Developing qualitative propositions in sales research: existing approaches and a new multiphasic technique

Abstract

Many qualitative sales researchers have encountered the proposition problem: the desire to include propositions in their qualitative work coupled with the discomfort in how to do so effectively. Propositions are often a meaningful addition to qualitative articles in their provision of explicitly stated relationships for researchers to examine in the future. However, advancing propositions that satisfy the major criteria of strong propositional advancement can be a significant challenge. The purpose of this article is to aid qualitative sales researchers in their quest to include propositions by providing a better understanding of effective proposition usage and advancing a newly derived technique to the literature – comparative proposition generation through multiphasic qualitative designs. This technique offers qualitative sales researchers an important additional mechanism through which to advance meaningful propositions to help guide research in the sales domain.