Qualitative Research Methods

Tracy, S. J. (2020). Qualitative research methods: Collecting evidence, crafting analysis, communicating impact, 2nd Ed. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell.

To order and access auxiliary teaching materials, visit here.  Reviews available here.

Leading OrganizationsThrough Transition

Deetz, S., Tracy, S. J., & Simpson, J. L. (2000). Leading organizations through transition:  Communication and cultural change. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage (232 pages).

Reviewed by Barrett, D. J. (2003). Journal of Business Communication40, 160-166.

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Please Note: Many publications included here are protected by copyright laws. I provide them for educational use only. Any infringing use may be subject to disciplinary action and/or civil or criminal liability as provided by law. Link to the publisher for details of permissions of use.

Research & Publications

Bisel, R. S., Kavya, P., Tracy, S. J. (Online First, Dec. 2019). Positive deviance case study as a method for organizational communication: A rationale, how-to, and illustration. Management Communication Quarterly. https://doi.org/10.1177/0893318919897060

Tracy, S. J. (2020). Let’s talk: Conversation as a defining moment for the communication discipline. Health Communication, 35:7, 910-916. doi: 10.1080/10410236.2019.1593081

Tracy, S. J. (2019). A short soliloquy on merit. Departures in Critical Qualitative Research, 8:4, 47-49. Refereed special issue on: “Merit, Whiteness, and Privilege.”

Malvini Redden, S., Clark L. E., Tracy, S. J., Shafer, M. (2019). How metaphorical framings build and undermine resilience during change: A longitudinal study of metaphors in team-driven planned organizational change. Communication Monographs, 86:4, 501-525. https://doi.org/10.1080/03637751.2019.1621361

Huffman, T. P., Tracy, S. J., Bisel, R. S. (2019). Beautiful particularity: Using phronetic, iterative, and heuristic approaches to a positively deviant case. Communication Research and Practice, 5, 327-341. https://doi.org/10.1080/22041451.2019.1676632.

Huffman, T. P., & Tracy, S. J. (2018). Making claims that matter: Heuristics for theoretical and social impact in qualitative research. Qualitative Inquiry, 24, 558-570. org/10.1177/1077800417742411

Tracy, S. J. (2018). A phronetic iterative approach to data analysis in qualitative research. Journal of Qualitative Research, 19: 2, 61-76. qualitative.or.kr

Donovan, M. C. J., & Tracy, S. J. (2017). Critical pedagogy meets transformation: Creating the being of communication activists. Communication Education, 66, 378-380.

Tracy, S. J. (2017). Practical application in organizational communication: A historical snapshot and challenge for the future. Management Communication Quarterly, 31(1), 139-145. DOI. 10.1177/0893318916675736.

Tracy, S. J., & Huffman, T. P. (2017). Compassion in the face of terror: A case study of recognizing suffering, co-creating hope, and developing trust in a would-be school shooting. Communication Monographs, 84, 30-53. DOI: 10.1080/03637751.2016.1218642

Tracy, S. J. (2016). Buds bloom in a second spring: Storying the male voices project. Qualitative Inquiry, 22, 17-24.

Dev, S., Hoffman, T. K., Kavalieratos, D., Schwenke, D., Heidenreich, P. Wu, W., Tracy, S. J. (2016). Barriers to adoption of mineralocorticoid receptor antagonists in patients with heart failure: A mixed-methods study. Journal of the American Heart Association, 5(3) e002493. doi: 10.1161/JAHA.115.002493

Hinrichs, M. M., Seager, T. P., Tracy, S. J., & Hannah, M. A. (2017). Innovation in the knowledge age: Implications for collaborative science. Environment Systems and Decisions, 37. 144-155. DOI: 10.1007/s10669-016-9610-9

Dev, S., *Hoffman, T., Kavalieratos, D., Schwenke, D., Heidenreich, P., Wu, W. C., & Tracy, S. (2015). Barriers to adoption and monitoring of mineralocorticoid receptor antagonists in a VA medical center. Journal of the American College of Cardiology, 65(10), A847.

