Purpose: The interpretive paradigm in humanities studies has various research strategies, including basic data theory. For this research strategy, there are typically three designs: systematic, emerging, and constructivist, that each of them has proposed a way to implement this strategy. The present study, considering the importance of exploring organizational dynamics in management studies, has attempted to present a new design along with these triple designs, entitled "Interpretative Mapping".
 
Methodology: For conducting this study, after outlining the three major and common rival designs of grounded theory, the ten components and the research design of Interpretive Mapping, including methods of data collection and analysis, were introduced and explained. Then, to provide further familiarity with this design, an example of a study conducted using Interpretive Mapping was examined. Subsequently, the distinguishing features of the Interpretive Mapping design, in terms of the pattern-exploring process and philosophical foundation, were compared with the other three designs.
 
Findings: The Interpretive Mapping design employs the metaphor of mountaineering caravans to liken the process of theory generation to the journey of caravans across a mountain with one or multiple peaks. Each caravan begins its movement with a herald’s call and proceeds through winding passes, stopping at stations, and at times looping in repetitive circles, until ultimately reaching one or more peaks. This design comprises ten fundamental components which together simulate the process of research and theory construction. In this design, data -ranging from interviews, observations, documents, images, and field notes- are collected through theoretical sampling and analyzed in three stages: open coding (identifying concepts with a focus on symbolic meanings), axial coding (categorizing and explaining interrelations among them with feedback from participants), and selective coding (integrating diverse perspectives and presenting the final theory). The use of analytical software to reduce the map of categories and their interrelations, and to uncover the underlying patterns, is feasible and valuable. This design differs from other approaches in two main respects: process-exploring pattern and its philosophical foundation. Its philosophical grounding rests on symbolic interactionism and is inspired by the logic of phenomenography; thus, it acknowledges the active role of the researcher-interpreter as well as the multiple interpretations of participants, while not being suffused with positivist tendencies. Its process-exploring pattern is adaptive and posterior-oriented. The Interpretive Mapping design, owing to its distinctive coding procedures, enables the analysis of complex human and social data and the discovery of foundational social processes related to the studied phenomenon.
 
Conclusion: The interpretative mapping design avoids the objectivism inherent in systematic and emerging designs and like the constructivist design, recognizes the diverse mindsets of research participants and the individual and concrete understandings of the researcher. At the same time, it remains faithful to a logical framework based on the application of the metaphor of mountain caravans, exploring the underlying processes involved in the emergence of phenomena within the context of their occurrence, framed as a network of relationships between categories. Additionally, it utilizes the potential of visual patterns, such as retrospective conceptual models. The diverse declarative propositions derived from the explored model in this design pave the way for pragmatic studies, particularly in the field of applied management knowledge, through a mixed exploratory method.