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

148 –––––––––– QUALITATIVE METHODS IN ORGANIZATION STUDIES ––––––––––––––––––or get a phone call from the secretary to inform you that the meeting has been postponed (ithappened once that the observer was present but that the group was not!). It is not easy toget accepted, but step by step people get used to the idea of the presence of a stranger, andalso on certain occasions people discuss the role of the researcher. In the firm the researchereven got a nickname.COMING BACK TO THE RESEARCH TEAMWe would call the period after the participation in the meeting more important than theparticipation itself. On returning to the research team, the first thing the researcher did wascheck his notes, completing and rewriting them. Second, the researcher discussed withcolleagues what he had been up to, asking the very general question of what had happenedthere, in the context of the research question. This discussion of first impressions and ideasconstructs a narrative of the observed events and already constitutes an initial interpretationof the data.Besides this informal reception of the returning researcher, the research team itself had itsweekly meetings through which the innovation project was steered. This is one of the mainways of making this kind of group study fruitful, or at least surviving it. Pettigrew (1990) hasemphasized teamwork in longitudinal field research. The role and influence of the researchteam for the observant researcher is valid on many levels:1 Support: the researcher follows the emotional life of this group in evolution.Furthermore, the researcher does not see where this investment is leading him or her. Isthere going to be a valuable outcome for the research? This creates a lot of uncertainty(should I go on with this or not?) which can be shared through coming back into theresearch team.2 Distancing (Rosen, 1991): the team gives researchers another reality, which helps themto distance themselves from their participation. This is not only important emotionally;there is also a change of perspective, which is necessary for interpreting the data.Following Pettigrew (1990), teamwork helps the researchers balance detachment andinvolvement in the field. It also inhibits any tendency to overidentify with particularinterpretations or interests when analysing the data.3 Consensual validation: in analysing and discussing this case together, differentperspectives and interpretations are added to the interpretations which the researcheroriginated.ANALYSIS OF THE MEETING DISCUSSIONSAnalysis is carried out in four related steps. The first is writing the story as explained. Thestory is a mix of ‘actual sayings’, descriptions of (inter)actions, and interpretations (everybodygiving their opinion). This story is written after the concept analysis and the construction ofmeaning configurations (step two) in order to document a more general interpretation of thismeeting, for example the interaction between group and group leader.In the second step, concepts are formulated using the method of interpretive groundedtheory (Steyaert, 1995). In practice, this means that the field notes (or interview transcripts)are analysed part by part. A part of the text is taken and ‘interpreted’ by deriving a concept,for instance ‘recycling problem definition’, ‘continuous evaluation’ or ‘the facilitating role ofthe project manager’. This results in a long list of concepts which are related to each otherand integrated in so-called meaning configurations.