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An interview can be conducted at home, in the office, by telephone, by mail or online.

Figure: 48 Interview methods

Doing an interview is one of most natural things in the world, according to Silverman (2010), talking is a basic form of interaction in social life and one of the oldest ways to obtain systematic knowledge from another person (Kvale, 2007). A conversation regarding a research topic can be defined as follows: ‘An interview with the purpose of obtaining descriptions of the life world of the interviewer with respect to interpreting the meaning of the described phenomena’ (Kvale & Brinkmann, 2008, p. 3). Creswell (2009) and Corbin and Strauss (2009) agreed, an interview can be seen as one of the core data collection methods among qualitative

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research methods (Corbin & Strauss, 2009; Creswell J. W., 2009). According to Flick (2009), interviews can be divided into five different types—focused, semi-structured, problem- centred, expert, and ethnographic interviews. Myer and Newman (2007) listed three different types of interviews—unstructured, semi-structured, and structured (Myers & Newman, 2007). Yin (2003) distinguishes between open-ended interviews, focused interviews, and structured interviews. The researcher presents three methods generally used in qualitative research: focus group interviews, semi-structured interviews, and expert interviews.

a) Focus group interviews

Myers and Newman (2007, p. 4) argued that in a ‘group interview two or more people are interviewed at once by one or more interviewers. This type of interview can be structured or unstructured’. Patton (2002) described focus group interviews as a special type of group interviews and as a very efficient technique to collect qualitative data. He also defined the focus group as an ‘interview with a small group of people on a specific topic’. The colocation of the group is an important step in the technique; usually it is focused on the diversity of participants. Flick (2006) suggested that focus group interviews are difficult to document but this is no longer an issue in the researcher’s opinion because of new technical devices. The interview technique has other challenges e.g. identifying individual speakers as well as group dynamics. These issues are not resolved in expert or single interviews. There are only a limited number of questions that the interviewer/researcher can ask during the interview because sometimes answers turn into a discussion and are time-consuming. Patton pointed out another weakness of focus group interviews: ‘The focus group interview is, first and foremost, an interview. It is not a problem-solving session. It is not a decision-making group. It is not primarily a discussion, although direct interactions among participants often occur. It is an interview’ (Patton, 2014, p. 475).

According to Flick (2008), focus group interviews have some advantages as well. First of all, a focus group interview generates plentiful and substantial data at relatively low cost. Unlike single interviews, this technique stimulates the respondents and allows them to remember special events with regard to the interview topic.

b) Semi-structured interviews

Semi-structured interviews need an interview guide. The interviewer prepares a script before the interview, showing the structure of the interview. The script helps the interviewer guide

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the conversation between the interviewer and the interviewee (Myers & Newman, 2007). The questions are prepared before the interview and listed in the script as well. The knowledge of the interviewee includes clear and direct assumptions that they can express spontaneously while answering an open question (Flick, 2009). Thus, during the interview, the structure and the content can be changed. In this case, the interviewer must be flexible but he should be able to bring the interview back on track. The prepared questions need not be ask in a chronological order. Generally, semi-structured interviews start with an open question and end with a confrontational one.

c) Expert interviews

In expert interviews, the script, in addition to showing the structure and the questions, has another function. The script familiarizes the interviewer with the topic and it helps the interviewer to talk like a quasi-expert.

For this DBA thesis, the researcher has decided to do expert interviews. Meuser and Nagel (2002) claimed, this technique is a special form of semi-structured interviews. An advantage of this interview technique is, the researcher is flexible in designing and refining the interview guideline. Other general advantages are, in the exploratory phase, the researcher has quick access to a new and unknown research field. It is a fast method to obtain specific information. Another advantage is, technique allows the researcher to strengthen the credibility of the responses concerning the research topic (Horton, Richard, & Struyven, 2004).

An interview guideline will mention the topic-focused conversation. The main idea of this technique of data gathering is based on the assumption that ‘the perspective of others is meaningful, knowable, and able to be made explicit’ (Patton, 2014, p. 426).

Expert interviews are suitable in case of a small number of respondents—sometimes just one person—and questions to the expert are mostly open. Marshall and Rossman (1999) claim that an interview, especially an expert interview, generates a lot of information in a relatively short period (Marshall & Rossman, 1999) from a person who has special knowledge and insights about the topic. According to Meuser and Nagel (2009), an expert is a person who is responsible for the development, implementation, and control of solutions/strategies/policies and who has privileged access to information about groups of persons or decision processes (Meuser & Nagel, 2009). Another definition is, an expert has high insight and/or specific knowledge (van Audenhove, 2007). Deeke argued: ‘The answer to the question, who or what

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are experts, can be very different depending on the issue of the study and the theoretical and analytical approach used in it. [...] We can label those persons as experts who are particularly competent as authorities on a certain matter of facts’ (Deeke, 1995, pp. 7–8).

