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Couched within the author’s memories and correspondence with Kathy Charmaz, this chapter considers the philosophical nature of Constructivist, or Charmazian Grounded Theory, and contrasts it with the philosophical underpinnings of Critical Grounded Theory. Using an autopoietic framework, this chapter sees Charmazian and Critical Grounded Theory as interconnected, complementary, but distinct in the way they each approach research participants and interpret social processes. The chapter ends with reflections on Kathy Charmaz's contribution to critical grounded theory and where she had hoped the next generation of grounded theorists might expand the methodology.

The purpose of this paper is to take conceptual and methodological steps towards the elaboration of the critical grounded theory (CGT) method.

Starting from conceptual issues with mapping everyday discourses and practices in their broader societal context in organisational ethnography, cultural political economy (CPE) is proposed as a suitable theoretical framework for integrating the cultural dimension of discourses and imaginaries into political-economic analyses of organisation and management. The CGT method is introduced for empirical operationalisation.

Grounded theory tools for working with ethnographic data can be employed within critical approaches such as CPE although they originate from positivist social science. The need to combine ethnographic fieldwork with substantial theoretical work and/or critical discourse analysis may be met by CGT, which affords the ethnographic strengths of grounded theory without, however, bracketing the critical-theoretical insights of CPE.

The usefulness of CGT has been tentatively tested, but requires thorough meta-theoretical and methodological development, which is what is undertaken here.

CGT expects and takes account of the social implications of its employment in the field.

First steps towards a new critical method for organisation and management studies are taken. Although originating from concern with CPE, the CGT method may appeal to a wider audience of critical scholars across the social sciences.

Research literature presents lively debate about whether research approaches traditionally belonging to distinct paradigms can be combined (Creswell, 2011). While much of this discourse has focussed on mixed methods studies that combine quantitative and qualitative data (Morgan, 2007), there has been less discussion of the implications and benefits of combining different approaches from two “alternative” paradigms. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the confluence of constructivist grounded theory as detailed by Charmaz (2006, 2011, 2014) with participatory research.

The authors discuss points of tension and convergence between the constructivist and participatory paradigms that underpin these approaches, and consider how the differences might be reconciled through a notion such as critical grounded theory. The authors illustrate these points through examples from the research practice in youth mental health.

The authors propose that incorporating some of the critical aspects of participatory philosophy into constructivist grounded theory offers a useful strategy for generating local theory in mental health research informed by social action agendas.

This paper extends thinking in the field of participatory and grounded theory research and offers new concept for researchers engaging in critical inquiry.

In this chapter honouring Professor Kathy Charmaz, her scholarship and her mentorship, I explore the impact of her work on my thinking and research. Specifically, I focus on the translation of her constructivist principles into my, and others', grounded theory methodological practice. Following the introduction, the chapter commences with a reflection upon coming across constructivist grounded theory (CGT) for the first time almost 20 years ago, and my excitement at finding a methodology that so well aligned with my social justice-oriented research. Already ‘seduced’ by (classical) grounded theory, I had been uncomfortable and wrestling with its problematic philosophical underpinnings, and Kathy's work provided an intriguing solution. This section also briefly reviews CGT's main features, including Kathy's central emphasis on critical reflexivity, interpretation and context, the researcher–participant relationship and the co-construction of knowledge with participants, whilst maintaining a focus on conceptual development. In Section Three, I examine the ‘translation’ of Kathy's constructivist principles into my and others' reflexive grounded theory methodological practice, focusing particularly on issues of researcher positionality/ies and participant involvement. I also consider the ways in which I am further extending these ideas in my ongoing CGT research, including in relation to researcher self-disclosure. In the concluding section, I observe that Kathy's scholarship not only put grounded theory on a new epistemological basis but also established constructivist GT's axiological foundation. I end with a reflection upon the legacy of her ‘curiosity and wonder’ as a scholar of the social world, her legendary mentorship and her generosity of spirit.

The purpose of this paper is to advance knowledge and obtain an understanding of the phenomenon of public sector external auditing (PSEA) in Tanzania.

The paper used a grounded theory method informed by a critical approach. It used data from multiple sources including interviews, observations and documents, to provide a theoretical and practical understanding of PSEA in Tanzania. The theoretical aspects were developed ‘in vivo’ and were also informed by the Habermasian concept of colonisation.

