PhD Final Thesis April 2013.pdf - Anglia Ruskin Research Online

Thesis Keith Gale 2013a certain level of construction management tacit knowledge and are therefore writtenusing terms and language used by civil engineering professionals. Furthermore, anumber of questions are pre-empted with ‘in your opinion’ and the like – todeliberately illicit a cognitive response set against this sociological context (Sudmanet al, 1996). The questionnaire, with example given in appendix 5, was entitled‘Framework Research Stakeholder Survey’ in order to encourage a response bystakeholders to the organisation and contemporary associates. Although the offer toparticipate was made by the researcher to issue a questionnaire, there is no obligationto respond from a participant unless a ‘psychological contract’ (Argyris, 1960) canbe established. To assist with constructing such a contract, the following measureswere taken:• A covering letter was sent with the questionnaire which outlined the reasonfor the research, including results in this thesis and requesting that theparticipant takes a few minutes to undertake part in this.• Clear instructions on filling out the questionnaire were given together with adate for response.• Polite reminders were given to participants close to the response date.• A participant information sheet outlined the use of the questionnaire forfuture frameworks by making reference to participant’s professionalbackground.As Goyder, 1982 commented ‘the more important or relevant the survey is, the moremotivation participants will have to respond.’The questionnaire was structured into six distinct sections as stated in Table 9.5.200