Understandability and Transparency of the Financial Statements of ...

As credibility was usually achieved, with reference to the involvement the researcher
had in the charities sector, the researcher was often asked for her opinion by the
interviewee on certain accounting matters with their charity. If the researcher had the
knowledge to answer, this created a „win-win‟ situation as the interviewees considered
that they had gained something from the interview, and as a result the interview finished
on a positive note which left the door open for future follow-up interviews. This
possibly resulted in the high number of follow-up interviews, i.e. thirty-six, that this
research had.
ASSURING CONFIDENTIALITY
Even though privacy was assured in the participant information sheet, interviewees in
this study were still particularly concerned as to whether their charity would be
identified in the research. By the researcher emphasising the privacy of their responses,
most interviewees appeared to be sufficiently at ease and gave informative and truthful
answers without fear of adverse consequences (Ghauri & Gronhaug, 2005; Hayes &
Mattimoe, 2004; Sekaran, 2003).
The focus of this research was on the size of the charitable organisation and the four
specific complexities in charities‟ financial statements, not the specific charitable
organisation. All interviewees were assured that anonymity will be maintained and that
no charity or person will be identified by name or via any reported details. The
anonymity of responses was stressed as several of the interviewees were concerned
about the negative view that could be given of their charity if certain facts came to light,
especially as at the time of interviewing the media had focused on some charities, which
had a resulting devastating impact on donations especially in the case of the Epilepsy
Foundation (McCracken, 2009, 6 December).
The negative side of confidentiality was that some interviewees gave very useful
information on condition that it was not included in the research, which was at times
frustrating as some matters were highly applicable to the research. However, at all times
the interviewee‟s wishes that the information was not disclosed was kept, so as not to
breach their trust. However, if the facts could be confirmed in another way, for example,
by publicly available information then the facts were included, with particular reference
given to how the information was obtained from public sources, such as a newspaper
article or from the charity‟s website rather than mention any interviewee‟s details.
85