To do a semi-structured expert interview, the researcher has to follow a process. The academic world promotes several types of interview processes. In this DBA thesis, the researcher describes the dramaturgical model given by Erving Goffman (1959) and two different processes given by Brinkmann and Kavle (2015), and van Teijlingen (2014) respectively.

Erving Goffman (1959) mentioned that a face-to-face interview is a social exchange and a social interaction. His theory describes this interaction as a drama in a theatre with a stage, actors, audience, script, entry, exit, and performance. Researchers like Myers and Newman (2006) believed that this theory is highly applicable for qualitative interviews.

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In light of this dramaturgical model of the qualitative interview, they created seven guidelines for a qualitative interview.

Figure: 49 Seven guidelines for a qualitative interview referring to Myers and Newman (2007)

1. Situate the researcher as the actor

Before starting the interview, the interviewer has to find his own role in the process. It could be helpful for the interviewer to ask some questions before the interview: Who I am? What is my role in this interview? What is my background?

2. Minimize social dissonance

Create a comfortable and warm atmosphere during the interview. The interviewer has to play different roles for different interviewee e.g. one role for a CEO and a different role for an office clerk.

3. Represent various voices

The researcher has to find different interviewee from different departments in the or- ganisation. If the researcher does expert interviews, he has to find experts from differ- ent organisations, industries, or branches. This is helpful for including different points of view into the research.

168 4. Everyone is an interpreter

The interviewer and the interviewee are interpreters of their own worlds and of the world of the other person.

5. Use mirroring in questions and answers

Let the interviewee explain their world in their own words. This helps to get more val- uable information. Asking open rather than closed questions is a good common prac- tice. It makes sense to come from a general issue to a specific point.

6. Flexibility

As mentioned above, in semi-structured and expert interviews, the interviewer has to be flexible but has to steer back to the main topic after a period of time.

7. Confidentiality of disclosures

Even if it is not discussed before the interview, it is an act of honour to keep all infor- mation, scripts, and records confidential and secure.

The seven guidelines from Myers and Newman (2006) have helped the researcher to conduct successful interviews and get the best possible and valuable information. This reduces the effort of doing interviews and saves time and money.

Valenzuela and Shrivastava (2008), and Brinkmann and Kavle (2015) described the interview process in seven steps.

Table: 28 Interview process (Brinkmann & Kvale, 2015; Valenzuela & Shrivastava, 2008)

169 1. Thematising

In the first step, the researcher has a clear overview and enough existing knowledge regarding the research topic. In this stage, only the contribution and the purpose of the study are clear. The decision regarding the research method is not finalized yet. 2. Designing

In this phase, the researcher has to focus on the ‘big picture’. If qualitative interviews are considered to be the best choice, the research now has to plan how the interviews will be constructed, documented, analysed, and reported and how many interviewees will be needed

3. Interviewing

Preparing the questions and the interview guideline and conducting the interviews is the purpose of this phase.

4. Transcribing

This involves converting recorded audio files to a written format. The level of detail of the transcription depends on the researcher—it could be a word-to-word copy or simply a collection of statements given during the interview.

5. Analysing

The researcher has to select the type of analysis to be applied. He can focus on key- words, statements, or text segments. Brinkmann and Kvale (2015) insist that is im- portant to know how interviews will be analysed before they are conducted because the analysing technique influences the interview guidelines, script, process, and tran- scription.

6. Verifying

This step involves ascertaining the validity, reliability, and generalizability of the find- ings. Does the researcher investigate what was intended before the interviews? Do the interviews have the requested and needed quality? Are the results transferable to other subjects, contexts, and situations or it is possible to put the results into quanti- tative data?

7. Reporting

The written report for every interview should act as a conclusion of the findings and the connection to the research questions and objectives.

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Van Teijlingen (2014) described the interview process as having four phases.

Figure: 50 Interview cycle (van Teijlingen, 2014)

In the planning phase, the researcher has to formulate and design relevant and motivating questions. It is best to carry out every interview in the same location because the communicative atmosphere can influence the interview and the answers.

The second phase is the doing phase, in which the interviewer asks the questions and listens to the interviewee. It makes sense to record the interview to listen to the important statements again. The nonverbal communication of the interviewee is useful for getting additional information. This is an advantage of a face-to-face interview as opposed to telephone interviews.

Analysing the interview is the third step. What kind of answers/data is useful for the research? What are the differences with other already-completed interviews?

The reflecting phase is concerned with these differences. Where are the gaps? Is it necessary to overwork the interview? Here is the difference comparing to the interview process from

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Brinkmann and Kavle (2015). Because they do not have these step in there process, that means the cognitions from the interview will not be incorporated.

