The present study illustrates the use of a qualitative research technique, textual data analysis, in assessing the emotional content of open-ended survey responses. The Dictionary of Affect in Language (DAL), one of many acceptable routes to the measurement of emotion, provided the basis for scoring open-ended responses collected in a study of the organizational transformation efforts of a Fortune 100 firm based in the midwestern United States. Managers and corporate executives were surveyed with an in-depth questionnaire that included quantitative measures of several work-related perceptions and attitudes as well as open-ended questions regarding two major events that occurred during the transformation. Dimension scores produced from the DAL and direct ratings of open-ended responses correlated with the quantitative measures in expected and consistent ways. The use of textual data analytic approaches is discussed, and advantages and disadvantages of such approaches are broadly addressed.
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