Pesquisa Qualitativa: rigor metodológico no tratamento da teoria dos custos de transação em artigos apresentados nos congressos da Sober (2007-2011)

To exam how qualitative research is built in articles involving the Transaction Costs Theory (TCT), considering publications listed from 2007 to 2011 of the congress of Brazilian Society for Rural Economics, Administration and Sociology (Sober) is the aim of this paper. Therefore, it was considered, mainly, methodological aspects related to the research types, time frame, collection methods, data types and analysis methods used. For this purpose, it was carried a qualitative research, descriptive and exploratory type, with theoretical approach, cut cross-sectional and longitudinal perspective based on secondary data. The results showed that most of the articles analyzed involved qualitative research, exploratory type, with cross-cut and questionnaire, followed by structured interviews, as the predominate data collection methods. The primary data, along with the secondary data, were the most used. The analysis methods were not clear in any of the selected quality articles. Three situations were observed: a) they are not cited; b) they are cited, but not explained or observed in the analysis; c) they are quoted and explained, but not adopted in the analysis. It was concluded that the lack of methodological rigor, specifically in collecting and analyzing data, affected the results, reducing the possibility of the contribution of works for advances of knowledge involving the TCT.