There is a strong debate against using qualitative methods like interviews in the social sciences. The question is: How objective is this kind of data collection? An interview is a social interaction between a questioning and an interviewed person, in this case an expert. But social interaction is never just restricted to knowledge exchange. Interactions serve a variety of purposes simultaneously. The interaction partners bring interests and personal problems and power relations are regulated. The respondent always performs a specific role in a specific institutional context.

Researchers like Webb, Campbell, Schwartz, and Sechrest (1966), Buchanan, Boddy, and McCalman (1988), Miles and Huberman (1994), Heiskanen and Newman (1997), and Fontana and Frey (2000) pointed out different problems that can occur during a qualitative interview.

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The researcher has tried to avoid all these problems by preparing the interview properly, this was made possible by the planning and doing phase of the van Teijlingen interview process. In this study, the researcher conducts face-to-face expert interviews with researchers and managers from Germany and Switzerland. The selection of the experts is described in Section 3.8.2.1. For every group, the researcher creates and uses an interview script/guideline to collect the primary qualitative data.

For the purpose of this research, the researcher compares two methods for expert interview analysis. One is the thematic analysis method given by Braun and Clark (2006) and second method is given by Meuser and Nagel (2009). Some of the phases of qualitative data or interview analysis are similar (Braun & Clarke, 2006), like the phases of the following methods. The step-by-step guide to do a thematic analysis according to Braun and Clarke (2006) is as follows:

1. Familiarizing yourself with your data

Familiarizing, in this case means transcribing the primary or secondary qualitative data. Afterwards the researchers should read the data many times to become familiar with it, start the coding, and write down first initial ideas.

2. Generating initial codes

After the researchers have generated a brief list of ideas, they start coding important and interesting topics in the data in a systematic way. Another step is to sort the important and relevant data for each code.

3. Searching for theme

From these codes, the researchers create meaningful themes and gather relevant data/information for each of them.

4. Reviewing themes

This step checks whether the themes work in the context of the coded extracts and the entire data set. According to Braun and Clarke (2006), it is helpful to create a so- called thematic ‘map’ of the analysis.

5. Defining and naming themes

In Step 5, researchers have to elaborate the specific parts of every theme. This includes the generating of definitions and names.

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Final step is the selection of good examples for the final analysis of the extracts and fitting the analysis with the research questions and the literature review. Then, researchers have to write the final report, including findings and conclusions of the entire analysis.

Braun and Clarke (2006) highlighted the advantages of thematic analysis in the following table. This researcher tested these advantages in his qualitative analysis of expert interviews.

Table: 30 Advantages of thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006)

Meuser and Nagel (2009) focused on expert interviews instead of the thematic analysis and created six steps to analyse expert interviews.

1. Transcription

The researcher has to write out the spoken text. However, there is no need to take into account non-verbal communication, pitch of voice, etc. because it is not a narra- tive interview. Thus, the researcher has to write out only the relevant parts of the in- terview, because in some cases the interviewee proves may provide a lot unimportant information. But the researcher has to record the full meaning of the interview (van Audenhove, 2007).

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Paraphrasing is a technique used by the researcher to confirm or clarify something the interviewee has said or implied. There are three levels of paraphrasing:

First level confirms or clarifies expressed thoughts, feelings, emotion, and content. In the second level, the researcher summarizes and organises the interviewee comments.

Third level of paraphrasing is shifting conceptual focus of thinking by surfacing assumptions, beliefs, core values, and mental models (Kee, Anderson, Dearing, Harris, & Shuster, 2010).

3. Headlining

The paraphrased passages of the interviews are now to be provided with headings. Here, the terminology of the interviewee should be used. Similar passages will be sum- marized and one passage could have more than one headline.

4. Thematic comparison

In this step the different passages will be compared. The different headlines will be unified and redundancies will be deleted (Meuser & Nagel, 2009).

5. Scientific conceptualisation

Now there is a separation of the text and the terminology of the interviewees. The text-extracted terms and headers are now translated sociologically to allow a connec- tion to the interpretation of general disciplinary discussions.

6. Theoretical generalization

At this level, the researcher detaches from the interviews and passes on to scientific theories.

The literature shows that different analysis methods do not fulfil the demand of the researcher for an analysis of expert interviews in this study. To weight the expert comments, the researcher believes that it is important to examine the interviews in this area. This is the reason why the researcher has decided to use an adapted six-step method. This method is inspired from Meuser and Nagel (2009) and Braun and Clarke (2006) as well and is highlighted in the following table.

The table compares the six step methods by Meuser and Nagel (2009), Braun and Clarke (2006) and the six steps which the researcher is going to use.

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Table: 31 Expert interview analysis methods

After the last step, the researcher must report the findings. ‘This report presents the argumentation, main findings, and an evaluation of the validity, reliability and generalizability in mind (analysis and verification). The report should close with a discussion of the results and connect the findings to the original research questions as well as the theoretical and practical implications of the findings’ (Spottke & Abrell, 2014, p. 4).