Perfil de las víctimas

There is a wide perspective from the literature on how researchers demonstrate the credibility of their findings. Amarantunga, Baldry, Sarshar, and Newton (2002, p. 17) stated that "research means different things to different people". The credibility of findings can be considered under the heading of reliability and validity (Saunders et al., 2006).

Lincoln and Guba (1985) argued that naturalistic enquiry, is not and cannot be value free and at best can persuade its readers of its argument. Their stance on the credibility of the research is in contrast to positivists that believe that the research should be capable of producing the same results if repeated and can be generalised. Bryman (2012) cautioned that research adopting a constructivist and interpretivist stance must be careful that it does not try to emulate positivist and scientific principles.

Naturalistic enquiry is considered as adopting an interpretivist stance and using qualitative techniques. Drake and Heath (2011) advised that most professional doctorates candidates do not expect their research to materially alter policy or professional practice. It is not envisaged that this research would be regarded as emancipatory but could be construed in part as feminist approach to research. Morton and Wilkinson (2008, p. 47) confirmed that the characteristics of this research include caring about the subject matter of the research, drawing from personal knowledge experience and "makes visible an aspect of experience that

has been unseen". It is argued that the first two characteristics are inherent in a decision to read for a professional doctorate. It was proposed in Chapter 2 (Literature review) that there is meagre literature on this research and therefore the views of PSFs and clients are 'unseen'. It is argued that data generated by the interviewees is somewhat controversial for the PPMAs and therefore their views could be challenged as a minority group. However, the selection of the PSFs and clients was explained in Section 3.5.5.2 (Selection of Interviewees – Professional Services Firms) and Section 3.5.5.3 – Clients) and it is proposed that these interviewees are an adequate representation of the project management profession in the UK construction industry. It is suggested that interviewees' comments do represent multiple realities on the relevance of project management best practice and its application in the UK construction industry.

This research is deemed as a naturalistic enquiry. For the purposes of this research, naturalistic terms rather than conventional positivist terms are largely used. Gray (2014) summarised the different terms: credibility in lieu of internal validity, transferability in lieu of external validity, dependability in lieu of reliability and confirmability in lieu of objectivity. 3.11.1 The Credibility of Research Findings

It is suggested that the trustworthiness of this research is under pinned in the following ways: credibility, transferability, dependability, confirmability, defending the case study strategy and the use of the structuration theory. The rationale for this is based upon naturalistic enquiry (Lincoln & Guba, 1985).

The following are key concepts to have credibility in research findings: prolonged engagement in the field, testing for misinformation, persistent observation and building trust (Lincoln & Guba, 1985, p. 301). The Author is a practising project manager and has worked in the construction industry for almost 30 years. The tacit knowledge of professionals has been recognised (Eraut, 1994; Schon, 1983). This level of experience enables an individual to have gained valuable and long term experience as a practising project manager, understand specific jargon or abbreviations that may be used in the construction industry, and crucially, to be able to question interviewees if comments made would be a distortion of key facts. It is argued that this in-depth knowledge of the project management practice helped the Author test for misinformation.

The issue of building trust is regarded as an incremental process but it must also include providing assurances to respondents that their confidence will not be betrayed or there is a hidden agenda on behalf of the researcher (Lincoln & Guba, 1985). One of the advantages of a 'practitioner academic' is that they are likely to have access to individuals through their social networks (Saunders et al., 2006). The Author has known some of the interviewees for a long time in a professional capacity. There was a 100% response rate from all the interviewees who agreed to participate in the research. It is argued that the Participant Research Form helped to provide confidence to the interviewees before the interview, so the research matter and scope of the interview is transparent.

In addition, to give them a level of comfort, all of the interviewees could amend the transcript of the discussion and had the ability to withdraw from the research. The same principles applied to interviewees that participated in the Preliminary practice-based investigation. Lincoln and Guba (1985) argued that persistent observation should provide depth to the research by considering the context and observing key facts. They cautioned against the risking of the possibility of "going native" and reaching conclusions. It is suggested that the risk of becoming unduly influenced by PSFs and clients is extremely low as most interviews took place within a one-hour time frame. In addition, no fees were paid to the interviewees for participating in this research. The issues that may face as insider researcher is discussed in Section 3.4 (Axiology).

Triangulation is considered to be another technique that support trustworthiness to the research. The same research questions (with two additional questions for clients) provided responses from PSFs and clients. This provided an opportunity to compare and contrast the findings including the previous Preliminary practice-based research (McCann, 2014a).

3.11.2 Transferability

A naturalistic enquiry can only "provide the database that makes transferability judgements on the part of potential appliers" and "transferability is in a strict sense, impossible" (Lincoln & Guba, 1985, p. 316). They argued that it was the responsibility of the researcher to provide detailed descriptions so that others can gauge whether the material is transferable. It is proposed that this thesis provides a rich insight into the research by including the PSFs' and client' various and contrasting comments.

The comments from the interviewees are evaluated, where possible, with the existing literature on the relevance of project management best practice and its application in the UK construction industry, e.g. the limitations of the BoKs, development of practitioners' competencies, etc. See Chapter 4 (Findings from Professional Services firms) and Chapter 5 (Findings from Clients). In addition, Chapter 6 (Implications of the Research) also uses the literature to set out the implications and interpretations of this research, e.g. the concept of the Semi-detached Professional is created using existing literature. It is suggested that literature provides transferability by providing other sources of information that can be compared with the findings of this research. There are 280 sources of information in the list of references. See List of References. These references include publications by authors from the USA, Canada, France, Sweden, Denmark, Australia and Malaysia and comprise 41% of the list of references. It is suggested that the large percentage of international authors is not surprising given the worldwide interest in project management. The list of references comprise approximately

 40% - Books

 23% - Peer reviewed journals

 21% - Government reports, industry reports  13% - PPMA's publications

 3 % - Conference papers  1% - Thesis

3.11.3 Dependability

Lincoln and Guba (1985) argued that triangulation can be used to argue for dependability but noted that this was previously included in demonstrating the trustworthiness of the research. Their other option for dependability includes appointing a team to examine the process of how the data was compiled, i.e. "the confirmability audit" (Lincoln & Guba, 1985, p. 318). This option was considered as expensive for small-scale and self-funded research.

Professional doctoral candidates have to pass certain progression points to complete their research. It is suggested that this process of assessing the progress of professional doctoral candidates is in effect another form of audit, i.e. an academic audit. Candidates have to demonstrate that their research is a worthy topic, that they understand different research choices, research strategies, and that their work remains worth pursuing to the next stage.

It is also suggested that academic supervisors of doctoral research assist in this academic audit by guiding their doctoral candidates in understanding appropriate research techniques and adhering to the research ethics. In some cases, this process can last for a considerable time, e.g. five years and it is argued that this exposes candidates to prolonged engagement in understanding their responsibilities on processing and interpreting primary data.

3.11.4 Confirmability

Confirmability is described as "addressing the degree to which the steps of the study can be audited, confirmed or replicated" (Gray, 2014, p. 186). Confirmability audit, triangulation and keeping a personal journal are three ways to demonstrate confirmability (Lincoln & Guba, 1985). The option of having a "confirmability audit" was not considered as noted above. The Author did not keep a personal reflective journal for the research period but did attend all the workshops during the DBEnv programme from 2012-2017. The workshops were led by academic staff, and encouraged critical thinking from candidates. In addition, the Preliminary practice-based research (McCann, 2014a) provided the opportunity for reflection and influenced the research questions and the unit of analysis. Triangulation is used to provide evidence of confirmability of the findings. See Chapter 6 (Implications of the research).