essential-guide-to-qualitative-in-organizational-research

102 –––––––––– QUALITATIVE METHODS IN ORGANIZATION STUDIES ––––––––––––––––––in a number of project relevant activities. This period covered the middle to end of one projectphase and the beginning of the next, thus potentially including a variety of activities.The most dedicated respondent in this case – the project manager – was commuting to andfrom work and filled in his diary on the train on the way home every day. He therefore hada specified time and place for completion which suffered from few distractions and rarelyvaried. I think this illustrates a more general point. While I did discuss with participants whenthey should complete the diary at the time of distribution, it might have been helpful if I hadworked on specifying a particular time and place with them.What questions should you ask and what is the best medium?Again, this depends on the purpose of the research study. You should bear in mind that you willnot be present to explain completion requirements (although, as suggested below, you shouldhave spent some time with the respondents at the outset demonstrating the diary). Thereforethe method of completion should be as self-explanatory as possible and the questions clear.You (in collaboration with the respondents?) have to decide what degree of structure isrequired in the diary. Are there particular issues you want to see covered? Or is it particularevents you are interested in? Can the respondents note any information they feel is relevant?Or do you want to orient them to specific aspects of the event, experience, and so on?Most diary studies are pen-and-paper but you could consider dictaphones or computerizedpersonal organizers (there are clearly cost issues here, including programming the personalorganizers). When using booklets, it makes intuitive sense to keep response pages to one pageso as not to overburden the respondent (one page looks less daunting) or cause omissions(when people fail to turn over the page).DTA DIARY STRUCTUREI did not want to assume what activities might constitute a ‘day-in-the-life’ of a systemsdeveloper and I wanted to understand the concerns of the participants from their perspective.So my diaries consisted of open-ended questions, as shown in Figure 9.1.Each A4 page represented one activity. Requiring the respondents to note date and otherparticipants in the activity meant that I could later match up accounts of events from theperspectives of different project team members. I was interested in the purpose of the activityin terms of how the respondent saw this activity as contributing to the overall project and whatthey were expecting to achieve. I asked about outcome to ascertain whether this was anongoing activity and because I thought that might help me to link activities recorded here tofuture activities. Their evaluation of the activity I thought would give some indication ofwhether the purpose they had identified was achieved and some idea of why they regardedactivities as successful or not.Despite the fact that I had visited each of the respondents individually and explained thediary study to them, I still included a front page (see Figure 9.2) detailing how often theyshould complete the diary, how long they should take on the task and some examples of likelyentries. In this latter case, I had to weigh up the disadvantage of unduly influencing theparticipants’ responses against the advantage of giving the participants some guidance so theyfelt more comfortable with the task. In the end, I decided to provide the examples, and therespondents did provide examples which differed from those I suggested.At the time of the diary study, my key contact within the organization was the user project