Way, A. K., Zwier, R. K., & Tracy, S. J. (2015). Dialogic interviewing and flickers of transformation: An examination and delineation of interactional strategies that promote participant self-reflexivity. Qualitative Inquiry, 21, 720-731. DOI: 10.1177/1077800414566686

Scarduzio, J. A., Tracy, S. J. (2015). Sensegiving and sensebreaking via emotion cycles and emotional buffering: How collective communication creates order in the courtroom. Management Communication Quarterly, 29.

Tracy, S.J., Franks, T., Brooks, M.M., & Hoffman, T.K. (2015).  An OPPT-In approach to relational and emotional organizational communication pedagogy. Management Communication Quarterly, 29, 322-328.

Tracy, S. J. (2014). Fieldwork horse-assery: Making the most of feeling humiliated, rebuffed, and offended during participant observation researchManagement Communication Quarterly, 28, 459-466. DOI. 10.1177/0893318914536965.

Rivera, K. D., & Tracy, S. (2014). Embodying emotional dirty work: A messy text of patrolling the border. Qualitative Research in Organizations and Management, 9, 201-222.

Bisel, R.S., Barge, K. J., Dougherty, D. S., Lucas, K., & Tracy, S.J. (2014). A round-table discussion of “big” data in qualitative organizational communication research. Management Communication Quarterly, 28, 625-649.

Tracy, S. J., Eger, E. K., Huffman, T. P., Malvini Redden, S., Scarduzio, J. A. (2014). Narrating the backstage of qualitative research in organizations: A synthesis. Management Communication Quarterly, 28, 423-432. doi. 10.1177/0893318914536964.

Allen, J. A., Scott, C. W., & Tracy, S. J., Crowe, J. (2013). The signal provision of emotion: Using emotions to enhance reliability via sensemaking. International Journal of Work, Organisation, and Emotion.

Malvini Redden, S., Tracy, S. J., & Shafer, M. (2013). A metaphor analysis of recovering substance abusers’ sensemaking of medication assisted treatment. Qualitative Health Research, 23, 951-962.

Way, D., & Tracy, S. J. (2012). Conceptualizing compassion as recognizing, relating and (re)acting: An ethnographic study of compassionate communication at hospice. Communication Monographs, 79, 292-315.

Tracy, S. J.  (2012). The toxic and mythical combination of a deductive writing logic for inductive qualitative research. Qualitative Communication Research, 1, 109-141.

Lutgen-Sandvik, P., & Tracy, S. J. (2012). Answering five key questions about workplace bullying: How communication scholarship provides thought leadership for transforming abuse at work. Management Communication Quarterly, 26, 3-47.

Alberts, J. K., Tracy, S. J., Trethewey, A. (2011). An integrative theory of the division of domestic labor: Threshold level, social organizing and sensemaking. Journal of Family Communication, 11, 21-38.

Alberts, J. K., *Riforgiate, S. E., Tracy, S. J., Trethewey, A. (2011). One more time with feeling: A rejoinder to Wood’s and Clair’s Commentaries. Journal of Family Communication, 11, 60-63.

Tracy, S. J. (2010). Qualitative quality: Eight “big-tent” criteria for excellent qualitative research. Qualitative Inquiry, 16, 837-851. Ranked 1 of 22216 articles in Social Sciences Interdisciplinary for 2010 to 2014.

Tracy, S. J., & Rivera K. D. (2010). Endorsing equity and applauding stay-at-home moms: How male voices on work-life reveal aversive sexism and flickers of transformation .Management Communication Quarterly, 24, 3-43.

Rush, E. K., & Tracy, S. J. (2010). Wikipedia as public scholarship: Communicating our impact online. Journal of Applied Communication Research, 38, 309-315. Note: Authors contributed equally and are listed in alpha order. Concepts used as part of the National Communication Association Wikipedia Initiative.

