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Market Engineering pp 69–86Cite as

Taxonomy Development for Business Research: A Hands-On Guideline

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Abstract

Classification schemes are important groundwork for research on many topics of different business disciplines such as information systems (IS). They make investigating topics manageable by allowing researchers to delimit their work to certain taxa or types (e.g., of artifacts or firms) and provide a basis for generalization. Opposed to theoretically grounded typologies, taxonomies are empirically derived from entities of a phenomenon and therefore have several advantages, such as more detailed and exhaustive coverage. Initial guidelines for developing taxonomies in business have been proposed; however, research is still missing a clear set of applicable procedures to empirically build taxonomies. We tackle this topic by suggesting an inductive approach based on the procedures of content and cluster analysis. Each of the proposed six steps is amended with comprehensive state-of-the-art guidelines, suggestions, and formative measures of reliability and validity.

Keywords

  • Taxonomy
  • Classification
  • Typology
  • Content analysis
  • Method

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Auzsburg, Augsburg, Germany

    Dennis M. Steininger & Daniel J. Veit

  2. University of Göttingen, Göttingen, Germany

    Manuel Trenz

Authors
  1. Dennis M. Steininger
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  2. Manuel Trenz
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  3. Daniel J. Veit
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Daniel J. Veit .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Hohenheim, Stuttgart, Germany

    Prof. Dr. Henner Gimpel

  2. University of Passau, Passau, Germany

    Prof. Dr. Jan Krämer

  3. University of Freiburg, Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany

    Prof. Dr. Dirk Neumann

  4. University of Giessen, Giessen, Germany

    Prof. Dr. Jella Pfeiffer

  5. University of Bayreuth, Bayreuth, Germany

    Prof. Dr. Stefan Seifert

  6. Technical University of Berlin, Berlin, Germany

    Prof. Dr. Timm Teubner

  7. University of Augsburg, Augsburg, Germany

    Prof. Dr. Daniel J. Veit

  8. University of Freiburg, Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany

    Prof. Dr. Anke Weidlich

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Steininger, D.M., Trenz, M., Veit, D.J. (2021). Taxonomy Development for Business Research: A Hands-On Guideline. In: , et al. Market Engineering . Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-66661-3_4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-66661-3_4

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