Understanding Mills via Mill-type methods: An application of qualitative comparative analysis to a study of labor management in southern textile manufacturing

Abstract

A number of recent writers have advocated a computer-based approach to the analysis of qualitative data that leans on John Stuart Mill's method of agreement and the indirect method of difference. Those discussions, however, remain fairly abstract and provide little insight into how analyses based on Mill-type methods unfold and their relative costs and benefits. In this paper we describe the logic and use of one prominent Mill-type software program called QCA (Qualitative Comparative Analysis) in the context of an analysis of evidence drawn from twenty-two interviews with managers in textile plants. Our substantive aim is to understand labor-management practices in Southern textile manufacturing plants; our methodological aim is to illustrate the strengths and weaknesses of the Mill-type logic in action.