Using a grounded theory approach for exploring software product management challenges

•We illustrate the use of a grounded theory approach.•We explore market driven requirements engineering practices and challenges.•We illustrate how a theory proposal was developed on the basis of analyzed data.•We share our experiences of conducting a grounded theory study within a discipline of RE.

The traditional requirements engineering (RE) research paradigm, along with most engineering research and practice, is commonly seen to belong to the philosophical tradition of positivism, which construes knowledge as accruing through the systematic observation of stable and knowable phenomena. Consequently, RE methods tend to ignore social issues. However, due to the dominant role of the human being in RE, there has been an increasing need to rely on research methods of the social sciences, arts, and humanities for RE related findings. This paper illustrates one example of how social aspects in RE have been explored with a research method adopted from social sciences research tradition. Drawing heavily on the research reported in the doctoral thesis of the principal author, we describe in this paper: (1) how a study using a grounded theory approach was designed and conducted for exploring market-driven requirements engineering (MDRE) challenges in seven companies, (2) how the analysis eventually proceeded toward a proposed theory, and (3) our experiences of using a grounded theory approach within the discipline of RE.