Cumulative social inquiry; transforming novelty into innovation.

9781593856533

Cumulative social inquiry; transforming novelty into innovation.

Smith, Robert B.

Guilford Pr.

2008

338 pages

$42.00

Paperback

H62

Practitioner and former academic Smith advocates systematically advancing established lines of theorizing and research rather than depending on the perpetually new. He connects theory and data through social structural theorizing, connects quality and quantity and transforms mere novelty into true innovation. In his development of cumulative social inquiry, Smith emphasizes empirically based theorizing linking quality and quantity, describes diachronic articulation, builds quantitative studies on the qualitative, and develops the idea of qualitative and quantitative social structural theorizing. He offers compatible statistical methods and process models, as well as many examples of classic and contemporary mixed-media studies. The result gives veteran researchers as well as students a systematic approach that holds promise for comprehensive, cogent, and incremental studies that lead to fuller and deeper theories that can lead to more and better research.

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