Secuencia 5: presentación personal de Homero

In collecting the data for the research, Yin (2003) identified six primary sources of evidence with their strengths and weaknesses, which can be used for case studies, as shown in Table 3.3. These sources of evidence have initially provided the checklist for this research regarding source of information to be collected. According to Stake (1995) and Yin (2003), not all sources are essential in every case study but the importance of having multiple sources of data lies on the grounds of the reliability of the study.

Table 3.3: Types of case study evidence (Yin, 2007, p.102)

Source of Evidence Strengths Weaknesses

1. Documentation

• stable - repeated review

• unobtrusive - exist prior to case study

• exact - names etc.

• broad coverage - extended time span

• retrievability – difficult • biased selectivity

• reporting bias – reflects author bias

• access - may be blocked

2. Archival Records •_• same as above

precise and quantitative

• same as above

• privacy might inhibit access

3. Interviews

• targeted - focuses on case study topic

• insightful - provides perceived causal inferences

• bias due to poor questions • response bias

• incomplete recollection • reflexivity - interviewee

expresses what interviewer wants to hear

71 4. Direct

Observation •_• reality - covers events in real time contextual - covers event context

• time-consuming

• selectivity - might miss facts • reflexivity - observer's

presence might cause change • cost - observers need time

5. Participant Observation

• same as above

• insightful into interpersonal behaviour

• same as above

• bias due to investigator's actions

6. Physical Artefacts

• insightful into cultural features • insightful into technical

operations

• selectivity • availability

According to Yin (2009), the selection of the technique depends on the level of assessment the investigator could have in capturing information since some of the evidence such as acquisition records can be confidential, and the willingness to share some documents and thoughts is beyond the control of the researcher. Therefore, the interviews and direct observation during the case studies visit are treated as the main data collection techniques for the case study. Other sources of evidence were also attempted but rather treated as secondary evidence justifying the difficulty to get assessment and to keep a copy.

According to Esterby-Smith et al. (2002), the in-depth semi-structured interview is the most fundamental of qualitative methods. The interviews allow interviewee‟s experiences, knowledge, ideas and impressions to be documented (Alvesson, 2003) and provide an opportunity for the researcher to uncover new clues and open up new dimensions of a problem (Yin, 2009). According to Robson (2002), semi-structured interviews have predetermined questions but the order of the questions can be modified based on the interviewer‟s perceptions of what seems to be most appropriate. According to Yin (2009), many factors sometimes affect the interviewee‟s responses to the interview such as the environment where the interview is conducted, the readiness of the interviewees themselves to be interviewed and the perception of the interviewee of the researcher and thus require the researcher to be flexible and adaptable to suit the situation and needs. By posing questions flexibly and suiting oneself to these conditions, the interview can have a general purpose and focus, but also can be sufficiently flexible to explore emerging issues (Robson, 2002).

All interviews in this research had an exploratory and explanatory nature as it gave a focus to the interview, allowing the researcher to be flexible in exploring emerging issues. The interviews were carried out in a quiet, comfortable, and interruption-free setting, either in meeting rooms or the interviewees' offices, except for Company C. All the interviews were audio recorded and transcribed

72 verbatim for analysis. The use of an audio recorder is not only done to increase the accuracy of data collection but also permits the interviewer to be more attentive to the interviewees. When the interviews were being recorded, the interviewer also took strategic and focused notes, but not verbatim. The supplementary notes helped the interviewer to formulate new, appropriate questions, stimulate early insights for subsequent interviews before transcribing, facilitate later analysis, and provide a backup for the recording. The question list for the interview was emailed to the potential interviewees a few weeks in advance to offer enough time for the participants to think about the issue and make the interview more effective. Before the interviews, all the interviewees had been briefed on the audio recording and its purpose for the study in advance. Interviewees were ensured that they were comfortable being recorded, for ethical purposes. The interviews questions were also kept short and brief to ease the interviewee to respond. The researcher has also attempted to acquire a documentation source of BIM implementation such as implementation plan, standard operating procedure, training guide, investor report and many more. However, the written evidences were treated confidential by all of the companies. Only a few written evidences managed to be collected and the utilisation of the evidence, as requested by the interviewee, must be restricted to the use of the thesis only.

As for the focus group workshop for validating the conceptual readiness framework, the research was aware of a tight time constraint to validate the total number of 38 readiness criteria. As Marshall- Ponting (2006) recommended, the use of fixed response set for voting not only could contain the number of options presented by the workshop participants, the response gained, which is empirical in nature, could highlight the consensus level very clearly. Therefore, the readiness criteria set was prepared in a questionnaire form (Appendix 3.0) to ease capturing the workshop participant‟s view. By referring to the questionnaire forms in Appendix 3.0, for each readiness criteria, the workshop participants were asked to indicate the level of importance and level of the participants‟ organisation‟s current capability. Each level carries a 5 Likert scale value. For the level of importance, the value 5 indicates Highly Important, 4 indicates Important, 3 indicates Neutral, 2 indicates Not Important and 1 indicates Very Unimportant. Meanwhile for the level of capability, letters were used instead of a numbering system where E stands for Highly Capable, D stands for Capable, C stands for Neutral, B stands for Not Capable and lastly A stands for Very Incapable. The use of alphabetical letters to replace the numbering system is to avoid confusion with the level of importance value. It is worth mentioning that prior to the workshop being conducted, the questionnaire form was reviewed by 3 industrial players to make sure it was easy to understand. The players were all satisfied with the selection of words used for describing the readiness criteria but all of them were confused when the same numbering system was initially assigned to the level of

73 capability. Consequently, the level was changed into an alphabetical system. As for validating the readiness criteria qualitatively, the workshop participants were distributed into three groups and were required to discuss the justification on the importance of each readiness criteria, and prior to the end of the validation session, the group representatives were asked to present the findings. It is important to note that the use of a questionnaire is to make it easy for the participants to respond, guide the area of discussion, and complement the qualitative data. The main data for validation lies in the group discussion and presentations. In each group, one person was assigned (the workshop secretariat member) to assist in capturing the points and preparing the presentation slides. Also, a Dictaphone was used in each group to capture the discussion. In the workshop, the researcher was involved as a workshop moderator to assist the running of the session and respond to questions that arose.