**6. Application of the grounded theory**

Collected data was subjected to analysis using Grounded Theory methodology which was executed by carefully following Strauss and Corbin's (1990) approach. As mentioned earlier,

Developing a Theoretical Framework

along with their sub-factors.

**6.3 Constant comparison** 

similarities and differences.

represent the empirical data.

open, axial, and selective coding.

account that they truly represented the empirical data.

services are enquiry services for both citizens and residents".

**6.4 Coding procedures** 

**6.4.1 Open coding** 

for the Adoption of Biometrics in M-Government Applications Using Grounded Theory 195

the data analysis, as well as the relationships among concepts and categories. It further helped to explore data, and to group concepts and codes into categories. For example, during the development of the "system requirements" and "procedural issues" categories, one of the memos written stated that "Organisational and users' factors influence the identified system requirements. System requirements relate to the system itself. Procedural issues which emerged from entities factors include current and future authentication system issues that are related to the system as well". This memo helped in developing a core category - "system factors" - which combined system requirements and procedural issues

According to Charmaz (2006), constant comparison is described as being core to Grounded Theory. It refers to the process of constantly comparing data set to data set and its coding in order to refine the development of theory. Strauss and Corbin (1990) indicated that constant comparison reminds the researcher to constantly return to the data which can help in verifying the emerging categories as well as examining and comparing concepts for

In this study, constant comparison was employed by comparing incoming data with the previous data to find out whether the same concepts appear and are relevant for the new cases and whether the codes were placed in correct category and were reliable and truly

Strauss and Corbin (1990) defined three coding procedures in Grounded Theory which are

An open code refers to "the analytic process through which concepts are identified and their properties and dimensions are discovered in data" (Strauss and Corbin 1998, p. 101). In this study, open coding was considered in the initial phase of the analysis process. A total of 115 open codes were created based on 15 interviews and 311 questionnaires. During this stage, the analysis was done by using phrase-by-phrase coding. In order to capture what has been said in the interview, conceptual labels were appended to almost every phrase. These labels were mostly too close to the exact words and context of the interview. Phrases with the same idea were attached with the same open code; otherwise, a new open code was created if the existing one did not fit. As the coding process continued and the researchers became well focused and confident in the process, the codings were revisited and refined so that they were reasonably understandable and provided more meaningful concepts, taking into

However, it is important to note that some sentences represent only one concept, while others represent more the one concept. For example, the following sentence represents the code, financial benefits: "Also, it may have financial benefits later". Whereas the next sentence represents four concepts: lack of m-government services, lack of e-government services, enquiry services, and target users: "The most current m-services as well as e-

this study incorporates the suggested techniques by Strauss and Corbin (1990) including sampling, coding, memo writing, reviewing of literature, and making constant comparisons to analyse the data and enhance theoretical sensitivity. More details about the application of these techniques are provided in the following sections.
