Conducting the interviews

Interviews were conducted over a period of 16 months. Because so few women are nominated and appointed to MD each year, the potential population of females was small providing only a limited number of candidates from one cycle of the promotion process, which happens once a year. Consequently, candidate interviews were conducted in two stages, across two promotion cycles, in September 2011 (17 candidates) and between September to October 2012 (17 candidates). The promotion process was the same in both years. To ensure continuity between the stages and to support confirmability, I compiled a report of my findings from the first study and presented these to the HoD and HRBPs in March 2012. Feedback from the client company was positive. They showed great interest in the data and commented that it was providing an independent insight into individual experiences of the promotion process that they may not have been able to access themselves. They gave their approval for the second part of the project to go ahead later that year.

In October 2012, I was given the opportunity to interview three senior MDs who had acted as ‘specialists’ carrying out due diligence on nominated candidates¹⁴ in the previous year’s promotion process. This gave me a greater understanding of the promotion process from an organizational perspective.

The interview schedule is shown in Table 3-3.

Table 3-3 Interview schedule

Date Interviews

July 2011 Head of Diversity, 2 x HR Business Partners September 2011 17 candidates who had been through the promotion

process between September-December 2010 September-October 2012 17 candidates who had been through the promotion

process between September-December 2011

October 2012 3 x senior MDs who had acted as a ‘specialist’ in the 2011 promotion process

December 2012 Senior EMEA business leader

I arranged interviews with each person who agreed to take part in the research project; most arrangements were made using business email addresses. All face-to-face interviews were arranged to take place in the London offices; in all cases these meetings were held in pre-arranged, private meeting rooms. For candidates not based in the UK telephone interviews were scheduled and, from what I could discern, calls were taken in a private office or meeting room. One candidate took the interview call in her own home as she was on maternity leave. From the first interview, I was very aware that, although candidates had volunteered to be interviewed for this study, we were strangers and I had only a relatively short period of time in which to gather my data. In addition, I was mindful about the sensitivities of talking to others about promotions, particularly those who may feel aggrieved because they have not been promoted.

Therefore, building rapport from the beginning was critical to creating an environment in which the candidates felt comfortable in providing me with the information I needed.

14 This process will be explained in more detail in Chapter 4.

At the beginning of each interview I reiterated the aims of the research project and reassured them of confidentiality/anonymity. Other ‘warm-up’ comments included the format of the interview and how long it would take (typically one hour), permission to ask for the interviews to be recorded and what would happen with the transcripts and my commitment to feed back the outcomes of the research at a later stage. Candidates were also asked if they had any questions or concerns before the interview began. Once the candidate was ready to begin, the first few questions were biographical, which were easy for all candidates to answer and enabled them to relax. From then on I asked the main research questions using the interview protocol as previously described.

Using a digital recorder meant that I was better positioned to listen carefully to their replies and observe reactions to questions, which supported or contradicted what they were saying. I took brief notes; often these were memory prompts for me to probe further at a later stage in the interview rather than interrupt the flow of conversation.

Particularly during the first few interviews I was curious about the balance of power and how I would be viewed as an external researcher. I was there as a PhD student (albeit a mature student with over 25 years work experience) and they were senior people within their organizations and I wondered whether this would affect the depth of discussion we would have. However, I was pleased with the quality and quantity of information I was presented with, in some cases some of it very personal and, in a small number of cases, very critical of the organization and its approach to promotion at this level. I would like to think that my ability in creating a safe environment in which to speak gave candidates the opportunity to be open with their responses, perhaps free from perceived organizational constraints (Bourdieu, 1999).

Associated with the balance of power, I had been warned by the HRBPs that, due to pressures of work and the seniority of this sample, my research meetings may not be seen as a priority and that candidates could cancel at short notice, not turn up or not be able to give me the time that was needed to go through my interview protocol. However, my experience mostly did not support this.

Everybody with whom I made an appointment was interviewed, although some appointments had to be rescheduled due to work demands (no one gave less than 48 hours’ notice of their need to change the initial date and time) and only two people asked for the meeting to be cut short as a result of other commitments (requests were made at the beginning of each interview).

The 34 interviews had an average length of 64 minutes with a range of between 40 and 80 minutes. Recordings were transcribed within two weeks of each interview. The average transcription was 10,250 words. I personally transcribed all the telephone interviews as the sound quality was not as good on these recordings. I also transcribed the first seven interviews from the first study. The remaining interviews were transcribed by a professional transcription company. On receipt of these transcriptions I read them through them whilst listening to the original tapes and made corrections where necessary. Very few corrections were needed and these were mostly around names; this demonstrated the skill of the transcriber.

I also made use of contact sheets as recommended by Miles and Huberman (1994). These were completed for each individual as soon after the interview was completed as possible. This enabled me to record my initial impressions of each interview. Additional notes were added to each contact sheet after transcription (see Appendix D for an example) and I was able to make comparisons between my early impressions and my later, less subjective, impression of what had been said.