IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/qualqt/v48y2014i1p547-561.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Factual and modal notions in social research

Author

Listed:
  • Götz Rohwer

Abstract

The article discusses a distinction between factual and modal notions, and corresponding generalizations, in social research. The discussion starts from the suggestion, made by Charles Ragin, that theoretical statements in social research most often can be formulated as statements about sets of cases and relations between such sets. In contrast to this view, it is argued that theoretical statements in social research often require modal notions referring to possibilities and probabilities which cannot be formulated as statements about sets of cases. In order to show this, the article reformulates Ragin’s set-theoretic approach in the conceptual framework of statistical variables. It is shown that this can be done for both crisp and fuzzy set versions of Ragin’s approach. The article then goes on to argue that social research is often interested in modal generalizations (probabilistic and deterministic rules) which require a fundamentally different conceptual framework. The article shows how such a framework can be defined, and finally indicates its usage for causal interpretations. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2014

Suggested Citation

  • Götz Rohwer, 2014. "Factual and modal notions in social research," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 48(1), pages 547-561, January.
  • Handle: RePEc:spr:qualqt:v:48:y:2014:i:1:p:547-561
    DOI: 10.1007/s11135-012-9786-0
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s11135-012-9786-0
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s11135-012-9786-0?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Mahoney, James & Goertz, Gary, 2006. "A Tale of Two Cultures: Contrasting Quantitative and Qualitative Research," Political Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 14(3), pages 227-249, July.
    2. Charles C. Ragin & Paul Pennings, 2005. "Fuzzy Sets and Social Research," Sociological Methods & Research, , vol. 33(4), pages 423-430, May.
    3. Ragin, Charles C., 2000. "Fuzzy-Set Social Science," University of Chicago Press Economics Books, University of Chicago Press, edition 1, number 9780226702773, January.
    4. Ragin, Charles C., 2006. "Set Relations in Social Research: Evaluating Their Consistency and Coverage," Political Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 14(3), pages 291-310, July.
    5. repec:ucp:bkecon:9780226702766 is not listed on IDEAS
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Yu-Shan Lin, 2017. "Causal complexity for passengers’ intentions to re-ride," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 51(5), pages 1925-1937, September.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Cheng, Cong & Wang, Limin, 2022. "How companies configure digital innovation attributes for business model innovation? A configurational view," Technovation, Elsevier, vol. 112(C).
    2. Tran, Phuong Nguyen Thu & Gorton, Matthew & Lemke, Fred, 2021. "When supplier development initiatives fail: Identifying the causes of opportunism and unexpected outcomes," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 127(C), pages 277-289.
    3. Anna Salonen & Harri Terho & Eva Böhm & Ari Virtanen & Risto Rajala, 2021. "Engaging a product-focused sales force in solution selling: interplay of individual- and organizational-level conditions," Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Springer, vol. 49(1), pages 139-163, January.
    4. Skarmeas, Dionysis & Leonidou, Constantinos N. & Saridakis, Charalampos, 2014. "Examining the role of CSR skepticism using fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 67(9), pages 1796-1805.
    5. Jiang, Tzuu-Hwa & Chen, Shieh-Liang & Chen, James K.C., 2016. "Examining the role of behavioral intention on multimedia teaching materials using FSQCA," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 69(6), pages 2252-2258.
    6. Alrik Thiem, 2014. "Unifying Configurational Comparative Methods," Sociological Methods & Research, , vol. 43(2), pages 313-337, May.
    7. Leischnig, Alexander & Henneberg, Stephan C. & Thornton, Sabrina C., 2016. "Net versus combinatory effects of firm and industry antecedents of sales growth," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 69(9), pages 3576-3583.
    8. Ernest F. Mabonesho, 2018. "Theorising Fuzzy Set Analysis a Complementary Approach to Net-effect Models," Accounting and Finance Research, Sciedu Press, vol. 7(2), pages 183-183, May.
    9. Markus Mayer & Markus Voeth, 2022. "Improving negotiation success in B2B sales organizations: is structured negotiation management a success factor?," Journal of Business Economics, Springer, vol. 92(2), pages 163-196, February.
    10. Grohs, Reinhard & Raies, Karine & Koll, Oliver & Mühlbacher, Hans, 2016. "One pie, many recipes: Alternative paths to high brand strength," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 69(6), pages 2244-2251.
    11. Barry Cooper & Judith Glaesser, 2016. "Analysing necessity and sufficiency with Qualitative Comparative Analysis: how do results vary as case weights change?," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 50(1), pages 327-346, January.
    12. Gustav Lidén, 2013. "What about theory? The consequences on a widened perspective of social theory," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 47(1), pages 213-225, January.
    13. Wang, Huanming & Ran, Bing, 2022. "How business-related governance strategies impact paths towards the formation of global cities? An institutional embeddedness perspective," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 118(C).
    14. Katarzyna Boratynska, 2021. "Determinants of Economic Fragility in Central and Eastern European Countries FsQCA Approach," European Research Studies Journal, European Research Studies Journal, vol. 0(3B), pages 827-837.
    15. Delgado García, Juan Bautista & De Quevedo Puente, Esther, 2016. "The complex link of city reputation and city performance. Results for fsQCA analysis," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 69(8), pages 2830-2839.
    16. André Cherubini Alves & Bruno Brandão Fischer & Nicholas S. Vonortas, 2021. "Ecosystems of entrepreneurship: configurations and critical dimensions," The Annals of Regional Science, Springer;Western Regional Science Association, vol. 67(1), pages 73-106, August.
    17. Peters, D.T.J.M. & Verweij, S. & Grêaux, K. & Stronks, K. & Harting, J., 2017. "Conditions for addressing environmental determinants of health behavior in intersectoral policy networks: A fuzzy set Qualitative Comparative Analysis," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 195(C), pages 34-41.
    18. Federica Nieri & Luciano Ciravegna & Ruth V. Aguilera & Elisa Giuliani, 2019. "Larger, more internationalized, better behaved? A configurational study of em erging market multinational enterprises' involvement in corporate wrongdoing," Discussion Papers 2019/255, Dipartimento di Economia e Management (DEM), University of Pisa, Pisa, Italy.
    19. Badredine Arfi, 2013. "Causality in social theory via linguistic fuzzy logic," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 47(2), pages 853-880, February.
    20. Ferguson, Graham & Megehee, Carol M. & Woodside, Arch G., 2017. "Culture, religiosity, and economic configural models explaining tipping-behavior prevalence across nations," Tourism Management, Elsevier, vol. 62(C), pages 218-233.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:qualqt:v:48:y:2014:i:1:p:547-561. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.