Ravalier PhD Theis.pdf - Anglia Ruskin Research Online

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1) Demographics
The log phase of the study consisted of individuals asking four interrelated questions focussing on what’s
working well in the organisation and why, as well as how areas that were not working quite as well can be
improved. Individuals were given the chance to answer the logs in one of two ways, either online using openended
questioning or hard copies which were sent to individuals without regular access to either staff email or
computers. Invitations were sent either by email with an accompanying SurveyMonkey link or via an internal
organisational mail system with accompanying stamped-addressed envelopes to be returned to the lead
researcher (Jermaine Ravalier) at Anglia Ruskin University.
Similar to the previous stage of the research, online invitations to the log phase were distributed to 161 of
the 188 potential participants, with hard copies sent to the remaining 17. At the beginning of the answering of the
online logs individuals were asked to provide individual and unique nicknames for each of the log days they
completed, possibly based upon their personal interests. There are three primary reasons behind this decision:
• It showed participants that their anonymity is assured – by providing potentially unique names rather than
asking for real names there would be no way that the researchers, or others within the competing
organisation, could know the identity of the employees who have taken part.
• Due to the set-up of SurveyMonkey combined with the possibility of flexible working (and therefore working
from various computers on different days), individual days had to be completed in new SurveyMonkey forms.