Project topics and materials
Get Complete Project Material File(s) Now! »
Semi-structured Interviews
The semi-structured questions for the direct manager (line manager or project manager) of the individual team members were also divided into components similar to those used for the individuals. These are shown in Figure 3-4. The components include demographics, how performance was managed, organisational support, how individuals participated in ensuring performance (instead of « managerial support ») and what the perceptions of the manager were of how well this management approach worked for the individual team members. The contextual parameters were considered as part of other impacts. On the organisational level, similar semistructured interviews were held with both an HR and an IT representative.
THE PROTOCOL
For the purpose of this research study, the protocol was not formally written up in one document, since only one researcher was taking part, but a directory was created on the computer in which all the components of the protocol were copied. The importance of the protocol was to ensure consistency between the cases in terms of both data collection and analysis. The protocol was created in two stages. The first was for the data collection, which included setting up of the interviews and facilitating the interview process itself, as well as the administering of questionnaires. Then a second stage was created for data analysis on both the qualitative and quantitative side.
The components of the protocol that related to the interview phase included:
an email to the company representative to assist in selection of managers and teams;
a spreadsheet for keeping track of company details such as the names of the managers, their contact numbers, interview dates and individuals reporting to the managers, as well as the interview statistics (interview duration, number of direct reports and number of respondents);
template letters for the managers and the HR and IT representatives;
informed consent forms;
the interview schedules for the managers and HR and IT representatives;
a spreadsheet with three sheets each containing the selected interview questions for the semi-structured interviews (interview guide), which could be printed for the interview file;
a directory structure for each case; and
a template for field notes in MS Word for each case.
The protocol elements were used to create a hard-copy interview file at the start of each case, in which the spreadsheet with contact details, manager letters, informed consent forms (either the signed copy or some extra forms), interview schedule and semi-structured questions were placed sequentially. The high-level information pertaining to the research study was also printed and added to the file for reference.
The file content and examples of the protocol elements are provided in Appendix D – Case Study Protocol, with the interview file layout provided in Table 13-2. This is the file where handwritten notes were made during the interviews, and where postinterview notes and personal reflections were made on conclusion of, or as soon as possible after the interview.
The interview protocol was extended through the online questionnaires by adding initial emails, reminder emails and “thank you” emails, which were part of what the online questionnaire tool provided for questionnaire maintenance. Even though each team received its own questionnaires, these were copied from a base questionnaire, which included the standard administrative emails. Refer to Appendix C – Online Questionnaires, for examples of these emails.
At the time when the textual analysis started, the protocol was once again extended to include a standard way of reviewing transcriptions, guidelines for coding and types of memos to use in the ATLAS.ti tool. For the questionnaire analysis, the first case study was used to create a detailed spreadsheet template for the descriptive analysis. This template was thereafter used for the analysis of the questionnaires for each of the cases. The data analysis procedures which were applied per case have been included in 2.4.4 Textual and Qualitative Data Analysis, while the execution of the data analysis techniques are described in Section 4.5 Data Analysis.
THE PILOT
The online questionnaire was initially tested on a small group of individuals who were virtual knowledge workers, but unrelated to the study. Feedback from these individuals was incorporated before the survey was administered to the teams who formed part of the pilot study. The semi-structured question guide was tested on one manager as a test interview, including the initial 14 questions. This took one hour.
The manager commented that it was important to ensure that the concept of the “virtual knowledge worker” was understood by the managers, so that they would be clear about who would be classified as such. The importance of explaining the background and definitions used for the study was then added to the protocol. The wording of the questions and their sequencing were also refined. These two tests also proved that the conceptual framework created was workable and ready for execution, and could be used for the pilot study.
The first case study was run as a pilot study to test the protocol and questionnaires and to make any adjustments before the next case was started. To this end, all the data was collected (interviews and questionnaire) and a high-level data analysis was completed. Reflections on the process were updated in the protocol, and changes to questions were incorporated in the online questionnaires and semi-structured interview schedules. The reason why a pilot study was executed was firstly because detailed questionnaires covering all the items of interest did not exist for the team level. So the pilot was used to test the questionnaires for reliability, validity and sensitivity (Zikmund, 2003:300). It also identified some additional questions required for the manager and organisational level interviews. The pilot afforded the opportunity, in the light of the complex case study design, to test the execution and identify improvements for streamlining the process (and protocol) at an early stage in the research process. The questionnaires were not adapted after the second case study had started, to ensure that the cases, especially on the quantitative data level, were sufficiently comparative.
