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

20 –––––––––– QUALITATIVE METHODS IN ORGANIZATION STUDIES ––––––––––––––––––By being aware beforehand of some of the ways in which problems can arise in interviews,and of techniques for handling them, you are less likely to be thrown out of your stride bya difficult interviewee. That said, there really is nothing to beat experience in gainingconfidence and competence as an interviewer. Happily, novices almost always find that theirskills improve rapidly over the first few interviews they carry out, especially if able to reviewwhat went wrong (and what went right) with a supervisor or colleague as soon as possible afteran interview.Reflexivity and the qualitative research interviewI have made several references above to reflexivity in qualitative research; here I will considersome of the ways it may be achieved in a qualitative interview study. (Inevitably, certainsuggestions will be more applicable to some research traditions than others.) The termreflexivity refers to the recognition that the involvement of the researcher as an activeparticipant in the research process shapes the nature of the process and the knowledgeproduced through it. Researchers must reflect on the nature of their involvement just as theyconsider the meaning of their participants’ contributions. There are numerous suggestions inthe literature as to how such reflection can be facilitated. They include strategies such as thefollowing:• Putting your presuppositions down in writing at the start of the study, and consulting thislist at each stage of the research process.• Keeping a research diary in which you record your own feelings about the process.• Listening to some of your taped interviews with a focus on your performance as aninterviewer.• Where you are working in a team, organizing meetings periodically with the sole purposeof reflecting on each other’s experiences of involvement in the study.These are just a few of the ways in which reflexivity can be facilitated. It is important toremember that such techniques are only means to the end of developing a habit of awarenessand critical thinking regarding your engagement with your research and its participants. Theyshould never become simply mechanistic procedures you go through in order to ‘prove’ thequality of your work, nor should the encouragement of reflexivity be taken as a licence forself-indulgence.ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES OF THE METHOD ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––Most of the main strengths and weaknesses of qualitative research interviews will have becomeapparent in the course of my description of the method. I will draw them together here, withspecial reference to the context of applied psychological research in organizations.AdvantagesDifferent types of qualitative research interview can be used to tackle different types of researchquestion in organizations, making it one of the most flexible methods available. It can address