LeGreco, M., & Tracy, S.J. (2009). Discourse tracing as qualitative practice. Qualitative Inquiry, 15, 1516-1543. 

Tracy, S. J. (2008). Care as a common good.Women’s Studies in Communication, 31, 166-174.

Lutgen-Sandvik, P., Tracy, S. J., & Alberts, J. K. (2007). Burned by bullying in the American workplace: Prevalence, perception, degree, and impact.Journal of Management Studies, 44, 837-862.

Tracy, S. J. (2007). Taking the plunge: A contextual approach to problem-based research. Communication Monographs, 74, 106-111.

Tracy, S. J., Myers, K. K., & Scott, C. (2006). Cracking jokes and crafting selves: Sensemaking and identity management among human service workers. Communication Monographs, 73, 283-308.

Tracy, S. J., Lutgen-Sandvik, P., & Alberts, J. K. (2006). Nightmares, demons, and slaves: Exploring the painful metaphors of workplace bullying. Management Communication Quarterly, 20, 148-185. Winner, Article of the Year Award, Applied Division, National Com. Association.

Tracy, S. J. & Scott, C. (2006). Sexuality, masculinity and taint management among firefighters and correctional officers: Getting down and dirty with “America’s heroes” and the “scum of law enforcement.” Management Communication Quarterly, 20. 6-38.

Trethewey, A., Tracy, S. J., & Alberts, J. K. (2006). Crystallizing frames for Work-Life. In the special issue “Communication and the Accomplishment of Personal and Professional Life” in Electronic Journal of Communication, 16:3,4. 

Tracy, S. J. (2005). Locking up emotion: Moving beyond dissonance for understanding emotion labor discomfort. Communication Monographs, 72, 261-283.

Tracy, S. J., & Trethewey, A. (2005). Fracturing the real-self↔fake-self dichotomy: Moving toward crystallized organizational identities. Communication Theory, 15, 168-195.

Tracy, S. J. (2004). Dialectic, contradiction, or double bind? Analyzing and theorizing employee reactions to organizational tensions. Journal of Applied Communication Research, 32, 119-146.

Tracy, S. J. (2004). The construction of correctional officers: Layers of emotionality behind bars. Qualitative Inquiry, 10, 509-533. Winner, Article of the Year, Ethnography Division, NCA. Used as a model of creative nonfiction in H. L. Goodall, Jr., (2008) Writing Qualitative Inquiry: Self, Stories, and Academic Life. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press. Used as a model of crystallized epistemological approaches in Ellingson, L. L. (2008). Engaging crystallization in qualitative research. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Tracy, S. J. (2003). Correctional contradictions: A structural approach to addressing officer burnout. Corrections Today, 90-95. Selected and reviewed by editor.

Tracy, S. J. (2002). When questioning turns to face threat: An interactional sensitivity in 911 call-taking. Western Journal of Communication, 66, 129-157.

Tracy, S. J. (2002). Altered practice<–>altered stories<–>altered lives: Three considerations for translating organizational communication scholarship into practice. Management Communication Quarterly, 16, 85-91.

Tracy, S. J. (2000). Becoming a character for commerce: Emotion labor, self subordination and discursive construction of identity in a total institution. Management Communication Quarterly, 14, 90-128.

Tracy, S. J., & Tracy, K. (1998). Emotion labor at 911: A case study and theoretical critique. Journal of Applied Communication Research, 26, 390-411.

Tracy, K., & Tracy, S. J. (1998). Rudeness at 911: Reconceptualizing face and face attack. Human Communication Research, 25, 225-251.

* Asterisk (*) denotes a co-author who was a student I mentored when material was developed.

