I have considered many implications of my research for the participants recruited for my study. I have tried to act in an ethical manner towards all of my respondents by following the basic guidelines for matters to attend to before data collection, based largely on Bell (2005).
Furthermore, as a researcher in Liverpool John Moores University, I have also followed the ethical recommendations provided by the university’s Research Ethics Committee and subjected myself to the UK Data Protection Act 1998. In fact, I have been personally helped and guided by one of the committee members, Professor Marion Jones, prior to the submission of the ethical approval application. Hence, a written consent for all confidentiality issues has been secured before the entire interview sessions commenced, whilst documentation and ethical approval had been granted by the university’s Research Ethics Committee prior to the data collection phase (refer attached appendices).
On another aspect, I have also obtained written permission from all of my research participants through the consent form that needed to be signed and authorised before each interview was conducted. Most of my correspondents stand by their reflections in which
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case they also gave their consent to be mentioned in my work. However, my final decision was to provide anonymity around certain issues in order to enable the issue to take precedence over where and with whom it occurred. Last but not least, I remain responsible for any errors in judgement regarding this matter, and take full responsibility for any ethical issues that might arise from the undertaking of this research project. The following are the basic ethical guidelines that I subscribed to, based on Bell (2005):
Upon the endorsement of my research proposal with the supervisory team, I submitted the research proposal together with the ethical approval application for my research to the LJMU’s REC (Liverpool John Moores University Research Ethics Committee), and the submission was approved on 5th June 2009. I also cleared the official channels for doing research in Malaysia from the Research Unit at the Prime Minister’s Department who act as a gatekeeper for all foreign research conducted in Malaysia. My work was considered as foreign research because I was based in the UK and representing LJMU. An approval from the department has been obtained with a formal letter granted to carry out the research on 28th April 2009 with a three years permission for data collection to take place (refer letter ref. UPE:
40/200/19/2435 dated 28th April 2009 – refer attached Appendix I).
I have formally contacted and personally spoken to all potential participants after been channelled to them by the management and mostly by my personal acquaintances. All participants have been clearly notified of their rights and were asked to officially grant their written consent prior to all interview sessions. I also reminded them of their right to withdraw throughout the course of the research.
I promised to protect their identity by giving an assurance of their anonymity and confidentiality in writing (participant information sheet), and verbally before any sessions were commenced. No real names have been used in the interview transcripts as well as throughout the report writing process. I have substituted their names with labels such as P1, P2, P3, and so forth. This labelling process not only portrays my goodwill in carrying
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out the research but also has enormously protected the anonymity of all my participants in line with Data Protection Act 1998.
I was required to submit a report on my data collection process to the Malaysian gatekeeper’s office, which is the Research Unit at the Prime Minister’s Department, before leaving Malaysia upon completion of the data collection stage. The research office also required me to provide them with three copies of my PhD dissertation which I intend to submit to them upon its completion. A number of selected participants involved in the preliminary study also have been given a copy of the conference article which describes the findings and discussions on that stage that were distributed at ATHE Conference 2010.
Prior to the data collection phase I prepared a written outline of intentions and conditions under which the study will be carried out. This has been approved and endorsed by the LJMU’s REC. In other words, all participants has been approached by a formal letter and been given a set of ethical procedures containing participant information sheet and consent form before any interview was conducted. These documents detailing the purpose and objectives of the study as well as participants’ rights are in accord with the Data protection Act 1998.
Before each interview session, I briefed the respondents about the implications of their participation and how the information obtained from the session would be used, namely only for the sole purpose of this research project. Data will be destroyed upon completion in line with the Data Protection Act 1998. I also offered to submit a copy of the findings/final write-up to them, which will occur upon request.
To the best of my ability, I have acted sincerely and professionally in carrying out my role as researcher/interviewer in all those sessions. This behaviour also is a way of showing my appreciation and gratitude towards all participants for helping me to complete my study. Although the research indicates its main purpose is to fill a gap by providing a framework for risk and safety for the event management industry in
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Malaysia, I have been truly honest with all the participants by also revealing its hidden and more important purpose of getting me a PhD qualification!
(*Please refer to Appendices 1-VI for all ethical documents used for data collection purposes)
3.9 Summary and Conclusions
In the beginning at the preliminary phase, I was sufficiently naïve in anticipating that I would be the only one asking questions, and expected that all answers will come from the interviewees. I did not realise at all the answers (or some answers) will come from my own head. But in fact, I had to put the data together to make answers, to get subtle meaning. I became so much more engaged in the interviewer-interviewee relationship that I sometimes even got so familiar with the process of sharing experiences (and my own perceptions) with so many respondents. And the answers came back, of course, with description, interpretation, opinion, and feeling all mixed together. As the main agent in the research process, it was then up to me to tease out what is defensible description and interpretation from what is merely unsubstantiated opinion. My own perceptions too had to be recognised as subjective, in choosing the data, in interpreting findings, and in reporting the conclusions. These perceptions had also to be challenged and revised in the light of the data. At the later part and towards the end of the analysis stage, I began synthesising all data extracted from the interview sessions, putting them together using a version of the constant comparison method (Strauss and Corbin, 1990) and thematic network analysis (Attride-Sterling, 2001) in order to establish subtle meaning within the context of my investigation. This process involved a reflexive approach in analysing data in that the researcher himself became an important tool or instrument of analysis for the research. In fact, the process of refining and revising the analysis actually continued throughout the writing up process of my research findings.
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But above all these arguments, being a novice researcher did not gave me a substantial amount of expertise to handle certain situations when respondents chose not to speak the whole truth. I cannot do much if they decide to hide information from me. Although I have a little experience doing face to face interviews I still cannot say that my interviewing skill was particularly good. It was true that the pilot phase has given some sort of confidence in doing the face to face interviews, but to a certain extent I faced some on-going difficulties. For instance, I can only prompt on certain areas when I felt that they have not given me honest responses but not when I did not realise they have not told me the truth. To solve this, the epistemological stance of post-positivism was adopted in which according to this perspective we can never achieve objective reality and thus, the absolute truth can never been achieved (Trochim, 2006).
This approach acknowledged that a reality exists, but holds that it can be known only imperfectly and probabistically by recognising the possible effects of biases (Colin, 2002). Thus, I would like to stress that this research is a study which engaged in presenting the perceptions and not any objective reality. The case study approach has been chosen as its method of investigation, with the use of both inductive and deductive approach in analysing the data. This methodology chapter has therefore, detailed out all the process involved since the initial data collection in the preliminary stage until up to the completion of data analysis at the main stage. In addition, a complete summary of research methodology undertaken in this study is been presented in Appendix X.
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