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

Thesis Keith Gale 2013qualification’s, engage with construction projects from a managerial aspect and havesimilar civil engineering tacit knowledge background, the emotional dependenceupon one another (recognised by Earley, 1997) can logically be equalised. Theresearcher’s phenomenological culture should match the interviewee’sphenomenological background giving observations a positivistic approach.With this research, the positivistic approach uses interviews as an extension ofevidence gathered from the questionnaire process. This has been useful in gathering‘stories’ from participants experience in order to understand responses made to thequestionnaire. The purpose is to collect qualitative data and try to recognise andunderstand why a participant believes a particular opinion and has constructed aspecific view. In keeping with a positivistic approach, interviews have beenconducted to the following standards:• Interviews have been held in the relevant supplier or employer organisationsoffices – so participants are in familiar surroundings but can be intervieweduninterrupted and in confidence• All participants have been supplied with an information sheet whichoutlines the boundaries of the research, the purpose of the interview andhow it fits with the research• All participants have been issued with a statement of confidentiality, howthe evidence is collected and what will happen to results• Standardised open ended questions have been selected to reflect specificinterests of this research. All interviewees have been asked the samequestions, in the same order and linked to the research questionnaire.A copy of the interview schedule together with questions asked is shown inAppendix 6.10.3 Sample size of interviewsFollowing receipt of questionnaire responses, 10 structured interviews wererandomly selected from those who offered to participate. Although this onlyrepresents 5.6% of the total estimated population and 10% of questionnaireresponses, reference to published studies indicate that sufficient qualitative datasaturation can be achieved from small numbers with close sociological groups. In229