contrast, we offer a framework for augmented qualitative research with AI by explicating how AI can aid in both creating and justifying proto-theories, whether researchers take an inductive, abductive, or deductive approach to qualitative research. While inductive and deductive qualitative research with AI tools is possible, these approaches risk researchers defaulting to the automated approach. Instead, abduction ensures that researchers take an augmented approach, thereby aiding in legitimizing AI tools within the qualitative research community. By taking an augmented approach, we move beyond existing methods to identify how qualitative researchers can take advantage of technological tools by explicating their affordances and maintaining the reflexive human in the center of the analysis.
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Suggested readings:
- Garcia Quevedo, D., Glaser, A., & Verzat, C. 2025. Enhancing theorization using artificial intelligence: Leveraging large language models for qualitative analysis of online data. Organizational Research Methods.
- Grimes, M., Von Krogh, G., Feuerriegel, S., Rink,F., & Gruber, M. 2023. From scarcity to abundance: Scholars and scholarship in an age of generative artificial intelligence. Academy of Management Journal, 66(6): 1617–1624.
- Grodal, S., Anteby, M., & Holm, A. L. 2021. Achieving rigor in qualitative analysis: The role of active categorization in theory building. Academy of Management Review, 46(3): 591–612.
- Grodal, S., Ha, J., Hood, E., & Rajunov, M. 2024. Between humans and machines: The social construction of the generative AI category. Organization Theory, 5(3): 1–10.
- Grodal, S., & Schildt, H. 2025 Qualitative research with artificial intelligence: The threat of automated uses and the augmented alternative. Working paper.
- Raisch, S., & Krakowski, S. 2021. Artificial intelligence and management: The automation–augmentation paradox. Academy of Management Review, 46(1): 192–210.
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About the speakers
Stine Grodal is a Distinguished Professor at Northeastern University D'Amore-McKim School of Business in the department of Entrepreneurship and Innovation.
Henri Schildt is Professor of Strategy at Aalto University and is currently teaching and writing a book on digital strategies and data-driven management.
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Ibrat Djabbarov
Imperial College London
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