Tracy, S. J., & *Reutlinger, C. (2020). How is qualitative data? An interrogation and puppet show dream. In M. D. Giardina, & N. K. Denzin (Eds.), Qualitative Inquiry and the Politics of Resistance (pp. 55-73). London: Routledge.

Tracy, S. J., & *Town, S. (2020). Real, fake, and crystallized identities in organizations.  In A. Brown (Ed.), The Oxford handbook of identities in organizations (pp. 391-407). Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.

*Lopez, C., & Tracy, S. J. (2020). Anchoring the big tent: How organizational autoethnography exemplifies and stretches notions of qualitative quality. In A. F. Herrmann’s (Ed.), The Routledge International Handbook of Organizational Autoethnography. London: Routledge.

Tracy, S. J., *Razzante, R., *Hanna, K. (2020). Creating the being of organizational inclusion.  In M. L. Doerfel and J. L. Gibbs (Eds.), Building Inclusiveness in Organizations, Institutions, and Communities: Communication Theory Perspectives (pp. 113-132). London: Routledge.

Tracy, S. J., & Malvini Redden, S. (2019). The structuration of emotion. In A. M. Nicotera (Ed.), Origins and traditions of organizational communication: A comprehensive introduction to the field (pp. 348-369). London: Routledge.

*Razzante, R., & Tracy, S. J. (2019). Co-cultural theory: Performing emotional labor from a position of exclusion. In C. J. Liberman, A. S. Rancer, & T. A. Avtgis (Eds.), Casing communication theory (pp. 117-130). Dubuque, IA: Kendall Hunt.

Tracy, S. J., & Malvini Redden, S. (2019). Workplace emotion and relationships. In J. McDonald & R. Mitra (Eds.), Movements in organizational communication research: Current issues and future directions (pp. 155-174). London: Routledge.

Tracy, S. J., & Donovan, M. C. J. (2018). Moving from practical application to expert craft practice in organizational communication: A review of the past and OPPT-ing into the future. In P. J. Salem & E Timmerman (Eds.), Transformative Practices and Research in Organizational Communication (pp. 202-220)Hershey, PA: IGI Global.

*Razzante, R., J., Tracy, S. J., Orbe, M. P. (2018). How dominant group members can transform workplace bullying. In R. West, & C. Beck (Eds.), Routledge handbook of communication and bullying (pp. 46-56). London: Routledge.

Tracy, S. J. & *Hinrichs, M. (2017). Big tent criteria for qualitative research. In J. Matthes, C. S. Davis, & R. F. Potter (Eds.) The International Encyclopedia of Communication Research Methods (134-143). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell.

Tracy, S. J. & *Hinrichs, M. (2017). Phronetic iterative data analysis. In J. Matthes, C. S. Davis, & R. F. Potter (Eds.) The International Encyclopedia of Communication Research Methods (1444-1451). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell.

Tracy, S. J. (2017). Burnout in organizational communication. In C. Scott and L. Lewis (Eds.) The International Encyclopedia of Organizational Communication (pp. 166-174). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell: Wiley Publishers. (4,000 words).

Tracy, S. J., & Malvini Redden, S. (2016). Markers, metaphors, and meaning: Drawings as a visual and creative qualitative research methodology in organizations. In K. D. Elsbach, and R. M. Kramer (Eds.), Handbook of qualitative organizational research: Innovative pathways and ideas (pp. 238-248).  New York: Routledge.

Tracy, S. J., & Geist-Martin, P. (2013).Organizing ethnography and qualitative approaches. In D. Mumby and L. L. Putnam (Eds.), Sage handbook of organizational communication, 3rd ed. (pp. 245-270). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Rivera, K. D., & Tracy, S. J. (2012). Arresting the American dream: Patrolling the borders of compassion and enforcement.  In S. May (Ed.), Case studies in organizational communication: Ethical perspectives and practices, 2nd ed. (pp. 271-284). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Tracy, S. J., Alberts, J. K., Rivera, K. D. (2009). How to bust the office bully: Eight tactics for explaining workplace abuse to decision-makers. In A. Varma (Ed.), Understanding and addressing workplace bullying. Andhra Pradesh, India: ICFAI University Press. White paper from which it developed available here.

