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

296 –––––––––– QUALITATIVE METHODS IN ORGANIZATION STUDIES ––––––––––––––––––interviews with Peter Townsend about his life and research. These provide additionalopportunities to explore how and why particular research projects were devised and conductedand how different projects relate to each other, and to consider the ways in which conceptualand methodological interests have shifted over recent years.For those working in the fields of organizational and institutional research, at least four ofthe data sets within the collection offer much of value in reuse terms. Three of these relatedirectly to Townsend’s own political and lobbying commitments and the fourth to an in-depthresearch project, The Last Refuge, in which Townsend investigated the nature and status oflong-stay institutions in postwar Britain. Each of the data sets is rich in both the quantity andquality of their primary and contextual materials. So, for example, private correspondence,committee papers and newspaper reports, stemming from Townsend’s long involvement withthe Labour Party and his role as member of the party social policy sub-committee, form onediscrete set of materials. These exemplify how archived data can throw light upon a range ofdifferent organizational practices and processes, such as the collection and use of evidence indecision-making, the building of alliances between committee members, and the effectiveformulation and dissemination of policy initiatives.Data sets originating from Townsend’s position as a founding member of two influentiallobbying groups, the Child Poverty Action Group and the Disability Alliance, offer anotherperspective on the ways in which the reuse of data might be employed in organizationalresearch. Investigation of correspondence, committee papers, reports and press releases relatingto the origins of these organizations open up opportunities to analyse the ways in which theiraims were first conceived and enacted and how, in turn, promotion drives drew upon themedia to publicize and circulate information about their motives and objectives. The data canthus be used to explore the strategies deployed to develop the social and political influenceof their lobbying campaigns. And, at another level, the records of these two groups can beanalysed to illuminate issues of growing concern in contemporary Britain, not least thenegotiation and management of the relationship between the state and voluntary sectororganizations and the ways in which organizations acknowledge and address the diverse and,at times, competing demands of their clients and users.The fourth data set within the collection which holds much potential for reuse ininstitutional research is related to Townsend’s investigation of long-stay homes for elderlypeople which was conducted between 1957 and 1961. A team of four research officers workedalongside Townsend undertaking visits, interviews and statistical analyses across a wide rangeof institutions and homes. The data collected is extensive. It includes notes and reports ofinterviews, questionnaires with residents, correspondence, photographs of homes andresidents, interviewers’ notes, diaries, press cuttings and other contextual material. Its reuseoffers insights, therefore, into a range of different institutional processes and relationships.Interviews with professional staff such as matrons, wardens and county welfare officers,include information about the local provision of care, management of homes, regulations,duties of staff and general issues relating to care in the homes. Such data illustrate thehierarchical nature of employment within institutions, particularly the constitution ofprofessional identities and the ways in which boundaries between professional and nonprofessionalstaff were constructed and maintained. These shifting and contested powerdynamics are also demonstrated in the descriptions of relationships between staff within thehomes and local authority personnel.Visual materials, such as photographs and drawings of the layout of particular homes,