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

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–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– GROUNDED THEORY –––––––––– 245the divisions, different professional groups, hierarchical levels, both sexes, and different agegroups. The themes guiding the one- to two-hour interviews were: first the informant’s ownwork and daily routines, secondly work-related values and company values, and thirdly theinformant’s career history within the company and important events in the organizationduring this career.Although the themes guided the interviews, the interviewer (the first author of thischapter) did not ask exactly the same questions each time. In this way each successiveinterview was used to expand understanding of the organizational culture. After eachinterview, the interviewer summarized the emerging themes and these summaries served asa basis for the reformulation and development of questions and testing of the emerginghypotheses. All the interviews were recorded and extensive notes were taken during them.Based on these notes, 33 of the most informative interviews were transcribed, and the restserved as validation material in recorded form. Most informative interviews included severalrepresentative quotes describing different dimensions of a variety of themes. These interviewswere selected due to their ‘density’ regarding both their descriptive strength and richness inreferring to various themes.ANALYSISAn inductive analysis of the data was conducted following the basic principles of groundedtheory methodology. The main aim was to generate a descriptive theory of the dominantorganizational culture and/or subcultures present in the divisions, and to formulate preliminaryhypotheses on how collective stress might be produced and coped with within these cultures.The process of data analysis is illustrated in Figure 20.1. The data were, first, read andcategorized into codes that were suggested by the data rather than imposed from outside, aprocedure known as ‘open coding’ (Strauss and Corbin, 1990). These codes were thenclustered into ‘concepts’. Once all the data were examined, the concepts were organized bythemes, which became candidates for a set of stable and integrative categories. Conceptsrepresented the properties and dimensions of a particular theme. The identification of themeswithin each division and comparisons between divisions often required several rounds ofanalysis of the transcriptions. Once a particular theme had enough properties, namely no newproperties related to a theme emerged in the transcriptions, a particular theme became anintegrative category with a set of defined dimensions. Iteration between data, concepts andthemes ended when enough categories and associated dimensions were defined to describethe cultures of the divisions, a situation Glaser and Strauss (1967) refer to as ‘theoreticalsaturation’.Constant comparative method was, thus, applied on three levels. First, we compareddifferent codes and respective extracts of transcriptions, which resulted in the definition andselection of a set of concepts to be elaborated further. Second, we compared different conceptsto one another, which resulted in the definition of a set of properties and dimensionsdescribing each theme and, finally, an integrative category. Third, we compared themes andcategories, which resulted in the definition of three main integrative categories describing anddistinguishing the subcultures.These integrative categories were found in all the subcultures, but had somewhat differentcontent (namely, dimensions) in them. The first two categories represent what Schein (1990,1996) describes as underlying basic assumptions and values and the third one observableartefacts, ‘products’ of and manifest behaviours of a certain culture (Table 20.1):
Quote Code in open coding Concept Theme with properties(and dimensions)I*: ‘He was hired here. He came straight to sales. We talked about all kind of thingsand he asked who is his superior […] then Jukka said to him, that you have onlyone boss and that is your customer.’I: ‘[…] The difference compared with today is that then [few years ago] one personwas involved in one project at the time […]’R*: ‘From where did this idea of several people working on one project at the sametime come from?’I: ‘Well, from customer needs, delivery times get shorter and shorter all the time.’I: ‘The company of course emphasizes customer orientation, in particular, so thatwe take care of [them] properly …’I: My work is basically running around in between phone calls and trying to find[the right persons]. This is a real difficulty in my work. We have thought about how tomake this [hassle] more reasonable, because I spend most of my time looking forthem [project team members] here and finding out where they have gone […] andof course I should let the customer know [where they are and what is going on] …’I: ‘Well, you have to be good at logical thinking, that you know what happens andwhy, and what works […] and you have to be very detailed …’R: ‘Not a broad-minded visionary?’I: ‘No, because you will get feedback immediately from the customer if somethinggoes wrong …’R: ‘Where does a project start from?’I: ‘It starts with a kick off meeting with the customer where we define what kind ofa project this will be and then we need all kinds of information.’I: ‘[…] I talk with them [customers] everyday and try to make things happen.’I: ‘Co-operation … well it means that you are able to talk about things […] youdon’t concentrate only in your own things, you are worried about your colleague’sthings, as well … Then it means that you should be able to co-operate with yourcustomers, actually it is more co-operation with the customers and that is whatwe do. And that is really important …’Figure 20.1A worked example of data analysisCustomer is number 1New way of working servescustomer needs betterCompany expects customerorientationCustomer is number 1Direct customer feedback onone’s workMeetings with customersFrequent contacts withcustomersCo-operation with customers* I = Informant, R = ResearcherCustomer isnumber one in allthe operationsClose contactswith customers thatneed to be takengood care ofCustomer orientation:• customer is important(keeping customersatisfied – fillingcustomer’s needs tothe last detail)• direct contacts withcustomers (fewcontacts – frequentcontacts)•…246 –––––––––– QUALITATIVE METHODS IN ORGANIZATION STUDIES ––––––––––––––––––
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ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO QUALITATIVE METH
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This book is dedicated to our child
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viii ---------- CONTENTS ----------
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Notes on ContributorsJohn Benington
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AcknowledgementsIt has been 10 year
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9 ---- Qualitative Research Diaries
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10 ---- Stories in Organizational R
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