Potencial de la intermediaria digital para compartir información

In order to maintain anonymity of the organisation that was approached, pseudonyms will be used to refer to the organisation, as well as the schemes the organisation had in place in order to solve the problems the organisation faced due to austerity. As Sturdy et al. (2009) point out, before describing the case study projects, it is important to mention the nature and process of achieving research access. Access to the organisation was obtained through the researcher‘s supervisor who at the time was conducting a different project at the organisation. One of the goals of the researcher was to gain access to observe the organisational leader‘s interaction with senior managers. Access to observe the Chief Executive in interaction was obtained and therefore the researcher‘s main focus was to obtain an insight into senior managers‘ understanding of what made the Chief Executive authentic wherein the researcher‘s focus was to obtain most of the information through the in depth interviews. A case study approach was chosen as this enables the use of multiple sources in the collection of data from the organisation. A case study approach involves concentrating on various aspects of a single organisational context (Strati, 2000).

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North city council seemed like the perfect choice as they are renowned for their use of innovative practices in order to overcome obstacles due to financial cutbacks. For instance, they have schemes such as Keep Jobs¹ and the Exchange Programme¹ in place which allows the organisation to make financial cutbacks whilst avoiding mass redundancies. The Head of HR and Organisational Development was the researcher‘s main point of contact. Information about these schemes was obtained through interviews at the organisation as well as at an event hosted by private partners of North city council that the researcher was invited to attend. A memory stick with all the information was provided. As discussed earlier by several authors (see Diddams and Chang, 2012; Liu, 2010; Gardner et al., 2011) it is only when the circumstances are austere that the need for authenticity increases.

Case studies allow for the use of multiple methods in order to collect data and these include both primary and secondary data. This included attending four events and conducting eight interviews at the organisation. Although the focus of the study was on obtaining an insight into how senior managers perceived leaders‘ authenticity, a case study research design was adopted in order to obtain information from various sources

within the organisation.

According to Wahyuni (2012), a research method that facilitates a deep investigation of a real-life contemporary phenomenon in its natural context is a case study (Woodside 2010; Yin 2012). In order to obtain data from the organisation a multimethod approach was used, which is usually the norm with a case study approach. These include

participant observation and conducting interviews. Participant observation was carried out in part based on Van Praet‘s (2009) study where she observed team meetings conducted by a British Ambassador in Belgium and drew on Goffman‘s approach in order to do so.

The first step towards making contact with the organisation was to get in touch with the organisation during a different project. A research proposal was sent to the organisation via email (see Appendix D) to the director of HR via the researcher‘s supervisor to obtain consent via email. The researcher spent 12 days with the organisation and data was collected primarily in the form of interviews, and supported by participant observation and attendance of other events in order to maintain contact with the organisation.

1 The names of the schemes have been changed in order to maintain the anonymity of the organisation.

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Participant Observation 1) SMT events

The researcher was invited to attend two Strategic Management Team meetings and an event hosted by private partners. The first event took place on the 28th September 2011 and the second event took place on the 12^th of July, 2012. Contemporaneous field notes were taken at both events where audio/video recording the event was discouraged as this would hinder attendees‘ participation. At both the events, the researcher‘s interest was in the Chief Executive‘s speech which was addressed to the audience in order to look into how the Chief Executive displayed authenticity. The researcher attempted to jot down everything that was said at both events. This was however easier at the first SMT meeting as opposed to the second one. After both events, additional notes were taken by the researcher in order to ensure that the event did not fade from her memory 2) Transformational group consultation meeting

The researcher was also able to obtain access to the transformational group consultation meeting where the objective of observing this meeting was to observe the interaction between members of a team from HR, trade union members and a few Heads of service.

However, recording was discouraged at this meeting. Therefore, the researcher attended this event in order to maintain continuity of access in the organisation. Three members that attended this meeting had already been interviewed .The researcher was invited to observe the transformational group consultation meeting and the minutes of the meeting were sent to her later. The trade union members sat on one side and the management on the other. Notes were taken during the meeting. Although the data could not be used for analysis as the event could not be recorded, it was a useful process to build familiarity with the organisation.

Interviews (Chief Executive and senior executives)

The primary method of data collection in the organisation was interviews. In order to gather people‘s thoughts on how they perceived authenticity in leaders, and particularly the Chief Executive of the organisation, eight semi-structured interviews with people within the organisation, including the Chief Executive, the Assistant Chief Executive, The Director of Human Resources, and five Heads of service were carried out. All of the interviews were arranged in advance and the interviews lasted between 33 minutes to 67 minutes.

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2. Head of Job developments 30th January

3. Assistant Chief Executive 6^th February

4. Head of Transformation, Programme and Project office 20^th February

5. Director of HR 21^st February

6. Head of Communications 6^th March

7. Head of Transactional Services and Corporate Services 6^th March 8. Head of Commissioning and Change Management 6^th March

Semi-structured interviews were used as a method to gather data. As Kvale (1996) points out, in semi-structured and unstructured interviews people often tell stories to answer questions often in the form of self-disclosure. As Holstein and Gubrium (1995) suggest, this is considered good practice. Semi-structured interviews allow for the narratives to be co-constructed by both the interviewer and the respondent whilst staying within the confines of an interview frame (Abell et al., 2006). According to Silverman (2011) this type of interview fits within constructivism where responses are constructed by both the interviewer and the interviewee. Therefore, semi-structured interviews seemed appropriate to gather data from the organisation. The tables 6 and 7 below contain the interview questions that the researcher prepared prior to the

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2. What does authenticity mean to you?

3. Could you give me examples of people

12. Does it matter if the performance is genuine?

(sincere or cynical)

What is the importance of authenticity in leaders?

13. What role does authenticity play in leadership importance?

14. Ask about some outcomes

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Analysis of field notes and senior members’ interviews

A thematic analysis of the interviews, similar to the group discussions was carried out to identify the categories that respondents used to describe authenticity and this was then linked to the first study. We were looking into what triggers somebody to think something is authentic as well as asking respondents about the performance of authenticity. The emphasis was on authenticity displays; therefore emphasis on impression management was placed. Each transcript (interviews and field notes) was examined individually to look for relevant categories. Coding was carried out manually and Microsoft Excel was used to store coded data for classification and analyses.

Each interview/event transcript was analysed and coded separately and the results were saved. At this stage the analysis and coding was carried out thematically starting from characteristics of a good leader followed by audience understanding of authenticity, role of impression management in perceptions of authenticity, the factors that make the Chief Executive authentic, and finally the ‗moral component‘ and ‗outcomes‘ of authenticity.

At the second stage, the findings were grouped under each theme in order to examine emerging patterns and for the purposes of merging codes to arrive at higher order categories. This process also enabled the understanding of interrelationships between the various categories.

After carrying out the analysis of the findings of the second study, we found that although rich detail was obtained through in depth interviews and participant observation, the fact that it was a single case study approach was still a limitation.

Ramachandran (1998) makes a case for the validity of single case studies by using the talking pig analogy, in that if one pig talks, it is worthy of research instead of having to prove that there are several talking pigs. In relation to this, while we believe that North City council provided us with rich data, data from a single organisation was still limited insight. Therefore, we concluded that further data from participants belonging to various organisations and industries would provide a more accurate insight into the subject.

Thus, this gave rise to our third study.

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