Fuzzy Set Qualitative Comparative Analysis

Institutional Analysis of Corruption Configurations in South-West Asian Countries: A Fuzzy-Set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA)

Considering corruption as one of the chronic harms of the administrative system,and the social factor affecting economic growth, the present study sought toexplain, for the first time, the differences in the perceived levels of corruptionamong 16 Southwest Asian countries, relying on the sociological “newinstitutionalism” theory in analyzing organizations, describing cau...

Identifying the configurational paths to innovation in SMEs: A fuzzy- set qualitative comparative analysis

Copyright 2015 Arthur P. Tomasino. Do not copy without permission or proper citation. Please cite as: Tomasino, Arthur P., (2015) Fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis Summary. Working paper. Bentley University

Fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA) is a relatively new but accepted method for understanding case-based research. The technique utilizes a holistic perspective exploring the similarities and differences across cases. Theory and evidence are linked by the presence and absence of outcomes in configurations of causal conditions allowing for the assessment of the multiple conjunctio...

A Critique of the Fuzzy-set Methods in Comparative Social Policy A Critical Introduction and Review of the Applications of Fuzzy-set Methods

This article critiques the Fuzzy-set Qualitative Analysis (fs/QCA) methodology by examining its applicability in three studies in the field of comparative social policy. In each of these three test cases, I focus on the validity of fuzzy-set’s claimed function – its ability to combine theoretic discourse and evidence analysis. All three studies investigate welfare state reform in the late twent...

Fuzzy Sets : Calibration Versus Measurement

Fuzzy sets are relatively new to social science. The first comprehensive introduction of fuzzy sets to the social sciences was offered by Michael Smithson (1987). However, applications were few and far between until the basic principles of fuzzy set analysis were elaborated through Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA; see Ragin 1987; 2000), an analytic system that is fundamentally settheoreti...

QCA: A Package for Qualitative Comparative Analysis

We present QCA, a package for performing Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA). QCA is becoming increasingly popular with social scientists, but none of the existing software alternatives covers the full range of core procedures. This gap is now filled by QCA. After a mapping of the method’s diffusion, we introduce some of the package’s main capabilities, including the calibration of crisp and...