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

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– CRITICAL INCIDENT TECHNIQUE –––––––––– 53when the home pressure was at its most . . . we started to look at the options [with ouraccountants] and clearly one of the options was to bin it. Er, but you’re very reluctantto do it cos it’s like chopping your arm off, in a way, it’s still painful . . .It is not difficult to discern in this brief abstract the different types of information, which aregiven in the course of the interview: contextual and tactical information and outcomes areall apparent. So too is affective information. Occasionally, of course, what might appear ascontext could also be construed as an outcome. For example, the initial discussion of Bill’sinvolvement in the business was interpreted as contextual information; it elucidates Bill’sdecision to join another company, which developed into the disastrous attempt to defraud thecompany. The outcome of this incident was the dismissal of seven staff, a loss of turnover andthe undermining of Bernard’s business affairs.Landlord, accountant and solicitorIn the midst of this crisis the renegotiations of rental on the leasehold of a property blew up.After 18 months, the landlord. . . sacked his solicitor and the next thing was he fabricated an invoice and faxed us athalf past four on a Friday afternoon . . . We either pay seventeen and a half grandtomorrow . . . or he’s going to put the bailiffs in. . . . We had a conflict of interests withour accountants . . . so we decided . . . to go for (a solicitor). He was up in twentyminutes. He arrived on the scene said don’t worry about it . . . I’ll teach this landlord alesson . . . What you need to do is tomorrow morning be at court...Incidentally what’sin the company? . . . We suddenly sort of sat there and said we wished we’d done thisbefore, just such a relief that you know someone is helping us . . . We got down to thecourt, and just before going in I said, look Mr Black you still haven’t told me how muchthis is going to cost me. And he said, well you’ll just have to trust me, won’t you? Andas soon as he said that I thought, God I’ve been had. So he said, well you can walkaway if you like . . . well I mean I couldn’t do that . . . and cutting a long story short, herobbed us of the company . . . He took thousands of pounds out in fees, he flogged thecompany to his mate, asset stripped it and they’re now trading, and we got nothing . . .He screwed the paperwork up, didn’t serve notice on the landlord . . . He cleared off toAustralia for his holidays. The bailiff’s came up . . . the landlord broke in with twoheavies . . . So emotionally it was like devastating.Bernard complained to the Institute of Chartered Accountants (ICA) and also got his MPinvolved but to no avail.So, you can imagine what that was like . . . there’s a lot of bitterness, resentment, angerthat comes out of that . . . [It] was like three years ago now . . . [Joan’s attitude was] goodriddance. My attitude is – this is wrong . . . I feel impotent that I can’t deal with this . . .This second set of incidents is presented largely in the interviewees’ own words. It commenceswith an account of the situation facing them (context) and then proceeds to the tacticsadopted by the couple in an attempt to manage their affairs (‘so we decided . . .’). Interspersedthroughout the account of what happened next is a description of their feelings, followed bya statement of the outcome of the incident. Next, an account of what happened further isgiven, again followed by an outline of Bernard’s tactics (he complained to the ICA). This is