Beyond the quantitative-qualitative divide

OPENINNOVA::David Lopez

Large-N && Small-N Analysis in Innovation

studies

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OpenInnova:David López

Quantitative versus Qualitative Analysis in Social Sciences

Two main approaches to social science analysis:

Qualitative

analysis

Quantitative

analysis

OpenInnova:David López

Large N approach. Provides answers to: what causes revolutions ?

Quantitative analysis:◦Large-N approach (extensive use of cross-

sectional data)

Theory

Empirical Data

Multivariate

Analysis

Model

OpenInnova:David López

Small-N approach. Provides answers to: what caused the French revolution ?

Qualitative analysis:◦Small-N approach (qualitative comparisons of

cases)

Cases

Qualitative analysis

Causal chains

“Soft Model”

OpenInnova:David López

Small-N analysis in policy research (innovation is about policy after all)

When it comes to policy analysis, such as innovation regimes and R&D, statistical inference is not enough, holistic approaches are needed in order to:◦ Explore several combinations and their consequences.◦ Conduct context-specific assessments.

For instance: What It takes to avoid poverty ?◦ Does college education make a difference for married white

males from families with good incomes ?◦ And college education for unmarried black females from low-

income families ?

Moreover, what about scenarios with limited data such as OECD innovation database for instance ?

OpenInnova:David LópezSmall-N Analysis by example: Avoiding poverty (I)

Small-N approaches consider cases as combinations of causally relevant conditions

College Educated

High Parental income

Parent College

educated

High AFQT Score

Poverty avoidanc

e

Number of cases

1 0 0 0 0 0 30

2 0 0 0 1 0 3

3 0 0 1 0 ? 4

….

16 1 1 1 1 1 23

OutcomeCausal conditions

Goal of the analysis: Identify different combinations of case characteristics explicitly linked to poverty avoidance.

OpenInnova:David LópezSmall-N Analysis : Fuzzy-set approach

But…. what do we mean by “High parental income” ???

How strong is the inference: CollegeAvoiding poverty

Charles Ragin suggests Fuzzy-set logic.

High parental income

Low parental income

High parental income

Low parental income

OpenInnova:David LópezSmall-N Analysis: Sufficiency && Consistency

Xi

Y

)()),(min()( iiiii XYXYXyConsistenc

Xi→Y

OpenInnova:David LópezSmall-N Analysis: Necessity && Consistency

Y

Xi

)()),(min()( iiiii YYXXYyConsistenc

Y →Xi

OpenInnova:David LópezSmall-N Analysis: Sufficiency && Coverage

Xi1

Y

)()),(min()( iiiii YYXYXCoverage

X1* X2 →Y

Xi

Y

Xi→Y

Xi2

Xi

Y

Xi→Y

OpenInnova:David LópezfzQCA in Action: Democracies in interwar Europe (1918-1936)

Data from 18 European countries (Ragin 2008).

COUNTRY SURVIVED BREAKDOWN DEVELOPED URBAN LITERATE INDUSTRIAL STABLEAustria 0,01 0,99 0,74 0,14 0,98 0,76 0,35Belgium 0,98 0,02 0,99 0,89 0,96 0,98 0,96Czech 0,85 0,015 0,42 0,96 0,97 0,91 0,87Estonia 0,12 0,88 0,15 0,07 0,96 0,02 0,87Finland 0,64 0,36 0,43 0,03 0,98 0,09 0,51France 0,98 0,02 0,97 0,02 0,97 0,83 0,93Germany 0,01 0,99 0,85 0,83 0,98 0,96 0,23Greece 0,03 0,97 0,05 0,1 0,11 0,38 0,35Hungary 0,41 0,59 0,08 0,2 0,81 0,08 0,09Ireland 0,91 0,09 0,62 0,04 0,96 0,02 0,93Italy 0,01 0,99 0,25 0,11 0,38 0,49 0,51

Netherland 0,98 0,02 0,97 0,99 0,99 0,94 0,99Poland 0,12 0,88 0,03 0,22 0,55 0,02 0,02Portugal 0,01 0,99 0,02 0,01 0,02 0,12 0,02Romania 0,25 0,75 0,02 0,03 0,15 0,02 0,78Spain 0,03 0,97 0,04 0,41 0,08 0,22 0,14Sweden 0,98 0,02 0,93 0,15 0,99 0,7 0,87UK 0,98 0,02 0,98 0,98 0,99 0,98 0,96

Outcome

OpenInnova:David LópezfzQCA in Action: Democracies in interwar Europe (1918-1936)

0.5

DEVELOPED URBAN LITERATE INDUSTRIAL STABLE number survivedconsist1 1 1 1 1 3 0.8843371 0 1 0 1 1 0.7738101 1 0 0 0 0 0.7413791 1 0 0 1 0 0.7368421 1 0 1 0 0 0.7272731 1 0 1 1 0 0.7272731 0 1 1 1 2 0.7253521 1 1 0 1 0 0.7128711 1 1 0 0 0 0.6947370 1 1 1 1 1 0.6754971 0 1 0 0 0 0.6745560 1 1 0 0 0 0.6279070 1 1 0 1 0 0.6200001 0 0 0 0 0 0.5945951 0 0 0 1 0 0.5890410 1 0 0 1 0 0.5890411 0 0 1 1 0 0.5774651 0 0 1 0 0 0.5774650 1 0 1 1 0 0.5522390 1 1 1 0 0 0.5288460 0 1 0 1 2 0.5081970 0 1 0 0 2 0.5061730 1 0 1 0 0 0.4933330 1 0 0 0 0 0.4846151 1 1 1 0 1 0.3928571 0 1 1 0 1 0.3793100 0 1 1 1 0 0.3706290 0 1 1 0 0 0.3706290 0 0 0 1 2 0.3069770 0 0 1 1 0 0.2878790 0 0 1 0 0 0.2483660 0 0 0 0 3 0.225543

OpenInnova:David LópezfzQCA in Action: Democracies in interwar Europe (1918-1936)

Consistent enough

Non consistent

0.75

DEVELOPED URBAN LITERATE INDUSTRIAL STABLE number survivedconsist

1 1 1 1 1 3 1 0.884337

0 0 0 0 0 3 0 0.2255431 0 1 0 1 1 1 0.7753520 0 1 0 1 2 0 0.5081970 0 1 0 0 2 0 0.5061730 0 0 0 1 2 0 0.3069771 0 1 0 1 1 0 0.7738100 1 1 1 1 1 0 0.6754971 1 1 1 0 1 0 0.3928571 0 1 1 0 1 0 0.379310

OpenInnova:David López

Least parsimonious solution (remainders not considered)

If all five conditions are present then is sufficient for a democracy to survive.

But NOTurban and NOTindustrial does not really seem to matter much:

DEVELOPED*LITERATE*STABLE SURVIVALfzQCA in Action: Democracies in interwar Europe (1918-1936)

OpenInnova:David López

Considering Breakdown instead of Survival as the outcome of interest:

Two sufficient conditions emerge:

NOT DEVELOPED * NOT URBAN * NOT INDUSTRIAL BREAKDOWN

DEVELOPED*LITERATE*INDUSTRIAL*NOT STABLE BREAKDOWN

fzQCA in Action: Democracies in interwar Europe (1918-1936)

OpenInnova:David López

Nested analysis approach (Evan S. Lieberman) The best of both worlds ? Just adding extra workload ?

OpenInnova:David López

Nested analysis approach (Evan S. Lieberman) The best of both worlds ? Just adding extra workload ?

Triangulation