Using Computerized-Aided Text Analysis (CATA) in your research: A gentle introduction

Part of the Future of Work Institute (FOWI) Academy Series

In our current digitalized world, many things that people in organisations „do and say“ happens in a space where communication is recorded or somehow stored in a text-based form (e.g., social media posts, meeting transcripts, organizational mission statements, job descriptions). This has created a rise in many forms of „non-traditional data“. This type of data has the potential to give insights into real-world OB and management phenomena. However, methodological knowledge of how we can use this data for our research purposes is still limited and analytical possibilities are hard to grapple with.

At the same time, in management and OB, many quantitatively researchers are trained in using survey methods (or experiments) to study different kinds of workplace phenomena (e.g., leadership, job attitudes, teamwork). Yet, there is also growing frustration concerning some of the limitations that some of these methods have: For survey methods, this includes difficulty in retaining participants for longitudinal studies, biases in self-report data, common-method variance, and so on. As a result, researchers are becoming interested in exploiting non-traditional methods, such as text-based data for their research.

In this talk, I aim to give a gentle introduction and how-to-guide on using text-analytical methods, that is, computer-aided text analyses (CATA) for OB and management scholars. Using examples from published research in our flagship journals and from my own research, I will outline why using text data in your research is important („why“); I will provide examples regarding where to collect/ to find text data („where“), what OB phenomena to study with these methods („what“), and how to analyze text data („how“).

Pre-readings are optional (but helpful):

• Short, J. C., McKenny, A. F., & Reid, S. W. (2018). More than words? Computer-aided text analysis in organizational behavior and psychology research. Annual Review of Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior, 5(1), 415-435. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-orgpsych-032117-104622
• McKenny, A. F., Short, J. C., & Payne, G. T. (2013). Using computer-aided text analysis to elevate constructs: An illustration using psychological capital. Organizational research methods, 16(1), 152-184.

Venue

• In person: Future of Work Institute (78 Murray Street Perth WA 6000)
• Online: via WebEx

RSVP

RSVP your attendance to fowi-admin@curtin.edu.au and let us know your preference (in-person or online)