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Phase 4 of the study focused on obtaining further data from three case study countries drawn from the countries discussed in phase 3. The purpose of conducting this phase with a smaller number of NOCs was to enable the researcher to gain more depth into the issues of performance already identified in the previous phases of the study and also to validate the findings from phase 3. In contrast to phase 3 of the study, phase 4 aimed at obtaining data from different stakeholder groups within the NOCs of these countries. Whilst the data from phase 3 had primarily been obtained from chief executives of the NOCs, the data in phase 4 was obtained from other stakeholder groups such as the coaches and the athletes. The need to obtain data from different groups was to avail the researcher the opportunity of sampling various perspectives of views expressed by the study participants. This was also important in order to minimise study biases that can arise from obtaining data from a single group of participants (Yin, 2003).

The implementation process for phase 4 commenced with identifying which countries were appropriate to secure further data from. This brought about the selection of Nigeria, Zimbabwe and Egypt as the case study countries to serve this purpose (the purposive sampling technique was used for this selection) The researcher, through the athletes information page on the BBC website for the 2012 London Olympics, was able to get a comprehensive list of the names of all the athletes that participated in the Olympics, their sport categories and their countries. Through this information, the researcher then searched for further contact details for the athletes from the case study countries using social media channels such as Facebook and LinkedIn. This yielded a positive result as some of the athletes responded and indicated their willingness to take part in the study. The athletes who agreed to participate also provided contact details of their coaches who they thought might also be interested in taking part in the study. The researcher, through this, was able to establish contact with some of the coaches who eventually took part in the study.

Owing to the level of response from the athletes and coaches who were willing to participate in the study, the researcher resolved to conduct interviews with one

athletes and one coach from each of the case study countries. Following this resolve, the athletes and coaches who were to participate were contacted in order to agree on convenient times and means of interviews. As it was impossible for the researcher to travel to the different countries where the athletes and coaches were based to conduct face-to-face interviews due to time and cost constraints, it became necessary to arrange for the interviews to be conducted electronically. Telephone and Skype channels were used.

As in the case of the phase 3 interviews, the participants were provided with a brief synopsis of the research and focus areas where interview questions were to be drawn from, prior to the interview. This was to allow them ample time and opportunity to familiarise themselves with the subject being investigated. The semi-structured interview approach was again adopted in this phase to provide guidance during interview conversations, but most importantly, to give the interviewees the freedom to express their views in the best possible manner they found to be convenient. In order to ensure uniformity and consistency in the interview process in the study, the researcher made sure that the interviews conducted in this phase were guided by the same interview principles and practices used in conducting the interviews in phase 3. This included practices such as, ensuring that interview dates and times were convenient for both the interviewer and interviewee, ensuring that the location of both the interviewer and interviewee during the time of interviews were carefully chosen to minimise noise or other disruptions, ensuring that the confidentiality and anonymity statements, and recording procedure were read out to interviewees before commencement of interviews, and ensuring that the consent form was read, understood and signed by the interviewee before the interview was conducted. The interviews in this phase lasted one hour-thirty minutes on average.

The researcher again made use of an Olympus digital voice recorder with microphone to record the interviews. Interview recordings were further transferred to the researcher’s computer and transcribed directly from the computer again using the simple play back option.

In presenting the findings from the interviews conducted in phase 4, the researcher made use of code names for the participants in order to ensure anonymity. In coming

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phase 3. For example, the code name for the participant from NOC ‘C’ (Nigeria) in phase 3 was ‘C01’ in stage 1 interview and ‘C02’ in stage 2 interview; therefore the code names for the participants from NOC ‘C’ in phase 4 are ‘C03-1’ and ‘C03-2’. Table 10 shows the code names for the participants in phase 4.

Table 10: Interview participants and code names 2

NOC Country Coach – referred in

findings from interview as Athlete – referred in findings from interview as C Nigeria C03-1 C03-2

E Zimbabwe E03-1 E03-2

G Egypt G03-1 G03-2