RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
4.4. DATA ANALVSIS
issues that neededto form a crucial part of the interviewguide. (Donnelly et ai, 1995:486; Hayes, 2002:83;Kotter and Cohen, 2002:7;Kotter, 1995:61)
~ To determine whether there was any resistan ce to the change and how this was dealt with.
Resistance and the methods used to overcome resistance are critical factors that cannot be ignored when embarking on any change intervention evaluation (Kottcr and Schlesinger, 1979: 111). These issues form an integral part of the literature on change management and had to be incorporated in the interview guide in order to accurately evaluate the organisational changeintervention.
~ To explorethefactorsthat hinderedandfacilitatedtheprocess
It was necessary to determine the key factors that had a negative impact on the change process as well as those factors that hada positiveinfluence so that the final evaluation of the change intervention would be balanced.
~ To determine the effectiveness of theorganisational change interventi on in terms of the organisation'sown objectives for the intervention.
These questions were asked to establish the relative success or failure of the change intervention undertaken from the perspective of the organisation.
~ To what extent does the organizational change intervention implemented employ the principlesofcurrent changemanagement models ?
The purpose of extracting the common elements of all the change models in thisstudy was to elicit the extentto which the best practice principlesof change management are being applied to organisational change initiatives (Donnelly et ai, 1995:486; Hayes, 2002:83; Kotter and Cohen ,2002:7;Kotter, 1995:61)
The objective of data analysis is to transform information into an answer to the original research question (Terre Blanche, Durrheim and Kelly, 2006:323). The task of the qualitative researcher is one of analysis and synthesis (Leedy, 1993: 141) Historical data, for example, is almost completely qualitative since "history arrives localized, in bits and pieces - isolated events, dates, individuals" (Leedy, 1993: 141). Synthesis is indispensable to research history since one must fit the pieces together to form a meaningful matrix (Leedy, 1993: 141). This research focused on a change intervention that has already occurred hence it was 'partly' historical in nature, and required putting all the pieces of information provided by the different respondents together into some kind of perspective, so that specific themes could be extracted. The responses from interviewees were arranged into themes corresponding to the interview questions, which in turn were derived from the research objectives. The responses with common themes were tallied to give a frequency corresponding to the respective theme. This formed the foundation of the analysis process undertaken in this study.
This study employed interpretative content analysis where the researcher had to stay close to the data in order to interpret it from a position of empathetic understanding (Terre Blanche, Durrheim and Kelly, 2006:321). The purpose of interpretive analysis is to provide "thick description", which means "a thorough description of the characteristics, processes, transactions, and contexts that constitute the phenomenon being studied, couched in language not alien to the phenomenon, as well as an account of the researcher's role in constructing this description" (Terre Blanche, Durrheim and Kelly, 2006:321). Interpretative content analysis involves five steps namely, familiarisation and immersion; inducing themes; coding; elaboration; interpretation and checking (Terre Blanche,Durrheim and Kelly,2006:321).
Step 1: Familiarisation and immersion
This involved the development of ideas and theories about the change intervention under investigation, even as the researcher made contact with the gatekeepers and set up the interviews (Terre Blanche, Durrheim and Kelly, 2006:323) . Prior to data analysis a preliminaryunderstanding of the meaning of the data was established by the researcher (Terre Blanche, Durrheim and Kelly, 2006:323). Immersion during the data analysis stage is about reading through interview notes repeatedly to determine the "kinds of interpretation that are likely to be supported by the data and what are not" (Terre Blanche, Durrheim and Kelly, 2006:323). The researcher in this study repeatedly read through the interview notes, highlighting key points. This entailed the development of ideas to extract themes from the context which were relevant to the specific objectivesof this study.
Step 2: Inducing themes
Induction means inferring general rules or classes from specific instances (Terre Blanche, Durrheim and Kelly, 2006:323). It is a bottom-up approach since the organising principles or themes are extracted from the interview notes (Terre Blanche, Durrheim and Kelly , 2006:323) . "Themes should ideally arise naturally from the data, but at the same time they should have a bearing on your research question" (Terre Blanche, Durrheim and Kelly ,2006:321).
"There are no hard - and -fast rules about what sort of themes are best or about the best ways of organising any given collection of raw data" (Terre Blanche, Durrheim and Kelly, 2006:324). However, this study used the following guidelines in developing the themes namely: the researcher tried to "employ the language the interviewees used, instead of abstract theoretical language to label the themes"; the researcher tried to move
"beyond merely summarising content but rather thought in terms of processes, functions, tensions and contradictions"; the researcher tried to" find an optimum level of complexity" to create interest with the data; "many different kinds of themes were explored prior to making a choice" and finally the themes selected "focused on the aims of the current study" (Terre Blanche, Durrheim and Kelly, 2006:324). The responses
from interviewees were arranged into themes corresponding to the interview questions, which in turn were derived from the research objectives.