Expresión oral

Interview Access

Of the seventy-two companies and organisations approached, very few voluntarily replied, either positively or negatively. Most of the interviews were initiated by letter and/or an email, usually to one or more personnel members, such as the Director, the Fleet Director or the Crewing Manager. A significant number of the interview appointments were obtained either via personal contacts and/or by going to maritime social events to network and meeting new people. Clearly, the personal referral of respondents generated more cooperative informants. Hoffman (1980) discovered that

selecting informants based on her personal connections produced respondents who were more forthcoming in their responses. She then asked these respondents to direct her to other informants. It was therefore my strategy to employ snowball sampling through personal contacts in a similar manner in order to acquire more accommodating respondents. This research technique works like a chain referral where respondents are recruited through informal contact – so respondents are asked to refer people they know who fit the requirements of the research study. Although this sampling procedure has usually been used to identify potential participants, who are otherwise difficult to reach or identify (such as populations of HIV patients, the homeless or drug addicts (Faugier and Sargeant, 1997; Morrison, 1988), it could be applied to the participants in the shipping industry. Even though shipping company participants were not difficult to

locate, they tended to be a little elitist, small in number, and ‘hard’ to reach because of

their busy and changeable schedules. These elite participants can often help to establish access to other potential respondents to help the snowballing process (Richards, 1996). Hence, I had hoped that by asking participants to recommend other participants, I might be able to use their referrals and the familiarity of their names as a platform to secure interviews more easily. Notwithstanding this, most of the interviews did not yield additional participants through the process of snowballing. Personal contacts did prove helpful but it was not always easy to generate positive outcomes by directly securing interviews. However, a snowballing of sorts resulted when I met with personal contacts who would introduce other contacts as referrals for interviews or who would be able to put me in touch with a potential participant.

Access was not merely a matter of gaining entry into the setting or the company but was in many ways ongoing (Bryman, 2001). Even when I was ‘in’, I still had the task

of gaining ‘further’ access to individuals within (that is, building rapport with personnel

in the organisation who I had already gained access to). Establishing such relationships was important so that potential informants would consider me sufficiently credible to talk to. This included considering how I would dress, since attire can set the mood and tone of the interview (Stone, 1962); moreover, the level of rapport can affect the quality of the data collected.

In many instances, access was not easy or simple; it was often the case that more than one point of contact had to be established for each company or organisation before

access was successfully gained, if at all. Frequently, the initial person contacted did not respond to my email and I had to follow this up with calls to an assistant, a secretary or another manager. On other occasions, these follow up calls resulted in referrals to ‘a

more relevant person’, and, in one case, more than five points of contact were

generated, but even then I did not manage to gain access. On a more positive note, some affirmative replies came through spontaneously and immediately after my initial request. This served as encouragement for my efforts and pushed me to press on with securing further interviews. I was fortunate that my fieldwork progressed with relatively few problems. However, owing to the limited amount of time I had at my disposal, I was not able to recruit as many potential respondents as I would have liked. Additional respondents would have generated data that would give a broader representation of shipping companies and seafarers.

As a general rule, the shipping companies tended to work on a schedule that was rather swift, at short notice and impromptu. This was noticeable from their remarks about their availability – my follow-up calls were frequently misinterpreted as requests for an appointment that very day. There were also several occasions when they would suggest an available time for an appointment on the day or very soon after. Similarly, some of my appointments were postponed at short notice, sometimes within hours of the intended meeting.

There seemed to be a general tendency for most shipping company participants to grant interviews with some degree of wariness, either with some suspicion about what information was expected of them or doubts about the usefulness of their own contribution. Both of these were dealt with by giving extensive explanations about the project and my ethical obligations as well as sending additional information and sampler questions ahead of the appointment. It was also not uncommon for participants to highlight a disclaimer about the views they expressed, referring to these as personal opinions and not a reflection of the company they work for. In general, a more positive response was gained from participants from maritime associations or organisations, both in terms of gaining access as well as their receptiveness to my questions.

Most of the shipping company participants who I interviewed may be considered

focus on the politically and economically distinguished. However, the whole concept of elites encompasses those who occupy a privileged position in society as well as those who are less accessible and aware of their own importance (Richards, 1996). The advantage to interviewing such individuals is the insight they are able to provide into the viewpoints of actors in the industry who have played a part in shaping the

understanding of the seafarer ‘shortage’. Elite interviews can give substance and

meaning since these individuals are in a position to provide insights afforded by their influence and prominence (Hochschild, 2009). From the large number of negative responses I received from shipping companies, I could identify two reasons for difficulties in gaining access for my interviews. Firstly, I tried to target the upper management staff of shipping companies (that is, mainly Directors and Fleet Managers) most of whom were extremely busy people who were often away. Consequently, if I was successful in getting an interview with the company, it was usually with someone lower down the ranks. Secondly, I was often met with suspicion and requested to provide more clarification about my project, identify the organisation I was representing and communicate via an apparent gate-keeper; this gave me the impression that particular organisations were hesitant to reveal their operational procedures.

