ThSQCA: Reproducible Threshold-Sweep Workflows for QCA in R

Yuki Toyoda

No yb8xs_v1, SocArXiv from Center for Open Science

Abstract: Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) sets thresholds when constructing sets from continuous scales. A standard analysis, however, is fixed to a single set of thresholds, so it does not directly reveal how the sufficiency structure changes across different outcome levels. Researchers can repeat the analysis at individual thresholds, but comparing the emergence and disappearance of configurations, solution fit, and the presence of multiple minimal solutions while keeping settings consistent requires additional implementation. This article introduces the R package Threshold-Sweep Qualitative Comparative Analysis (ThSQCA), which addresses this gap. ThSQCA uses the QCA package as its computational engine and provides a common workflow to run, aggregate, visualize, and report analyses that systematically vary the outcome threshold, the condition thresholds, or both. In a consumer survey of usage intention toward Starbucks (n = 336), moderate target levels of usage intention yielded multiple sufficient paths, whereas the highest target level left only one narrow path, with solution coverage dropping substantially. Varying the threshold that defines service delivery as high further produced different sufficiency structures, including cases with no solution, for the same high level of usage intention. Such differences cannot be observed in a single-threshold analysis. ThSQCA does not automatically select the correct threshold. It is a diagnostic and comparative workflow that clarifies, over a research- or practice-relevant range, at which levels a conclusion holds and where it changes. This allows QCA results to be evaluated not as an answer specific to one threshold, but as decision-relevant information that depends on the target level.

Date: 2026-09-24
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:osf:socarx:yb8xs_v1

DOI: 10.31235/osf.io/yb8xs_v1

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