Table II Some key considerations for... | Emerald Publishing

Table II

Some key considerations for using online data and network text analysis in HRM research

Research questions	Data collection	Data analysis
Macro-level: professional and managerial discourses and dominant logics within the HRM field; HRM as a profession; evolution of the HRM field Meso-level: interactions and influence tactics among HR actors, including practitioners, consultants, academics, and opinion leaders; legitimation of HR practices Micro-level: ethnographic research focussing on what HR professionals and practitioners really do; HR professional identity; HR roles at the individual level Multi-level: cross-level analyses of the above topics	Online data as a complementary source to traditional data sets Strengths: (a) real-time, behavioural and naturally occuring communication data; (b) longitudinal data; (c) no researcher’s intervention; (d) “collective knowledge-sharing” (Scott and Orlikowski, 2009, p. 2); (e) easy and inexpensive to collect Limitations: (a) ownership and copyright; (b) representativeness of the sample; (c) validity and reliability in relation to sample bias; (d) potential ethical issues related to the anonymity of individual authors; (e) difficult to establish causality among variables	Select the “right” software package based on the objectives of the research Four-step analysis: 1. keyword search to narrow the frame 2. Identification of the relevant conceps 3. Analysis of prominent concepts and identification of possible relations among concepts 4. Interpretation of the results based on the conceptual framework and epistemological assumptions

Research questions	Data collection	Data analysis
Macro-level: professional and managerial discourses and dominant logics within the HRM field; HRM as a profession; evolution of the HRM fieldMeso-level: interactions and influence tactics among HR actors, including practitioners, consultants, academics, and opinion leaders; legitimation of HR practicesMicro-level: ethnographic research focussing on what HR professionals and practitioners really do; HR professional identity; HR roles at the individual levelMulti-level: cross-level analyses of the above topics	Online data as a complementary source to traditional data setsStrengths: (a) real-time, behavioural and naturally occuring communication data; (b) longitudinal data; (c) no researcher’s intervention; (d) “collective knowledge-sharing” (Scott and Orlikowski, 2009, p. 2); (e) easy and inexpensive to collectLimitations: (a) ownership and copyright; (b) representativeness of the sample; (c) validity and reliability in relation to sample bias; (d) potential ethical issues related to the anonymity of individual authors; (e) difficult to establish causality among variables	Select the “right” software package based on the objectives of the researchFour-step analysis: 1. keyword search to narrow the frame2. Identification of the relevant conceps3. Analysis of prominent concepts and identification of possible relations among concepts4. Interpretation of the results based on the conceptual framework and epistemological assumptions