CUÁL ES LA RELACIÓN ENTRE EL GERENTE GENERAL LAS EMPRESAS?

This research has been identified as a piece of policy ethnography. Policy ethnography (Griffiths and Hughes, 2000; Exworthy et al, 2002)

aims to provide detailed observational data on the organisational enactment of public policies that will complement data from larger-scale survey or interview research (Griffiths and Hughes, 2000, p.211).

Policy ethnography is a methodological approach employed to look at the detail of policy implementation by studying a single case. This piece of research fits this

Merseyside, a particular case, using ethnographic methods. The learning from this study adds detail to issues identified by the National Evaluation of Health Action Zones, and to other studies examining specific implementations of New Labour public policies. Studies in this depth also offer the opportunity to identify unanticipated lessons from the process of implementation, and that has been the situation with the Merseyside HAZ implementation.

In essence, therefore, a policy ethnography is also a case study. Like most things, the concept of a case study means different things to different people. For some it is simply the study of a single case, for others a research methodology (Verschuren, 2003; Yin, 2003). In this instance it is both the study of a case and the use of multiple methods (observation, interviews and documentary analysis) to explore the research topic. It departs from Yin’s definition of a case study in that the theory model emerged from the data, and had not been defined a priori (Yin, 2003).

A case study can be quantitative or qualitative in its approach (Verschuren, 2003; Yin, 2003), although authors usually recommend methodological triangulation to develop a rounder view of the case being researched (Keen and Packwood, 1995; Macpherson et al, 2000; Verschuren, 2003; Yin, 2003). Authors are usually in agreement that a case study approach is most useful when researching an intervention in a real-life context, there is a need to answer ‘how’ and ‘why’ the intervention succeeds or fails, the researcher has little or no control over the events, and the context is complex (Keen and Packwood, 1995; Macpherson et al, 2000; Verschuren, 2003; Yin, 2003).

Verschuren (2003) argues that there is a continuum of case study research from the purely reductionist approach through to an holistic approach. The reductionist

approach can use qualitative as well as quantitative methods, but is defined as having ‘tunnel vision’ because it examines the ‘case’ at a single point in time, detached from its physical, social and political context without taking into account its relations with other objects in the case and without looking at the functions it fulfils for the larger whole (Verschuren, 2003). Verschuren suggests that this should be referred to as ‘case research’, and that the term ‘case study’ should be reserved for a more holistic approach where the researcher is concerned with dynamics, developments and processes, examining group characteristics. In this respect case studies should employ participant observation methods, combining observation and interviews in methodological triangulation to generate ‘thick’ data (Macpherson et al, 2000; Verschuren, 2003). Macpherson et al (2000) suggest a third approach which is akin to more critical research perspectives, where the researcher seeks to create proactive partnerships with the researched through action research in order to critique values and norms and generate social change.

The different explanations of the case study echo the multiple interpretations of ‘ethnography’. Ethnography has its origins in anthropology, and involves the overt or covert participation of the researcher in the daily lives of the study group over an extended period of time (Hammersley and Atkinson, 1995). Often the term ethnography is used as a synonym for qualitative research (Chambers, 2003), but Chambers (2003) stresses the importance of the study of culture, the shared meanings of a group, as a focus for this approach. Atkinson and Hammersley (1998) (cited Flick, 2002, p.147) identify the following features of ethnographic research:

1. A strong emphasis on exploring the nature of a particular social phenomenon, rather than setting out to test hypotheses about them.

2. A tendency to work primarily with ‘unstructured’ data, that is data that have not been coded at the point of data collection in terms of a closed set of analytic categories.

3. Investigation of a small number of cases, perhaps just one case, in detail. 4. Analysis of the data that involves explicit interpretation of the meanings and

functions of human actions, the product of which mainly takes the form of verbal descriptions and explanations, with quantification and statistical analysis playing a subordinate role at most.

Within an ethnographic approach research questions are refined and become more specific as the fieldwork and data analysis progresses (DePoy and Gitlin, 1994; Keen and Packwood, 1995), reflecting the research process described above. Ethnography - understood as an inductive process, combining observation, interviews and documentary analysis to explore a particular social phenomenon (Travers, 2001; Flick, 2002) - has been advocated for the study of government policies, especially in the health service (DePoy and Gitlin, 1994; Keen and Packwood, 1995).

The second definition of a case study given by Verschuren (2003) and ethnography as described in the previous paragraph are essentially the same methodology, although Yin (2003) argues that case studies differ from grounded theory and ethnography in that they are used to explore theory developed before the data collection begins. Policy ethnography, then, is a particular type of case study with the specific aims of exploring policy implementation in more detail. It deviates from Yin’s definition of case study methodology in that theory generation is been inductive. Therefore, this research has employed ethnographic case study methodology, using the qualitative methods of observation, semi-structured interviews and documentary analysis to explore the ‘dynamics, developments and processes’ of the Merseyside HAZ within its wider political context.

Interpretive social science is concerned with ‘what people know and how they understand their lives’ (Rubin and Rubin, 1995, p.35), recognising the time, context, complexity and particularity of the research situation. Within this holistic approach, feminist researchers have championed the personal and political within research (Ramazanoğlu and Holland, 2002; Fontana and Frey, 2003). Feminist researchers come from many different ontological and epistemological positions (Stanley and Wise, 1990; Ramazanoğlu and Holland, 2002), however what

is distinctive is the particular political positioning of theory, epistemology and ethics that enables the feminist researcher to question existing ‘truths’ and explore relations between knowledge and power

(Ramazanoğlu and Holland, 2002, p.16).

The aim has been to develop a methodology that ‘humanized’ both the researcher and the researched (Rubin and Rubin, 1995), and which empowered research participants by allowing them to determine the direction of conversations (Rubin and Rubin, 1995; Fontana and Frey, 2003).

Feminist methodology argues for the production of knowledge as part of, and entwined with, the process of research (Stanley, 1990). From this perspective, research respondents are not seen as objects, and the researcher develops closer relationships with the research participants (Rubin and Rubin, 1995; Fontana and Frey, 2003). It is recognised that the research data is a product of the interaction between the researcher and the research participants (Stanley and Wise, 1990; Rubin and Rubin, 1995), and that the perspective presented in the final analysis is just one perspective and is particular to that researcher (Silverman, 2003). Stanley and Wise (1990) suggest that theory is constantly being revised in the light of the experiences of the processes of research, making it a reflexive process.

This more fluid, responsive and adaptive approach to research has influenced my own research methods. Although this research is not concerned with issues of gender and power, following Rubin and Rubin (1995) I have incorporated those aspects of the feminist approach that are relevant to the nature of this research. Feminist methodology has provided valuable support for the iterative nature of theory generation employed here. Moreover, it influenced my decision to adopt a more conversational interview style, reflecting the importance of the participants as the owners of the knowledge shared in these meetings. Finally, it stresses the importance of the researcher reflecting on the research process to be conscious of how the data gathered is as much an expression of the researcher’s own interests and values as it is the information shared by the research participant.