Beginning the Interview Process

The researcher conducted one pilot interview with a supervisor present towards the end of November 2011. It was very useful for a number of reasons. The researcher was quite nervous and the good experience boosted her confidence for subsequent interviews. She was able to practise probing in a safe environment. And the supervisor was able to point out the responses where the researcher could have dug deeper. As a result of this interview some questions were re-worded to improve clarity (see Appendix 3). One change was asking directors to distinguish between management and governance rather than just asking them about

governance. The researcher became more mindful of the need to encourage the participant to talk freely and that her role was to guide the dialogue with open questions, listening for points for the researcher to probe and most importantly helping them to personalise their descriptions and examples. The researcher understood better that she had to foster a conversation and so from then on

memorised the questions to create a more informal atmosphere. She was also very careful about trying to make the participant feel comfortable and to build rapport quickly. Overall from this experience the researcher gained a more practical awareness of the importance of probing well. As discussed above, the laddering technique supplied a good guide for this. The researcher needed to get beneath the

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surface of what was said in order to reach reasons, motivations, feelings and values.

As mentioned above when developing the interview guide the researcher did not want to directly bring up the topic of ethics. It is a sensitive and very personal topic and it was important to first build rapport and initiate relaxed conversation. The first question about the director’s background was really meant to contribute to an informal atmosphere as it was quite a benign question and allowed the person to talk about quite positive things; and people like talking about themselves. The researcher initially tried to probe here but realised it was too early on in the interview when rapport had not yet been established.

The next questions about their understanding and practise of corporate governance were also quite tame and helped to build rapport. At this stage the researcher was looking for any words or phrases which made reference to ethics in order to later probe such as ‘doing the right thing’. In this case she would ask what they meant by that and how they knew what that was. The researcher deliberately chose not to make any connection between corporate governance and ethics initially to

minimise any bias. This connection was made very vaguely in the first email and in the interview explanation sent just before the interview. For the same reason the researcher probed indirectly about ethics by using less loaded words like personal standards and goals as opposed to ethics or morals.

After this, the researcher asked the interviewee to give an example of how they put the standards they had described, into practice. This was a way of ensuring authenticity and gaining further insight into the lived experience. Around this time the researcher asked participants how they had come to have such standards. This question was not actually in that part of the guide but was asked then, initially out of curiosity. Due to the interesting and personal responses received, the researcher just kept asking it. This was also relevant due to the researcher’s personal interest in the relative relevance of ethical theories for governance and business practice in general (see notes in Journal 20 December 2011-Appendix 8). Having taught business ethics for many years and having written theoretical articles about

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business ethics she really wanted to know ‘how ethics happened’ in the business context.

Reflections in my Journal dated February 8 (Appendix 8) show the researcher was quite surprised that a clear theme was emerging only after four interviews - that directors rely on the ethical values received from their parents (and/or they are inherent) and that ethical behaviour is fostered by example, by leading, not from books and classrooms. The researcher carried out a personal self - examination at this point wondering if her questioning was causing a bias. As far as she could tell she was not ‘interfering’ in this sense. Later on, this theme continued to appear. The Journal records this on February 25 2012 (Appendix 8). The researcher began to think about what this meant in terms of her initial decision to work within an interpretative paradigm using an AVT conceptual framework. How does this theme sit within a social constructionist paradigm? Are ethical values which are transmitted from generation to generation just a social construction? What does this theme have to say to AVT? Aristotle’s world view posits that ethical values are based on human nature and galvanised with the help of role models. This potential conflict had been anticipated at the outset and as can be seen surfaces again and again throughout the thesis. The findings seemed to be ambiguous at this stage. After this reflection the researcher resolved to further probe such responses with questions like - but haven’t your values changed over time, why haven’t you rejected what your parents taught you?

