Técnicas utilizadas para proteger imágenes.

The Warwick Institute for Employment Research Ethical Approval for Research

procedure was followed (see Appendix 16). Informed consent of participants was

secured by providing the intended participants with a comprehensive explanation of

what was involved in the research and his or her rights, such as to withdraw from the

activity at any time and to have privacy and confidentiality protected. In addition,

participants were provided with an information sheet with the researcher’s name and

contact details, and information on what participation involved, time required, and

usage of information. Informed consent was secured in writing before interviews, after

participants had been given information about the research and had time to consider

the implications of granting consent (see Appendix 17).

Data were handled with due attention paid to security and anonymity. As soon as

possible after the interviews were over, the recording was passed onto an encryption

software (Truecrypt vault) and deleted from the recording machine. All other

information from participants, such as resumes, was also held in a Truecrypt vault.

Emails were kept under secure passwords. Online diaries were protected with a

password only known by participants. The only people having access to the diaries

were each participant, the researcher, and web administrators assigned by

Warwick/IER. Hard copy diaries were held by participants during data collection.

handed to the researcher, it was made sure it was located in a safe place. At the same

time, diaries do not have names, rather codes (the codes are kept in a Truecrypt vault).

The constructivist approach based on narrative and joint reflection can lead to a

potential blurring between the domains of research and intervention. This posits an

ethical dilemma since the researcher may get involved in a situation where her role is

confused. This was approached with an ethic of care (Bimrose and Barnes, 2007;

Richardson, 2005), in which the research can be of benefit to the participants

(Haverkamp, 2005). When required, participants were provided with sources of

relevant information, and encouraged to explore their needs further with suitable

professionals. On a few occasions, participants asked my opinion about their careers. I

explained to them that this was not my role, but that we could have an informal

conversation about this once data collection was over. In these conversations, I mainly

discussed with them my knowledge of the labour market and challenges other people

in their positions were also experiencing. Most participants asked me to send the thesis

or other publication materials as they were very interested in reading about the

findings.

In accordance with an ethics of care, many participants commented that the research

process had been useful to them. For example, from the beginning, many participants

were excited about the diary writing request. They thought it would be a way to force

them to organise the process and deepen their reflections. In fact, Giddens (1991)

suggests that in modernity, reflexivity of the self is continuous, and that individuals

are asked to self-interrogate themselves in terms of what is happening regularly. One

participant had actually tried to keep a diary of his transition before but could not

enforce him to do something he had already wanted to do. Another participant

commented about her reflexivity:

“I am a very reflexive person, I have been doing therapy for many

years and I think all the time. But it is more like I think constantly and I

lose myself with lots of ideas, but it is not like getting to reflect and

think strategically. And this study forces you to think strategically. I

mean, drawing your networks makes you think strategically, who you

are contacting and why, in whom you are leveraging and why. So, it is

good, you learn, you learn about yourself.” (Participant 18, Follow-up

interview)

Related to learning, another participant said:

“I thought it was a very good experience, a really good experience. It

should be a type of exercise one ought to do, right? I mean, every now

and then say ‘let’s see, I stop for a second and I write how I feel, how I

see myself, what I learnt…’ I mean, then you read it and it is like you

start seeing lots of things that you don’t in other ways.” (Participant 26,

Follow-up interview)

Participants who did not write in the diaries were apologetic and said that the weekly

assignment was very hard for them but they enjoyed the interviews and were eager to

have more. One of them actually insisted in having an interview during the diary

keeping period (and so he had three interviews in total), also to feel that in this way he

was complying with the request.

As it is suggested in the previous quotes, the data collection techniques affected the

commented after the first interview that he was now more attentive to his transition

process.

“Today, after the interview, I felt very eager to find out what my place

in this organisation is and what my expectations are in this moment of

my life. The day was like all others, but my perspective was more acute

towards what I do and how I relate, in the context of ‘what I want’.”

(Participant 20, Diary)

This same participant wrote on the diary that reading what he had written over the

months helped him realise his situation and triggered further actions:

“If I revise what I do, what I wrote, what I have to do tomorrow and in

the next few weeks, I clearly rediscover that my responsibilities in this

organisation are of a lower hierarchy than what I have as a goal for this

time in my professional life. Now, with this clear vision, I need to

consider: I either accept what I have or I look for what I want. We’ll

see.” (Participant 20, Diary)

Another participant commented:

“I’ve been doing an analysis of what I sent you, right? And there is a

common word in most of them: anxiety. And I thought ‘this is

something to reflect about’. Amazing. I swear I had not realised about

the issue until I wrote it on paper and read it and I said: ‘this is

something to work on’.” (Participant 23, Follow-up interview)

This level of reflexivity and moments of awareness may have affected the results as

the research process may have encouraged participants to be more reflective than the

aware that they reflect the transition process of a group of Argentinean MBA

graduates who had become particularly reflexive as a consequence of participating in

this study. This limits generalisation but nevertheless introduces important factors and

their links.