The Structure and Conduct of the Interviews

The main purpose of the qualitative research interview is to appreciate the significance of what the participants say, both on a factual and semantic level (Kvale, 1996). I had to decide among a variety of qualitative interviews, such as in-depth interviews, life stories, oral histories, and investigative interviews (Rubin and Rubin, 2005; Gubrium and Holstein, 2001), each of which may vary in form from unstructured, semi- structured or structured interviews. The structured interview has its advantage in generating standardised data that is easily verifiable and comparable. However, the controlled manner in which questions are asked forms its disadvantage, in that it would not allow me to explore issues that were not anticipated during the creation of the questionnaire. Hence, I did not choose to use this format where questions are carefully and comprehensively developed in advance and then administered to each participant in a particular and standardised way.

Conversely, the unstructured interview allows participants the free expression of their story so as to generate as much depth of information as possible (Gubrium and Holstein, 2001). The configuration for such interviews usually indicated informal conversations with no predetermined questions. As a result, the unstructured interview tends to generate a rich mass of data but which may require a fair amount of analysis to give form to. It is useful for exploring issues or areas which are lesser known. In this way, they are useful as preliminary research tools since they can be utilised to gather a significant amount of information in a short period of time. This method was also abandoned as it did not fit with the kind of data that I was looking to generate.

After careful consideration, I decided on a form of interview which would afford me some structure by utilising an interview guide of pre-formulated questions but at the same time allow me greater flexibility to explore the ideas and issues which emerged during the interview. For these reasons a mid-way alternative to both the structured and the unstructured forms of the qualitative interview was chosen. The semi-structured interview would allow me to steer the interview with a form of specific interview schedule, while allowing me the flexibility to explore unanticipated lines of enquiry. For my purpose, the semi-structured interview was the most suitable for ‘constructing’ data (Mason, 2002). This would generate insights rather than merely ‘excavate’ a collection of facts, since the aim of this thesis is to use the industry’s construction of its

knowledge of the ‘shortage’ to build a holistic understanding of the global labour

market. Hence, a semi-structured interview would help to draw out different perspectives since such interviews

. . . provide a greater breadth of data than other types, given their qualitative nature (Fontana and Frey, 2000: 652).

These interviews facilitate a broader range of information via the use of open-ended questions, so encouraging respondents to develop and expand freely on their descriptions. In this way, the flexibility of the semi-structured interview would not confine me to a strict sequence of pre-planned questions. Although this type of interview uses a framework of questions, I was free to vary the sequence of questions and to probe into issues without prior planning. This flexible format allowed me to

pursue unanticipated lines of thought that arose during the interviews, so allowing for the gathering of rich and in-depth data.

Moreover, the adaptability of the semi-structured interview is such that it can be varied and tailored according to a range of situations (Bryman, 2001). This approach is favourable for interviewing the upper management from shipping companies as well as other personnel since it retains a suitable formality, but is sufficiently flexible to gather rich and detailed information (Rubin and Rubin, 2005). The quality of my data would depend on my ability probe and encourage new lines of enquiry by making ‘on-the-

spot’ decisions throughout the interviewing process (Mason, 2002). As new lines of

enquiry arose, I was able to alter the direction of my interview to acquire greater depth of information. This semi-structured approach was also practical for seafarers who were more responsive in an informal setting. In this way, the interview was a co- construction of the interviewer and the respondent, allowing either the interviewer or the respondent to guide the direction of discussion as impromptu themes emerged. Its relative informality put respondents at ease, encouraged explorative conversation and elicited better input from them. Further to this, it provided an opportunity for informants to relate their input in an unhindered manner.

For these semi-structured sessions, I interviewed a total of 36 respondents and recorded 33 interviews. The total duration of these interviews was about 43 hours. Of these 10 were respondents from maritime associations and organisations, 25 were shipping company respondents, and 1 was a seafarer. I used a digital voice recorder to tape the interviews and this allowed me to focus on what the participants were saying and to think about the next question in order to steer the interviews. On average, each of my interviews lasted between one and one-and-a-half hours, but a handful lasted two hours or more. The majority of the interviews were conducted in quiet conducive settings, such as meeting rooms and personnel offices. However, a few were conducted in cafes, where there was considerable background noise. On a few occasions, the interviews were disrupted by phone calls, office personnel / office matters and seafarers. In several cases, the participants left the interview room to attend to a particular matter before returning again. In one case, the interview had to be postponed while the participant attended an urgent meeting; this was then resumed about two hours later.

With the exception of one participant, I did not have any trouble obtaining permission to record the interviews. Nearly all the participants gave their consent to the request to record without hesitation. Notwithstanding this, I was always careful to explain the various ethical considerations before I asked for permission, especially if I sensed that the participant may have been apprehensive. With regard to my ethical obligations for anonymity and confidentiality, most of the participants seem reassured by my elaborated and protracted explanations, while a few were not at all concerned, ‘waving’ aside my attempts to explain the matter.

The interview data was supplemented with visual observations and contextual information. To this end, I kept a fieldwork journal which filled a 150-page notebook which I filled with observations and insights about the interviews. These records were noted down immediately or as soon as possible after each interview. These were notes about the physical events and surroundings connected to the interview as well as any impressions I might have had about the people or my own performance on any particular day. Some handwritten notes were also taken in all the interviews. The advantage of this is that such records can be used in combination with other sources of data (Rubin and Rubin, 2005). Re-reading these notes also helped put me back in the context of the interview and facilitated my analysis of the data. They allowed me to recall the atmosphere in which the participants gave their responses and provided a nuanced interpretation of the data.