Next, the questions took a different tack by asking directors about a specific person (without identifying them) they would consider to be an ideal director. The purpose of this question was to find out more about the interviewee’s perceptions of a good director. Once they had thought of someone they were asked to describe the features which made them an ideal director for them. The researcher probed here and asked why those features were important for them. Related questions were asked next about whether they thought being a director was a technical role and what competencies were important for a director to have. These questions were meant to further delve into their perceptions of a good director. This

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al. (2002) study. They asked patients about the qualities they thought someone might need to cope with long term illness and the qualities they themselves had which hindered/helped them to cope. The Swift study explored AVT as an alternative to the modern psychological explanations of the role of character in chronic illness and as a possible explanation of people’s choice of coping strategies and of variations in their quality of life.

The next and final set of questions was the hardest because in the researcher’s opinion they put the interviewee on the spot. First directors were asked to think of a situation where they felt uncomfortable or felt pressure to compromise their personal values and then they were asked in certain sense to re-live it and describe the experience. At this point the researcher planned to ask about their reasons for acting, how they felt, if their experiences had changed with time, age, etc, if they would act differently at home etc. Most directors could provide examples

although one or two seemed a bit offended by this question. But most directors could not re-live the experience and share it ‘in slow motion’; whether this was because of lack of memory or lack of reflection or both is hard to tell.

Upon reflection the researcher feels it may have been her lack of probing

experience or lack of confidence in the face of confronting such highly regarded and successful persons which contributed to these somewhat incomplete

responses. Also there may have been a lack of trust. She did notice some were quite nervous because of their body language and that this diminished once the recorder was switched off. She observed that directors spoke much more freely in the second interview. The researcher noticed a pattern of resistance to this

question very early on (noted in her Journal in Feb 20 & 24 2012-Appendix 8) so she began to throw these types of question in earlier or wherever they seemed relevant when directors spoke about examples of their standards or just mentioned their values or standards. This last set of questions was modelled on questions from the Braunack-Mayer (2005) study where GPs were asked to recall two ethical dilemmas and to elaborate on what happened and why they responded as they did. GPs were also probed about the values that they freely brought up; what they meant for them and how they thought they came to hold them. The

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Braunack-Mayer study used AVT to explore General Practitioners’ views about good doctoring and living a good life.

A lot of other topics came up naturally like the governance problems in the finance industry, the court decisions, failure by respected directors, director training, cultural differences, board diversity, sustainability, whether there are just bad people and good people etc. Every interview was very enjoyable. In most cases the researcher experienced a ‘good’ feeling afterwards because she felt she had had a genuinely candid and personal encounter.

Some specific incidents are worthy of note. The researcher found her explanation in layperson’s terms about the taking of a qualitative approach, at the beginning of the interview, was received well and even perhaps encouraged the director to be more open. She explained that research in this field required an interview as opposed to a survey approach as academics and regulators wanted to get directors’ perspectives on the various issues around the state of corporate governance in New Zealand; that the researcher needed to get as close to their experience as possible and if possible to get inside directors’ heads. I think some even found this amusing!

Once the recorder was off, many directors continued to chat about various matters. The researcher felt this was a good indication of the degree of trust that had been established. In some cases they were visually more relaxed but the conversation did not contain anything radically new or different. In one instance a director volunteered that he was Aristotelian in his approach to his work. It turns out that he had studied Philosophy at university before changing to Law. The researcher was quite surprised as his responses did not seem very Aristotelian, as he spoke a lot about respecting social norms and legal duty. This re-affirmed the researcher’s decision not to mention ethical theories in the interviews and to interpret their naïve responses using her own expertise.

After the recorder was off in another instance I mentioned to a participant that some of my cynical acquaintances believed directors would not tell me the truth. He immediately re-affirmed with passion that ethics is the glue of business as it

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holds it all together. He said directors never talk about ethics explicitly but it is always present. Other interesting commentary included one who thanked the researcher for the opportunity to reflect upon and discuss this topic as it had really helped him in his practise of corporate governance. It seemed that these types of questions helped him to gain more out of materials provided by the Institute of Directors. Admittedly he was perhaps not as experienced as other participants but it perhaps shows directors need more opportunities to reflect about these matters and discussion fosters reflection. This could be especially important at the beginning of their careers as directors. Another participant liked the depth of the topics and questioning and said the Institute of Directors needed to also address ethics at this level.