Contexto económico, social, alimentario y nutrícional

Network Concept Code Network Concept Code Networking Performance NP Strength of Relationship NR Networking Behaviour NB Network Organisation NO Networking Intensity NI Network Activation NG Network Attractiveness NA Degree of Embeddedness DE Network Characteristics NC Networking Profile NF Network Membership NM Network Identity ND

Network Trust NT Network Allegiance NL

Network Influence NU Network Contacts NC

Network Competence NE Strong vs Weak Ties SW

Interviews were conducted with directors from leading firms of chartered accountants, major legal firms, bankers, consultants, manufacturers, financial services companies, public/private partnerships, members of networking organisations including the chambers of commerce. Respondents were selected to be representative of the major commercial and industrial locations in the West Midlands. They were identified as being active members of business networks within their chosen networks and were recommended by their colleagues based on a snowball sampling technique (Dawes 1987). The respondents were happy to be identified as contributors to the study but consistent with the need to maintain anonymity for the purposes of this research and in-line with best practice as recommended by the Market Research Society, only initials will be used in the summary.

There were an approximately equal number of males and females in the sample and all had a minimum of two years networking experience, with most having considerably more experience of working within different business networks.

TABLE 4.2

Qualitative Study Respondents

Job Title Organisation Town Ref

1 Chairman Regional development agency Birmingham DB

2 Senior Partner Regional law firm Coventry CC

3 Managing Director Publishing Company Lichfield SA 4 Director Major manufacturing company Stoke on Trent BB

5 Director Management consultancy Telford AM

6 Senior Partner International management consultants

Birmingham MH 7 Senior Partner International management

consultants

Birmingham RE

8 Partner International law firm Birmingham SL

9 Chief Executive Development corporation Birmingham RB

10 Director Chamber of Commerce Stafford ST

11 Managing Director Chamber of Commerce Telford NG 12 Managing Director International manufacturer Walsall BF 13 Sales Director Replacement window company Shrewsbury TR

14 Senior Partner Regional law firm Telford GD

15 Director Property surveyors Coventry DP

Job Title Organisation Town Ref

16 Director Property agents Coventry KC

17 Managing Director Vehicle leasing company Telford PW 18 Business Manager International bank Shrewsbury DJ

19 Director Chartered accountants Telford NP

20 Managing Director National manufacturer Wolverhampton BD

The respondents were all senior level executives, many being chief executives but together they represented a range of firms differentiated by type and size, from sole traders to multi-nationals. The purpose was to provide operational insight into the research area. This followed the personal interviewing process recommended by Alreck and Settle (1995). Each interviewee was encouraged to discuss their personal experiences of networking, positive and negative and asked to suggest what factors in their opinion were most likely to produce positive networking outcomes, such as measurable networking performance.

At the close of each face-to-face meeting, the respondent was asked to recommend the names of other senior executives who might be able to contribute to the pilot study. In practice, this worked even better than imagined, as the first respondent, the head of a major legal practice in Birmingham, picked up her phone and personally made three additional appointments with the heads of leading firms in the city. This was repeated in Coventry, Stoke and Wolverhampton, with similar results. The target of twenty

completed interviews was reached within five weeks. Appendix B to the thesis includes a sample of the completed interview scripts.

The resultant narrative from the interviews, whilst offering a rich picture of networking preferences would be difficult to reconcile without a recognised process for analysis. A textual analysis approach was selected for this study as it offers a synthesis of content analysis based on a simplified comparison of conversational linkages (Morse 1994). The semi-structured interview technique is popular in business research projects where the conversational nature of the interview is likely to generate informed comment but does not guarantee freedom from error (Jankowicz 1995; Mishler 1986).

The process of data collection inherent in interpretive ethnography places focus on the experience of the participants. Synthesising is achieved by the process of coding and content analysis, with pooling data from the transcriptions to facilitate the creation of the categories constructed from the participants observations (Morse 1994). A further advantage of adopting an method of textual analysis was its nature of a normal discussion, where people interact in a natural setting, in this case a business environment (Bryman and Bell 2004).

4.3 Discussion

The aim of undertaking a pilot study based on a qualitative research methodology by conducting twenty depth interviews with senior executives selected on the basis of their experience of business-to-business networking, was to understand what factors identified

from the literature were most likely to have a positive influence on networking performance. The qualitative survey was completed using a semi-structured interview developed from the conceptual framework described in Figure 3.3. This hybrid research strategy using qualitative data to inform and confirm the independent variables, was to refine the list of the variables and aid development of a conceptual model. The objective was to produce a more relevant and focused set of hypotheses and therefore a testable model of networking performance.

The decision to interview a sample of twenty senior executives recognised for their business-to-business networking expertise, proved easier than expected. By adopting the

‘snowball sampling’ technique as the method for creating a random sample of business leaders in the target region of the West Midlands, the potentially difficult task of identifying ideal respondents from the business community was made much easier than anticipated. By aiming high, the first interview with the head of a leading law firm in Birmingham and also the Chair of Birmingham Forward, produced a good result. This positive experience at the start of the pilot survey process was extremely encouraging and endorsed the decision to use the snowball sampling technique to identify suitable respondents. It was important to gain a representative sample of different firms across the whole of the region, based around the business centres of Birmingham, Coventry, Stoke, Wolverhampton and Telford, to achieve good geographic coverage. The results of the pilot study, content analysis and findings are analysed and discussed in the following chapter, together with the development of the hypotheses in Chapter 5.

4.4 Conceptual Model - development

The discussion on networking outcomes and in particular NP, draws attention to the overlap in the literature as to how many of the researched networking variables have been described and conceptualised. In order to address this, a conceptual model is proposed based on the findings from the qualitative phase of the study. The development of the conceptual model is based on the conceptual framework shown in Figure 3.3 with a refined set of independent variables identified in the qualitative phase.

The purpose of the qualitative study was to test the relevance of the networking concepts listed in Figure 3.3 by asking the respondents how important they thought each of the independent variables were in contributing to the desired networking outcome of measurable networking performance. The interview process based on the five question areas in the planned mail survey, sought greater operational definition of the respective networking terms and to gauge the respective importance of the concepts to the goal of enhanced networking performance as discussed in the following chapter.