Theory Development in Thematic Analysis: Procedure and Practice

Thematic analysis has widely been used in qualitative data analysis for theory development. This paper illustrates step-by-step procedure of qualitative data analysis through thematic analysis. Thematic analysis was performed on ten in-depth interviews which were transcribed for analysis. Coding in qualitative research is a systematic process through which the collected data were condensed into smaller analyzable units, called as codes, which were further categorized and developed into themes. Coding process eventually helped researchers to build a general theoretical concept about the qualitative evidence. Major themes that emerged in this analysis include (i) the management issues and (ii) employees’ apprehensions. Findings were interpreted and their implications were discussed in detail in the section of conclusion.