4 Research Methodology
4.3 Data Collection and Research Instruments
Although it is not the intention of the researcher to develop theory, focussing instead on an exploratory study, it was precisely this flexibility and the process of constant comparison that lead the researcher to make use of grounded theory methods to analyse interview responses (from black business professionals, government, industry leaders, industry bodies and non- governmental and community organisations), to reveal the complexities and nuances that drove the development of the initial Charter process. Similarly, to seek these perceptions from those who have inherited the Charter and its gazetted successor – the Financial Sector Code – in 2018/19. As illustrated by Charmaz (2006) “the potential strength of grounded theory lies in its analytic power to theorise how meanings, actions and social structures are constructed”.
Another advantage of adopting grounded theory methods for analysis is that qualitative research methods often produce significant quantities of raw data, and such methods “provide researchers with analytic tools for handling masses of raw data”, allowing “results and findings [to be] grounded in the real world.” (Patton, 2002).
The integration of the findings from this unique case in this manner with a critical lens (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016) enabled the underlying perceptions and factors that motivated the development of the Financial Sector Charter in South Africa in 2003 to be uncovered and assessed, together with lessons from its development and implementation through to 2018. In this way commentary about the sector and its achievements regarding transformation can be better analysed and understood, allowing for practical opportunities (common to critical realism research and a requirement for this dissertation) to be better formulated and situated.
The primary tool to conduct the research required for this thesis was semi-structured, intensive interviews with a selected sample population, making use of an interview guideline to ensure consistent lines of enquiry between interview subjects. Interviews permitted the researcher to
“enter the other person’s perspective” (Patton, 2002) such that the real issues that were at the heart of the Charter process, issues that are “complex, situated, problematic relationships,”
could be extracted (Stake, 2003) and analysed. Hence the interview questions were developed in such a way as to explore the meaning of events and activities to the individuals who were at the heart of what became a collaborative effort to develop the Charter in 2003. Similarly, with the current leadership of companies in the industry and the others who are connected to the industry as “heirs” of this collaboration, the interview questions explored how they saw the results of this past work and, perhaps more importantly, how they perceived the potential for future endeavours like this given the current South African social, economic and political context.
As Maxwell (2009) further noted, this approach is situation specific and requires an open- ended, inductive approach to discover the meanings of and influences on the efforts by the industry to pursue the economic transformation agenda represented by the Charter.
A copy of the interview protocol and questions is set out in Annexure 3.
Emerging from the early set of semi-structured, intensive interviews was the realisation that a broader collection of actors collaborated in the formation of the Charter. In particular, trade associations and government were integrally involved, as were black business formations (who were represented in the negotiations with the Financial Services industry through ABSIP). It thus became necessary to interview a broader range of actors involved in the process (both in 2003 and 2018/19) to capture a more diverse perspective than simply those of the companies in the Financial Services sector.
In total 22 interviews were conducted from October 2018 to early April 2019. In most cases the interview was held at the work or office location of the person interviewed. Interviews lasted between 35 and 70 minutes.
While the researcher took field notes during the interactions (Gubrium, Holstein, Marvasti, &
McKinney, 2012), interviews were recorded with the consent of participants and subsequently transcribed on a near-verbatim basis. This process generated 284 pages of transcripts, which formed the basis for the data analysis of the responses. One interview subject was not able to conduct a face-to-face interview and provided email responses to a subset of the interview questions.
Anonymised profile information on the interview participants is listed in Annexure 4.
What is interesting to note from this list is the “mobility” of participants who were involved in the sector and how some of them have moved between different types of bodies over the intervening 15-year period. For example, from banking to insurance or from government into industry. Such interviewees were thus able to yield insights from both sides of the Charter development process and this aided the research effort from a time management perspective.
The researcher was able to supplement this interview material with a range of secondary materials drawn from a number of public and other sources, such as papers and reports presented to the South African Parliament (or its committees) on transformation in the sector, the Charter itself and its subsequent incarnations as a gazetted sector Code, other non-academic research into the performance of economic empowerment share ownership transactions and various press articles. Approximately 1350 pages of material were sourced and analysed in this manner, adding contextual depth to the interview responses. A list of these documents is provided in Annexure 5.
It was this combination of data sources within the specific area of study that enabled the researcher to meet the expected standard of verification and replication, issues that are addressed in more detail later in this chapter (Rowlinson, Hassard, & Decker, 2014; see also Maxwell, 2009).
Within this process of data gathering, the researcher himself became a research instrument, as the person who conducted all the interviews and who reviewed the secondary data materials (Cresswell, 2014). Adding to this “immersion”, the researcher is employed by a Financial Services company and has had exposure to B-BBEE initiatives in his work in recent years. This exposure enabled the researcher to critically interact with the interview subjects and the secondary research material, so as to “understand, describe and … explain [the] social phenomena ‘from the inside’” (Kvale, 2007). As noted by Gillham however, the researcher needed to remain cognisant of the need to maintain a critical lens on the data, and not become over-reliant on “seemingly significant accounts that overbalance” the researcher’s judgement (2000).