Emergent research designs
The other extreme is an emergent design. As the phrase suggests, this is an approach to research where one has a starting point and sees where that leads. This is an important feature of grounded theory (GT) approached (see Chapter 4).GT is a powerful research approach when exploring an issue where there is little available background to guide research. However, when done properly, a GT approach is an open-ended commitment, as the researcher has to follow leads indicated by the data collected (‘theoretical sampling’)