1 STUDY BACKGROUND
1.1 INTRODUCTION
1.1 BACKGROUND AND RESEARCH MOTIVATION
1.2 PROBLEM STATEMENT
1.3 PURPOSE STATEMENT
1.4 RESEARCH OBJECTIVES
1.5 CONTRIBUTIONS OF THE RESEARCH
1.6 RESEARCH SCOPE AND APPROACH
1.7 ASSUMPTIONS
1.8 DEFINITION OF KEY TERMS
1.9 THESIS STRUCTURE
1.10 SUMMARY
2 RESEARCH APPROACH AND DESIGN
2.1 INTRODUCTION
2.2 RESEARCH PARADIGM AND PHILOSOPHY
2.3 INQUIRY STRATEGY AND BROAD RESEARCH DESIGN
2.4 DESIGN: RESEARCH METHODS
2.5 ASSESSING THE RIGOUR OF THE RESEARCH DESIGN
2.6 RESEARCH ETHICS
2.7 SUMMARY
3 INITIAL LITERATURE REVIEW
3.1 INTRODUCTION
3.2 CONCEPTS OF PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT
3.3 THEORIES AFFECTED BY NONSTANDARD WORK
3.4 INFORMATION SYSTEMS AND PERFORMANCE
3.5 INITIAL FRAMEWORK AND QUESTIONNAIRES
3.6 SUMMARY
4 EXECUTION OF STUDY
4.1 INTRODUCTION
4.2 THE PROTOCOL
4.3 THE PILOT
4.4 DATA COLLECTION
4.5 DATA ANALYSIS
4.6 DOCUMENTING THE WITHIN-CASE AND CROSS-CASE ANALYSIS
4.7 SUMMARY
5 DATA ANALYSIS AND CODING
5.1 INTRODUCTION
5.2 CASE LEVEL SUMMARIES
5.3 VIRTUAL WORK (CONTEXT)
5.4 MANAGING VIRTUAL PERFORMANCE (RO1)
5.5 PARAMETERS AFFECTING PERFORMANCE (RO2A+B+C)
5.6 SUMMARY
6 DATA INTERPRETATION
6.1 INTRODUCTION
6.2 THEME 1: UNDERSTANDING “VIRTUAL” IN VIRTUAL WORK
6.3 THEME 2: PERCEIVED, ACTUAL AND TRUE PERFORMANCE
6.4 THEME 3: PARAMETERS AFFECTING PERFORMANCE
6.5 THEME 4: FACE TO FACE INTERACTION – IMPORTANCE OF THE VISUAL
6.6 SUMMARY
7 TOWARDS A CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK
7.1 INTRODUCTION
7.2 PROPOSITIONS: THE INDIVIDUAL PERFORMING WORK
7.3 PROPOSITIONS: TRUE VIRTUALITY
7.4 PROPOSITIONS: MANAGER AS ENABLER
7.5 PROPOSITIONS: CONTEXTUAL, ORGANISATIONAL AND CUSTOMER PARAMETERS
7.6 PROPOSITIONS: TRUE PERFORMANCE
7.7 PROPOSITIONS: TRUST
7.8 SUMMARY
8 CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS
8.1 INTRODUCTION
8.2 SUMMARY OF FINDINGS
8.3 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE RESEARCH
8.4 LIMITATIONS
8.5 RECOMMENDATIONS
8.6 CLOSING REMARK
9 REFERENCE LIST
10 APPENDIX A –TERMINOLOGY
10.1 TERMINOLOGY
11 APPENDIX B – SEMI-STRUCTURED QUESTIONNAIRES
11.1 MANAGER SEMI-STRUCTURED INTERVIEW
11.2 HR REPRESENTATIVE SEMI-STRUCTURED INTERVIEW
11.3 IT REPRESENTATIVE SEMI-STRUCTURED INTERVIEW
12 APPENDIX C – ONLINE QUESTIONNAIRES
12.1 INDIVIDUAL QUESTIONNAIRE
12.2 MANAGER ONLINE QUESTIONNAIRE
13 APPENDIX D – CASE STUDY PROTOCOL
13.1 ORGANISATIONAL LETTER OF APPROVAL
13.2 INTERVIEW PROTOCOL COMPONENTS
13.3 DATA ANALYSIS – TEXTUAL DATA PROTOCOL
14 APPENDIX E – INITIAL CODE LISTS AND NETWORK DIAGRAMS
14.1 LIST OF INITIAL CODES CREATED
14.2 NETWORK DIAGRAMS
15 APPENDIX F – ENLARGED THEORETICAL MODELS
15.1 THEME 1: TRUE VIRTUALITY
15.2 THEME 2: TRUE PERFORMANCE
15.3 THEME 3: IMPACT PARAMETER MODEL
15.4 COMBINED MODEL
16 APPENDIX G – SUPPLEMENTARY DOCUMENTATION
16.1 SUPPLEMENTARY DOCUMENTATION
