INTRODUCTION TO THE DENA CODING SCHEME
The DENA coding scheme (Detailed Event Narrative Analysis) was initially developed for use in the T.E.A.M. Study (Team Events and Motivation Study) at Harvard Business School (HBS) (Teresa M. Amabile, Principal Investigator). It was designed to allow comprehensive, detailed content analysis of events described in the daily diary narratives written by organizational employees participating in the T.E.A.M. Study. The DENA Coding Scheme Manual is published as a separate document (A,abile, Mueller, & Archambault, 2003). The Manual summarizes the aims, background, and methodology of the T.E.A.M. Study, and describes in detail the DENA coding scheme, its development, its dimensions, and its proper use.
This document presents definitions, coding guidelines, and examples of the DENA coding dimensions and the categories within those dimensions. The dimensions covered in this document are: Event Type (the major dimension), Source, Target, Source/Target Arbitrary, Object, Time, Event Status, Valence (also called Self-Valence), and Tone. Other coding dimensions are described only in the Coding Manual, because they involve simple dichotomous "flag" codes rather than substantive coding categories: Content Link, Casual Link, Repeat Event, and Main Event. This coding scheme document does occasionally mention guidelines for coding these other dimensions when a particular Event Type category is chosen.
This coding scheme should be used only in conjunction with the Coding Manual (Anabile, Mueller, & Archambault, 2003). We hope that this manual, and this DENA Coding Scheme, will serve as a guide for other researchers who wish to adopt a methodology similar to ours. Although the T.E.A.M. Study was designed to gather comprehensive information on the daily course of events in creative projects within organizations, we have tried to provide in these documents sufficient detail on the rationale for the scheme and its procedures to allow other researchers to design coding schemes and methodologies appropriate to their own needs.
The names of all companies, teams, and individuals used in this coding scheme and the accompanying manual are fictitious.
EM
107 pages
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