Tracy, S. (2009). Managing burnout and moving toward employee engagement: A critical literature review and communicative approach toward reinvigorating the study of stress at work. In P. Lutgen-Sandvik & B. Davenport Sypher (Eds.), The destructive side of organizational communication: Processes, consequences and constructive ways of organizing (pp. 77-98). New York: Routledge.

Planalp, S., Metts, S., & Tracy, S. (2009). The social matrix of emotion expression and regulation. In C. Berger, (Ed.), Handbook of communication science, 2nd edition (pp. 363-379). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Tracy, S. J. (2009). Navigating the limits of a smile: Emotion labor and concertive control on a cruise ship. In J. Keyton & P. Shockley-Zalabak (Eds.), Case studies for organizational communication: Understanding communication processes, 3rd  edition (pp. 282-292). Los Angeles: Roxbury Publishing.

Stewart, K. A., Hess, A., Tracy, S. J, & Goodall, H. L. (2009). Risky research: Investigating the “perils” of ethnography. In N. K. Denzin & M. D. Giardina (Eds.), Qualitative inquiry and social justice (pp. 198-216). Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press.

Tracy, S. J. (2009). Organizational Culture (2,300 words). Encyclopedia of communication theory. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Tracy, S. J. (2008). Emotion and communication in organizations. International communication association encyclopedia. (pp. 1-7). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell.

Hess, J. A., & Tracy, S. J. (2008). Finding your first job: The job search and interviewing process. In S. Morreale & P. Arneson (Eds.), Getting the most from your graduate education in communication: A student’s handbook. Washington, DC: National Communication Association.

Tracy, S. J. (2007). Power, paradox, social support and prestige: A critical approach to addressing correctional officer burnout. In S. Fineman (Ed.), The emotional organization: Passions and power (pp. 27-43). Oxford: Blackwell.

Tracy, S. J. & Scott, C. (2007). Dirty work and discipline behind bars. In S. Drew, B. M. Gassaway, & M. Mills (Eds.), Dirty work (pp. 33-54). Waco, TX: Baylor University Press.

Scott, C., & Tracy, S. J. (2007). Riding fire trucks and ambulances with America’s heroes. In S. Drew, B. M. Gassaway, & M. Mills (Eds.), Dirty work (pp. 55-76). Waco, TX: Baylor University Press.

Tracy, S. J. (2003). Watching the watchers: Doing ethnography behind bars. In R. Clair (Ed.), Expressions of ethnography (pp. 159-172). Albany, NY: SUNY Press.

Tracy, S. J. (2013). Positive communication in health and wellness. [Review of the book Positive communication in health and wellness, by M. J. Pitts & T. J. Socha]. The Journal of Positive Psychology, 9, 279-280. DOI:10.1080/17439760.2013.831468

Giannini, G. A., & Tracy, S. J. (2011). Communication resolutions for 2012: Gratitude. Communication Currents, 6:6. The Web Magazine of The National Communication Association.

Tracy, S. J. (2010). Compassion: Cure for an ailing workplace? Communication Currents, 5:6. The Web Magazine of The National Communication Association.

Tracy, S. J. & Rivera, K. D. (2009). Work Hard, Live Hard. Distributed to work-life organizations, their websites, and media outlets internationally.

Tracy, S. J., Alberts, J. K., Rivera, K. D. (2007). How to bust the office bully: Eight tactics for explaining workplace abuse to decision-makers. Distributed to workplace bullying websites, and media outlets internationally.

Scott, C. W., Myers, K. K., & Tracy, S. J. (November, 2006). Humor as Serious Business. Communication Currents, 1:1. The Web Magazine of The National Communication Association.

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