Nivel Nacional, Regional, Provincial, Local en el que se encuentrala 24

In order for a scientific study to be accepted, there are some quality dimensions, which are presented below, which the research needs to fulfil.

3.7.1 Reliability

Bhattacherjee (2012) describes reliability as how consistent the measurement is. It means that when a construct, or the given object, is measured multiple times, the result should be the same. Consistency is the keyword. Jacobsen (2002) explains reliability in a qualitative context as in what extent the collected data can be trusted. According to Jacobsen (2002) the context which the interview will be held can affect the interview, and thereby must be held so the in- terviewee feels comfortable to minimize the effect. Although the interviews were done via telephone, the interviewees were in charge of choosing time and place. All interviews were done during working hours.

Recker (2013) mentions that reliability problems can occur due to ambiguous, poorly phrased questions. To cope with this, example scenarios have been used during the interviews, to aid and reduce ambiguity for the interviewees. Jacobsen (2002) states the importance of giving the interviewee a chance to prepare for the interview. The interviewees were given the inter- view guide once the interview time was schedule, and thereby had time to prepare if needed. Another problem mentioned by Recker (2013) is if the interviewee needs to answer questions which are not in their field or wrong level of expertise. Thereby, only informants were picked that worked with information in the social media context.

3.7.2 Internal and external validity

The research studies that are of the best quality are those that successfully manage to achieve both high internal and external validity. In general, validity refers to in which extent the re- search use the right method, and measure what it aim to measure (Recker, 2013). To achieve validity in this thesis, the result and answers from the interviewees were compared to each

other, and to the previous studies and research within the field of believability. Additionally, to achieve a high internal validity, Recker (2013) mentions the importance of presenting suf- ficient evidence for the outcome of the perceptions in the data analysis. In other words, the higher amount of people agreeing upon something, the more credible that specific information is (Jacobsen, 2002). Furthermore, to achieve truthfulness and credibility in accordance with Recker (2013), the transcriptions were sent to the interviewees for examination. This gave the interviewees the chance to approve of the transcripts, and even add or remove text, which increases the study’s internal validity.

For this thesis to have a high external validity, the researchers will richly describe the research context, for the study to be easy to replicate at other companies than the four selected for this study (Recker, 2013). Jacobsen (2002) describes external validity as in which extent the result can be generalizable. Although this thesis based its results from only four organizations, the empirical findings have shown similarities between them, which indicates guidance for fur- ther research.

3.7.3 Ethical aspects

Another important factor to achieve an accepted level of quality of the research is to do the research in an ethical way, and follow the ethical principles (Bhattacharjee, 2012; Walsham, 2006). Furthermore, it is important as this research is of a qualitative nature, which involves interaction between human beings. The researchers attempted to do its best to follow these principles. In the beginning of each interview, the interviewee was informed what the aim of the research is, and that their participation is voluntary, which means that they can withdraw at any given moment without obligations, accordingly to Bhattacharjee (2012). Additionally, before the interview, the interviewee were offered and guaranteed anonymity and confidenti- ality, and for those who asked for confidentiality were given so, and thereby made it impossi- ble for the reader to track the interviewee’s identity (Bhattacherjee, 2012; Walsham, 2006). The empirical material was analyzed in an ethical way. In other words, regardless of what has been collected, important aspects and findings were presented and discussed, and not hidden from the reader, which Bhattacherjee, (2012) mentions as an important factor to keep the re- search ethical.

3.7.4 Biases

The term objectivity, which has been touched upon in section 2.4.1., refers to if the knowledge or information is free from personal bias, prejudice and that it is based on facts in a non-misleading manner (Kvale, 1994). However, Kvale (1994) states how it cannot be com- pletely avoided. During this research, personal bias has been in consideration through the whole process, by being open to all findings in the literature, and not searching for papers that confirms one’s assumption, and also by being aware of potential biased answers from the in- terviewees.

It is also important that the questions in interviews do not have biased and leading words, to encourage the interviewee to answer in a specific way (Bhattacherjee, 2012), and therefore, this was in taken into consideration during the creation of the interview guide. Bhattacharjee (2012), mentions the term “socially desirable response” and describes it as when the inter-

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viewees tweak the answer so it sounds better, rather than answer truthfully. This have been considered during the data analysis, and it was perceived that the interviewees were honest in their answers, as mistakes or lack of analysis was admitted, and the questions focused on the organization and not their personal life.

4

Empirical findings

This chapter presents the empirical findings. The findings start with a general presentation of how social media is used by the companies, and then put into the categories from the process model in chapter X. When a quotation is presented, it has been translated by the authors. The transcripts are referenced as the following example (4:21), which means appendix 4, Row 21.