Rellenos de paleocanal

Selection of respondents began in the M ultim edia Super C orridor status listed com panies, w hich w ere available on the M ultim edia D evelopm ent C orporation w eb site. M ultim edia Super C orridor status com panies have been chosen for the p u rp o se of studying know ledge w orkers from the local context due to several rationales, as presented in C hapter 4 (see Section 4.3). After obtaining a list of com panies from the M ultim edia D evelopm ent C orporation w eb site, the researcher initiated contact w ith their liaison officers such as h u m an resource executives, public relation executives, hum an resource m anagers, business developm ent m anagers, chief technology officers and know ledge m anagem ent m anager.

There w ere aro u n d 660 M ultim edia Super C orridor status com panies in existence d u rin g the fieldw ork period (May 2003-July 2003). At the tim e of w riting, in the year 2004, this figure has been increased to m ore th an 1000 com panies w ith M ultim edia Super C orridor status (MSCIS, 2003). The researcher sent a letter requesting perm ission to send the questionnaire, via facsimile and e-mail, to all M ultim edia Super C orridor status companies.

At times, she also engaged in telephone contact w ith them . Those w ho responded to this request w ere then chosen to become the participating com panies in the research (please see A ppendix D for a sam ple of emails and those w ho accepted or rejected the request).

Of the 660 com panies, the researcher received feedback from 40 companies, and the rest did not respond at all. Several of the com panies approached no longer exist. W hen referring this m atter to the M ultim edia D evelopm ent C orridor representative d u rin g the interview session, the researcher did ask w h at had h appened to the M ultim edia Super C orridor status com panies w ho are still listed on the w eb site b u t cannot be contacted and no longer exist. The researcher w as told that some of the com panies had discontinued their business d u e to poor business perform ance. In this case, those com panies are yet to be excluded, as the M ultim edia D evelopm ent C orridor still hopes th at they will continue to survive. These com panies are k now n as inactive. Furtherm ore, the researcher attem pted to arrange questionnaire surveys and in-depth sem i-structured interview s w ith representatives of the 40 com panies w ho responded. H ow ever, not all com panies agreed to both data collection m ethods. Table 5.4.1.1 show s the b reakdow n of the 40 M ultim edia Super C orridor status com panies that participated in the current research.

It should also be highlighted that there w ere some obvious, large differences in the num bers of interviews carried out betw een companies; for example, in C om panies 3 and 20, several interview s w ere conducted, in contrast to the single interview s in Com panies 7,10, 22, 29, 30 and 33. The num bers of interview s reflect the size of the com pany. In this regard, the researcher w as able to conduct m ore interview s in bigger com panies, as m ore know ledge w orkers w ere available for interview. H ow ever, relatively few big M ultim edia Super C orridor status com panies participated in this research. This could be due to the fact th at m ore th an half of the

M ultim edia Super C orridor status com panies are small com panies (see for exam ple MSC IS, 2003 an d 2004). Furtherm ore, in this study, the researcher is interested in the view s of individual w orkers. The responses are n o t used to outline organisational characteristics specific to individual organisation. W hile som e com panies provided num erous interviewees, there is no reason to suggest that this had a biasing effect on the data. H aving said this, perhaps the single or m ultiple interview s conducted in those com panies do not bring enough discrepancy to allow a better u n d erstan d in g of the current issues related to know ledge workers, know ledge m anagem ent and hum an resource m anagem ent in Malaysia. Ironically, the credibility of data collected from these com panies could also be disputed. In practical term s, the bigger the com pany, the better established it will be, an d the m ore com petent its w orkers. Nonetheless, there should not be any response bias, as the interview s conducted in these com panies w ere on a one-to-one basis in a quiet m eeting room provided for the researcher. H ere, respondents w ere m ore relaxed and free to express their views.

