Mixed-Method Approaches to Capture Digitalisation. The Case of Networked Digital Technology Permeation in German Hospitals

Given the interest and salience of the topic of digitalisation, it is not surprising that there is a large variety of multifaceted research and a multitude of different findings in sociology alone. However, the current debate is often criticised for its fuzziness and fragmentation. The lack of a unified conceptualisation of this fuzzy term and an overwhelming range of existing research tools makes it difficult to adequately capture digitalisation empirically, let alone study its direct consequences. In this article we introduce a template for a mixed-methods approach that allows us to circumvent these issues and enables researchers to study digitalisation and its effects comprehensively. We also apply our template and discuss the benefits for our empirical findings. Following the ideas of this volume, we focus on permeation as the concept we study with our approach and present the healthcare sector in Germany as an empirical example. For our mixed-methods approach we utilise a wide range of research tools using, for example, interviews with experts in various institutions, secondary data analysis and an online survey conducted in multiple hospitals. Our sometimes contradictory findings highlight that only by combining all these methods we do achieve a correct understanding of what permeation means for this sector.