Alumni Association
Dr Wendy Olsen (University of Manchester)
24 November 2011
Joint Research Project
Project title: The Studies of Strategies of Social Change using the Method of Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA)
Japanese Lead Scientist: Professor Daishiro Nomiya, Faculty of Foreign Studies, Sophia University
UK Counterpart: Dr Wendy Olsen, Institute of Development Policy and Management, University of Manchester
Project Duration: April 2008 to 2010
Report to British Academy and JSPS
The basis of the project is to address how the impact of competition in a deregulated industry can be mitigated if firms make decisions sequentially. In effect, by investing in a step-wise manner, a typical firm may be able to respond better to market uncertainties. We show conditions under which sequential investment is valuable for a duopolistic firm.
The project is titled ‘The Expert Roundtable on the Study of Strategies of Social change using the Method of Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA)’. It involved a high-level workshop on a new research technique that is used for both comparative case-study research and causal analysis. The technique is useful for exploring data where the number of cases is from 8 to 200 in particular. Using this method, one can explore pathways of causality without assuming one universal model.
The key participants in the UK were Dr. Wendy Olsen, Senior Lecturer, and Dr. Hisako Nomura, Research Associate University of Manchester, Cathie Marsh Centre for Census and Survey Research (CCSR). In 2009 the new Department of Social Statistics began with its staffing almost overlapping with the CCSR. Nomura has now gone on to a Lectureship job in Japan.
A two-day expert Roundtable was held in 2008 with 18 participants from 4 countries including 4 invited participants coming from Japan. An all-day public training event also attracted 100 people. Another event held in UK in 2010 attracted 70 participants. Further events held in Japan in 2010 were attended by both the Japan and UK key personnel, including Dr. Taisuke Fujita from Sophia University, Dr. Airo Hino from Tokyo Metropolitan University, Dr. Atsushi Ishida from the School of Sociology of Kwansei Gakuin University. Furthermore, our liaison with Hirohisa Takenoshita of the Department of Sociology of Shizuoka University was very fruitful. We liaised with the Japanese Association for Mathematical Sociology. We created a very active JISC email-based network on the topic of the QCA method, ‘QUAL-COMPARE’. Olsen visited Belgium to offer training to PhD students in this broad area. The UK-based training days were converted into two short courses which have been popular annually ever since. The collaboration is now finished, with individuals publishing their papers in learned journals. No further applications to JSPS for funding arose directly from this activity. Sample publication:
Olsen, W.K., “Non-Nested and Nested Cases in a Socio-Economic Village Study”, chapter in D. Byrne and C. Ragin, eds. (2009),
Handbook of Case-Centred Research,
London: Sage.