Table 5.4.1.1

Breakdown of the M ultim edia Super Corridor Companies who participated in Data Collection Methods MULTIMEDIA SUPER CORRIDOR Status Companies (Pseudo...) Survey Q uestionnaire (n= 171) (19 MULTIMEDIA SUPER CORRIDOR Status Companies) In-Depth Interview (n= 79) (30 MULTIMEDIA SUPER CORRIDOR Status Companies)* Secondary Data COMPANY 1 5 3 Available COMPANY 2 10 2 Available COMPANY 3 15 10 Available

COMPANY 4 5 - Not Available

COMPANY 5 5 2 Not Available

COMPANY 6 - 2 Available

COMPANY 7 - 1 Not Available

COMPANY 8 5 - Not Available

COMPANY 9 - 5 Not Available

COMPANY 10 - 1 Not Available

COMPANY 11 6 - Not Available

COMPANY 12 - 2 Available

COMPANY 13 - 5 N ot Available

COMPANY 14 - 2 Not Available

COMPANY 16 - 3 Not Available

COMPANY 17 - 3 Available

COMPANY 18 10 - Available

COMPANY 19 5 - Available

COMPANY 20 20 3 Available

COMPANY 21 - 2 Not Available

COMPANY 22 - 1 Not Available

COMPANY 23 - 4 Available

COMPANY 24 - 5 Not Available

COMPANY 25 15 - Available

COMPANY 26 7 - Available

COMPANY 27 8 - Available

COMPANY 28 5 1 Not Available

COMPANY 29 - 1 Not Available

COMPANY 30 - 1 Available

COMPANY 31 - 2 Not Available

COMPANY 32 7 - Available

COMPANY 33 - 1 Not Available

COMPANY 34 18 1 Available

COMPANY 35 10 - Available

COMPANY 36 - 3 Not Available

COMPANY 37 - 3 Not Available

COMPANY 38 10 1 Available

COMPANY 39 5 2 Available

COMPANY 40 - 4 Available

Total = 40 171 79 20 Available

Note: * These 30 companies, included 9 companies which also participated in the survey questionnaire.

In linking the above circum stances w ith sam pling issues, the selection of potential participants from the w hole population is know n as "choosing a sam ple" (Remenyi et al., 2000). It w ould be impossible for the researcher to utilise the w hole p o pulation as participants, as Sarantakos (1998: p. 139) states:

"In many cases a complete coverage of the population is not possible... complete coverage may not offer substantial advantage over a sample survey. On the contrary, it is argued that sampling provides a better option since it addresses the survey population in a short period of time and produces comparable and equally valid results."

In the current research context, at the time w hen the researcher conducted her fieldw ork, there w ere 660 M ultim edia Super C orridor status com panies

w ith m ore than 20,000 know ledge w orkers (see C hapter 4, Section 4.3.4a). Due to constraints such as cost, research difficulties and time, the researcher decided to ad o p t the sam pling process. It has been realised that there w ould be some negatives aspects to this type of sam pling, i.e. there is a need for m ore adm inistration, planning and program m ing than saturation surveys, w hich m ay affect the validity aspect as well. How ever, efforts w ere m ade to reduce these draw backs (see for exam ple Section 5.4.1.5).

Furtherm ore, there are tw o m ain types of sam pling category. The first category is probability sam pling, also know n as ran d o m sam pling; this places em phasis on the fact th at there is an equal chance of potential participants being selected from the w hole population (Henry, 1990: p. 25). This technique can be ad o p ted by applying "sim ple ran d o m sam pling", "system atic sam pling", "cluster sam pling" and "m ulti-stage sam pling". The second category is non-probability, w hich allows the researcher to apply or use subjective judgem ents in selecting the sam ple (Henry, 1990: p. 17). For instance, in the current study, the researcher's first judgem ent for potential participants w as th at they w ere formally declared to be know n as know ledge w orkers, as p rovided by the M ultim edia Super C orridor status companies. In doing this, the researcher w ould be considered to be a little biased. H ow ever, according to Remenyi, et al. (2000: p. 204):

"In business and management research it is often the case that a biased sample is required. If the researcher is interested in developing guidelines for managers then he or she is only interested in learning from organisations that may be considered to be good or excellent performers. Even when the researcher wants to study poor performance in order to learn what mistakes to avoid, then the sample that he or she would seek would also be biased."

