March 2003 - Kommunikationsforum

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RESEARCH FOUNDATION AND EPISTOMOLOGYforward after I had turned off the dictaphone. This underlines the fact that structured interviewsinevitably limit respondents to a certain extent.I did not ask all respondents identical questions. It is very sensible for company representatives tospeak about public issues. There was a great risk that simply questioning any sort of public issuewould generate too superficial answers. Consequently, during the interviews I made reference tosome concrete examples of issues that the company had been involved in lately. The intention wasto make questions easier to relate to. This methodology explains some of the inconsistency in theinterviews. In addition, the respondents often jumped ahead in my interview guide. It could havebeen overcome by, on beforehand, outlining the entire interview and interrupting if respondentswent outside the plan. Nevertheless, many questions necessitated reflections and interpretationsand I felt the best way to achieve such answers was to allow a large margin of freedom in the interviewprocedure. Moreover, it proved out to be challenging to get the respondents from a level ofdescribing issues and issues management to a level of reflection. I did succeed to reach that level,but I feel that I could have been even more persistent in obtaining thoughtful answers.It is important to underline that only one interview was conducted in each company. In the analysis,it became clear that the respondents’ background influenced the answers. Obviously, it would haveprovided a greater degree of validity if I had interviewed several people in each organisation. Nevertheless,as one person was in charge of issues management in the companies, I am far fromconvinced that interviews with several people in each company would have provided new andvaluable information. Also, the project plan did not leave time for such extensive empirical research.It can be questioned whether interviews with six companies are sufficient to evaluate my theoreticalconclusions. A larger sample of interviews would have provided an even greater amount of dataand perspectives. Nevertheless, the interviews do not function to validate the theoretical conclusionsin a representative way. One respondent’s interpretation of issues management is valid eventhough the other respondents do not share that picture of reality. Consequently, a greater sampleof respondents would not have increased the validity of my study. Also, it would have limited thepossibilities to go into an in-depth analysis of the interviews, which I do in Part 3. Nevertheless,during my empirical research, I became very inspired by the people I spoke to and I feel that Iwould have gained even greater knowledge of issues management had I conducted more interviews.I guess balancing time, resources and the envy to carry out in-depth research once captivatedby a subject is every researcher’s dilemma.ANALYSIS OF EMPIRICAL DATAI have found it challenging to analyse the empirical data. Interpretation is a creative process thatdemands structure and openness at the same time. Especially, it has been demanding to find thecorrect balance between viewing my interview persons as “experts” while critically assessing theircomments in the light of their background and position.First I categorised information from the interviews on the basis of propositions deduced from thetheoretical analysis. I extracted small entities in each interview that made sense on their own andsorted them according to these categories. Then, a second level of categorisation was made withsubcategories within each proposition. It demands great effort in terms of not staying too blinded by22| Issues Management in Multicultural Stakeholder Environments
RESEARCH FOUNDATION AND EPISTOMOLOGYthe framework I had developed through the theoretical analysis. While reading through the interviewsover and over again, suddenly new perspectives were drawn to light. As intendedm this finallyenabled a critical assessment of the theoretical conclusions.GENERAL VALIDITYMy objective is to go a step further than other literature about issues management in multiculturalstakeholder environments. I seek to outline a new framework; both on a theoretical researchagenda but also the possibilities it has in practice.That is a serious objective and I am conscious that my contribution towards that end has to be of asomewhat limited character. A six-month study that the SPRØK program assigns to the dissertationwriting does not leave resources for an exhaustive analysis. Nevertheless, I do not think that theobjective is too ambitious. Firstly, I will be able to question the applicability of existing issues managementprinciples in multicultural stakeholder environments. Secondly, I can propose how othertheoretical fields can supplement existing issues management literature in areas where it demonstratesdeficiencies. And thirdly, I can speak to companies that have experience with issues managementin intercultural contexts in order to validate my conclusions. I leave it to the individualreader to determine whether I have succeeded. But I would like to outline some of the validity criteriathat I should be judged from.I draw some theories and their concepts together that, normally, are not treated in relation. I takethe concepts out of their habitual context and put them into a new with the objective to enlighten aproblem, that there is no unequivocal answer to. Consequently, it is of supreme importance thatthere is coherence between the concepts and how I use them both on a theoretical and empiricallevel. This is the first criterion. Next, I must be able to say something new about the concepts andthe problem from my analysis. I have to stimulate my knowledge so that a new reality occurs thatcan lead towards further generation of knowledge. This should be a second criterion.Part 1 | 23
Page 1: IKEA has faced a number of importan
Page 5: EXECUTIVE SUMMARYThe dissertation t
Page 9 and 10: PREFACEPREFACEIssues management has
Page 11 and 12: TABLE OF CONTENTPROPOSING A PROCESS
Page 14 and 15: INTRODUCTIONPART 12| Issues Managem
Page 16 and 17: INTRODUCTIONNow, a second perspecti
Page 18 and 19: INTRODUCTIONOUTLINEThe figure below
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Page 36 and 37: PART 224| Issues Management in Mult
Page 38 and 39: EXISTING THEORETICAL FOUNDATIONEXIS
Page 40 and 41: STAKEHOLDER RELATIONS IN ISSUES MAN
Page 46 and 47: INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION IN ISSU
Page 64 and 65: PROPOSING A CONCEPTUAL MODELPROPOSI
Page 67 and 68: THE MULTICULTURAL ISSUES MANAGEMENT
Page 83: IDENTIFY (Scan)Objective: Identify
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CONCLUSION PART 2CONCLUSION PART 2I
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CONCLUSION PART 2panies perceive is
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CONCLUSION PART 2differently from o
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INTRODUCTION TO THE EMPIRICAL ANALY
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ISSUES MANAGEMENT IN 6 EUROPEAN COM
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SAS 1) News telegrams from news age
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CONCLUSION PART 3CONCLUSION PART 3T
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CONCLUSION PART 3other party. Such
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CONCLUSION PART 3want to change ope
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CONCLUSIONCONCLUSIONSETTING THE STA
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CONCLUSIONply with true business op
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PERSPECTIVESPERSPECTIVES FOR ADDITI
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APPENDICESPart 1| 117
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APPENDICESAPPENDIX 2: MEDIA SOURCES
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APPENDICESAPPENDIX 4: CONCLUSION IN
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APPENDICESkation eller handling. He
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LIST OF REFERENCESLIST OF REFERENCE
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LIST OF REFERENCES! Coates, Joseph,
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March 2003 - Kommunikationsforum

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