The principal research findings from the data concern the central phenomenon of managing colonising tendencies in PSEA which appeared to be the core strategy for both the government and external auditors. While the government appeared to manage the National Audit Office of Tanzania (NAOT) appearance and exploited the legitimising features of PSEA, external auditors manoeuvred within colonising tendencies and attempted to maintain the ‘audit supremacy’ image. PSEA in Tanzania encountered colonising tendencies because of weak working relationship between the NAOT and other accountability agencies, inconsistencies in governance and politics, the culture of corruption and secrecy, dependence on foreign financing and mimicking of foreign models. To coexist within this colonising environment, external auditors managed their relationship with auditees and the complexities of PSEA roles. Managing colonising tendencies resulted into obscured subordination of PSEA, contributing to cosmetic accountability and growing public interest in PSEA.

It is hoped that future research in other countries, in and beyond Africa, will be undertaken to broaden and deepen our understanding of the external auditing of public sector entities.

The paper combines grounded theory with a critical approach to understand PSEA in a developing country.

This study describes the development of a grounded theory of applied critical thinking in leadership studies and examines how student-centered experiential learning in leadership education bridged critical thinking with action. Over three semester undergraduate students in an upper level leadership studies course at a large four-year public institution in the southeastern United States completed a written assignment in which they were asked to define the concept of “leading critically.” A grounded theory of critical leadership – utilizing critical thinking skills to make decisions about leadership actions in different situations – emerged after completing a qualitative document analysis of these papers and incorporating the researchers’ existing knowledge of leadership and student development theory. The hope is that this research will create dialogue concerning new approaches to leadership education and encourage practices that apply critical thinking skills to leadership.

This contribution argues that Kathy Charmaz's career did not burst into full intellectual bloom until the last 25 years of her life – from 55 to her death at 80. I examine why and how this scholarly blossoming happened so late in her life and the nature of its many manifestations, especially research on a wide variety of social justice issues. After her initial focus on medical sociology, specializing in chronic illness, Kathy became an innovative and renowned qualitative methodologist, developing constructivist grounded theory (CGT) method taken up in many amazingly heterogeneous scholarly fields transnationally.

My initial writing and critique of grounded theory (GT) was undertaken in complete ignorance of Kathy Charmaz's work. Subsequently, I made contact with her and was delighted to receive a warm and collegial response, something I came to understand was an essential part of her nature. In our ensuing collaboration, which included the two Grounded Theory Methodology (GTM) Handbooks, my understanding of the method increased, thanks to her deep insights and extensive knowledge and familiarity with those writing about the method far and wide. But far more important was the way in which our friendship and partnership helped me appreciate and understand the depth and value of her significant contributions to ideas about camaraderie, research and social justice.

Using a life story approach, I explore Kathy Charmaz's research journey marked by her profound motivation to utilize the humanizing potential of human sciences research as she developed the constructivist version of grounded theory (CGT). The experiential and social divides that she observed since her own childhood between the ill person and medical professionals or other stakeholders remained etched in her consciousness. They generated a silently but firmly held moral responsibility toward creating humanizing spaces for the voices of ill persons as well as for people marginalized by social injustice or inequity. The ontological shift Charmaz introduced in CGT enabled recovering the heretofore silenced voices of participants from the clutches of a claimed “objective truth” in the research findings of positivist research.

In her subsequent works, Charmaz also advocated and illustrated the need to use critical reflexivity to more meaningfully understand the hierarchies within and between social worlds as well as how researcher-participant relationships often shape participants' experiences. In doing so, she also demystified the colonialist nature of qualitative research methodologies, including grounded theory (GT) approaches. In such practices, implicitly individualist ideology is used to legitimate neoliberal globalization to help sustain the geopolitical economic power of a few countries over the rest of the world.

The paper will concentrate on the Grounded Theory Methodology (GTM) from the point of view of the contemplative social sciences (CSS). It will analyze how the mind is engaged in the construction of concept and what the role is of the consciousness of the mind's work in creating a theory that is based on the analysis of empirical data. We will review the research and analytical methods that could be inspirations for Contemplative Grounded Theory (CGT): constructivist grounded theory, classic grounded theory, transformational grounded theory, sociological introspection, holistic ethnography, mindful inquiry and transformational phenomenology, and contemplative qualitative inquiry.

We can find in many classical books from grounded theory (GT) some seeds of contemplative thinking, and we can reconstruct them (Glaser and Strauss, 1967; Glaser, 1978; Strauss, 1987). We would like to develop the inspirations more and perhaps change the sense of GT after the contemplative turn. We would like to show the possibilities of using CGT in research and also its limitations. Some empirical examples from research and analysis will be given to show how contemplation could be used in GT.