Data Collection Procedures

CHAPTER 3: LITERATURE REVIEW 27

4.5 Data Collection Procedures

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4.4.3 Standardised, short questionnaire (see Appendix B)

The factual questionnaire that accompanies the interview is based on quantitative methods of research. The questions are standardised and each subject is asked the exact same questions in the same way. There is no involvement of the interviewer as respondents are able to complete the questionnaire in their own time and no explanation of the questions by the interviewer is needed. The questionnaire is divided into three sections which consist of:

Section 1: General, factual questions about the subject themselves including characteristics such as their name; job title and their length of service in that position; age category and qualifications. This section also requires the organisation name and nature of the business to which the subject is affiliated.

Section2: Questions regarding the organisation and the composition of its workforce are included here. These relate to how old the organisation is; the number of employees it has and the nature of the workforce in terms of race, gender and foreign employees; whether the organisation is a multinational or not and if so, how many branches does it have globally; and finally, what the organisation's position on trade union recognition is.

Section 3: Questions relating to the Human Resources department of the organisation. These include how many people there are in the Human Resources department; whether the

department's functions are decentralised or not; whether the Human Resources department at the organisation's Head Office (which is where the large majority of the subjects were based) determines the policies and practices for all the branches of the organisation and finally, how often the department conducts policy reviews.

These closed-ended questions require either one word or short sentence answers and because of their standardisation, the results are easily analysed and reported. The questionnaire obtained answers to the exact questions being asked and responses did not deviate from what was required.

of their positions, the interviews had to be arranged at times that suited the subjects. This posed a problem in two of the South African interviewing situations where the individuals were only available for interview a month and a half after the data collection process had already begun. This caused a significant delay to the whole research study. A few of the subjects also had time constraints which they placed on the interviews because of meetings or other appointments that they needed to attend to. This meant that although the interviews were supposed to last for approximately an hour, some of the interviews only lasted for half an hour to 45 minutes. Although this may pose a problem in terms of the depth of information obtained from interviews of different lengths, it should be emphasised that all questions were asked and sufficiently answered in all of the interviews.

4.5.1 Before the Interview

After obtaining the names of relevant Human Resource practitioners for the study from a number of personal contacts as well as through some cold calling, these individuals were contacted by telephone to set up an interview. Once they had agreed to an interview and a time, in the South African situation, a copy of the short questionnaire was then e-mailed to them for their completion. In some cases, the completed questionnaire was returned via e-mail before the interview.

4.5.2 Interview Setting

The interview was always conducted at the individual's workplace, either in their personal offices or in a general boardroom available for meetings. It was found that when the

interviews took place in the individual's offices, there were often many interruptions by other staff members and telephone calls. However, when they took place in the boardroom, there were no distractions or interruptions. The setting, however, did not have any important influence on the length or depth of the interviews.

4.5.3 During the Interview

To ensure that the actual quotations of subjects were recorded and to enable the researcher to be more attentive to the subject being interviewed, a dictaphone was used to tape the

interviews. Before beginning the interview, the researcher explained the use of the dictaphone to the subject and asked if they minded that the interview would be taped. In all cases,

subjects were very willing to be taped. The interview then began with the researcher

explaining a little about the topic of research; the fact that everything said would be held in the strictest of confidence and what exactly the purpose of the interview was.

The interviewer then followed the interview questionnaire asking the subject the questions set out but also being flexible to change the wording and sequencing of questions to suit the interview. It was also important to occasionally let the subject know that what they were saying was worthwhile to the interview and it was often noted to the subject that their response was exactly what was being looked for in the research study. The researcher also needed to be attentive to what subjects said in order to follow up on issues mentioned; to skip questions that may already have been answered; to move between topics easily and link topics together as well as provide constant feedback to the subject in order to maintain the flow of the conversation. Where subjects were giving long-winded responses to questions, it was the task of the researcher to focus the interview onto the more important questions for the study.

Probing is also important in interviews to "increase the richness of the data being obtained"

(Patton,1990: 324). In a number of these interviews where probing was used, however, the subject was unresponsive and nothing more was gained other than the original response.

Where probing was successful, this was mainly in response to both clarification probes, where the subject is asked to clarify their answer by providing more information, and detail- orientated questions gaining factual knowledge by asking when, who, where, what and how questions.

Taking notes during an interview is considered an important part of any interview process.

They help to avoid any omissions or distortions to the information given by the subject after the interview as well as capturing the responses in the subject's own language. Subjects may also expect interviewers to take notes to ensure that they are accurately documented. (Millar, Crute & Hargie,1992) In the present study, although some notes were taken during the interview, the tape recording was found to be sufficient and taking notes simply became distractive to the interviewing process.

4.5.4 After the Interview

Having completed the interview, in the United Kingdom situation, the subjects would take a few moments to complete the short, standardised questionnaire given to them at the

interview. In the South African situation, where completed questionnaires were not returned

bye-mail, these were given to the researcher at the interview having been completed before hand. Immediately after this, having thanked the subject for their time, the researcher would write up some notes both regarding observations about the progress of the interview as well as some of the subject' s responses that were felt to be important. The tape was also checked to en~ure that it was functioning properly. Where the tape was found to have recorded rather unclearly (this was the case in 3 interviews for the study), extensive notes were then made regarding what was said in the interview.

The tapes were then transcribed by the researcher. This was often done on the same day as the interview as where the taping of the interview was not very good, then the information was still fresh in the researcher's mind. Each interview of approximately one hour in length took about four hours to transcribe. Most of what the individual had said was written down exactly although some unimportant words or phrases such as "you know" or "um ... " were left out. Subjects were also e-mailed following the interview to thank them for their time and participation in the study.

4.5.5 Ethical Interviewing

It

is vital that ethics be at the core of the research process. Researchers need to be open and honest to subjects ensuring that any promises made are kept and that interviews do not put any subjects at risk. The issue of confidentiality is essential especially with regards to this research study, as information about policies and practices are often highly confidential and organisations do not wish for it to be made public.

It

was important that the researcher ensured that first of all, subjects gave informed consent to the interview after being told exactly what the interview will entail and what the purpose of the interview was and that secondly, requests for confidentiality were upheld. The assurance of confidentiality helps to establish a more open conversation. Subjects share in-depth about their thoughts, feelings and experiences because they feel that the interviewer has respect for the confidentiality of their responses.

It

is the responsibility of the researcher not to misuse this confidence that the subject has placed in them. (Garrett, 1 972) Richardson, Dohrenwend

&

Klein (1965: 287) suggest a number of ethical considerations that interviewers should adhere

t~:

"Interviewers must maintain a professional attitude towards the study; ... must maintain

confidences; ... must refrain from criticism and gossip. In addition, they should refrain from passing judgement on other's behaviour or on social situations, and they should be able to

keep their own convictions and be committed to the scientific approach. "