In fact, it has also been agreed by m any authors th at non-probability sam pling m ethods are particularly relevant in exploratory research (Churchill, 1991; De Vaus, 2002; Henry, 1990 and Rem enyi et al, 2000).

Purposive sam ples, convenience samples, judgem ent sam ples and snow ball sam ples are m ore popular m ethods used u n d er this category. As this research has no specific purpose in m ind b u t to explore the current issues regarding know ledge workers, know ledge m anagem ent and hum an resource m anagem ent in M ultim edia Super C orridor status companies, Malaysia, the researcher em ployed convenience and snow ball sam pling.

A convenience sam ple is a group of individuals and com panies th at are readily available to participate in the study (Churchill, 1998; H enry, 1990). In the current research, only 40 M ultim edia Super C orridor status com panies w ere available for the fieldwork. W ith the help of each com pany, the researcher m anaged to invite know ledge w orkers to participate in the questionnaire survey and in-depth sem i-structured interview s, w hich will be presented in Section 5.4.2. From the convenience sam ple th at the researcher gathered, she started to generate m ore participants for in-depth sem i-structured interview s and m ore participants th ro u g h practicing the snow ball technique. The snow ball technique norm ally relies on a previously identified group of participants recruiting other participants from the population. The researcher norm ally did this w hen she w ent to the volunteer com panies w ho w ere involved in the questionnaire surveys. After a brief discussion a n d /o r phone conversation, the researcher started to ask the individuals if they could refer her to any other individuals for further discussions on the relevant research m atters. From this, the researcher m anaged to get several im portant nam es and further interview arrangem ents w ere m ade. The snow balling technique continued du rin g these referral interview sessions as well (Henry, 1990; Remenyi et al., 2000). At the end of the interview session, the researcher usually asked the participant if he or she could suggest anybody else w ho w ould be w illing to be interview ed, and the researcher w ould m ake an appointm ent to m eet the suggested individuals. Thus, a new ly identified participant w ould nam e others and the sam ple grew like a snowball.

Both sam pling m ethods, i.e. questionnaire survey an d in-depth semi­ structured interview s, can be considered as being broadly representative of the population. The accuracy of these sam ples was su p p o rted at the tim e of fieldwork, as there w ere 660 M ultim edia Super C orridor status companies. How ever, as m entioned earlier, w hen the researcher started contacting them , several of these com panies no longer existed. W hen referring this m atter to the M ultim edia D evelopm ent C orporation, the co n tact/ spokesperson iterated th at these com panies are considered to no longer be active. H ow ever, due to the need to retain the com panies' image and reputation, the M ultim edia D evelopm ent C orridor has yet to exclude those com panies from the list, except w hen the ow ners of the companies had personally announced that they had sh u t dow n. Here, out of 660 companies, approxim ately 10 to 15 percent w ere no longer active, which am ounts to 60 to 90 inactive com panies and brings the total num ber of existing M ultim edia Super C orridor status com panies at th at time to around 570 to 610.

In the current research, the sam ple of 40 volunteered M ultim edia Super C orridor status com panies is considered representative of the whole population. This is because the num ber of returned questionnaire surveys (171) and 79 respondents for the in-depth sem i-structured interview both satisfy the rule of thum b as proposed by Roscoe (1975), w hich has been noted by Sekaran (1992: p. 253). They say th at a sam ple size larger than 30 and less than 500 is representative for m ost research. Furtherm ore, these 40 com panies cover all types of business. Most w ere small com panies running in parallel w ith the m ajor com panies w ith the M ultim edia Super C orridor status (see, for exam ple C hapter 4, Section 4.3). Furtherm ore, am ongst those 40 com panies, there are also several leading com panies like Maccos (Pseudonym ), M iam as (Pseudonym ), Sea Shell (Pseudonym ) and Fastest (Pseudonym).