For the ETA, major goals and objectives were grouped into related themes to form a model of promotion decision making within the company. As explained earlier, this was done by first reviewing the transcripts for categories of events that may have occurred based on identifiable goals. For example, all transcripts contained evidence of senior managers verifying their expectations during the assessment process. Thus, the goal of verification was further investigated by highlighting all the related statements across all transcripts. These statements were subsequently organized into groups of more closely related themes. This process was repeated for each identifiable goal. The resulting macrocognitive model of how
experts make promotion decisions, illustrating the six central themes