Fieldwork to gather both primary and secondary data was carried out in Qatar between 2010 2017. Data collection covered key areas within and outside the public service. A number of qualitative investigative tools, conventional social science presenting techniques, and systematic processes of analysis were used either separately or combined. The tool used depended on the circumstances of each interaction. Both descriptive discussion and inferential analyses contributed to research outcomes. Details of collected data are presented respectively in Appendices 2, 3 and 4 as for the online survey and the in-depth interviews.
Access to data sources has been gained through personal networks. My years-long association with the discipline of public administration has generated a number of contacts, as well as researchers, administrators. Considerable leg work, phone calls, visits, lobbying and generally ‘putting myself out’ (Murray and Lawrence, 2000, p. 12), was done to ensure sufficient data
116 to prove the assumptions and to answer the research questions. In gathering information for this research, documentary sources have been substantiated and supplemented by case study, interview, observation, and personal knowledge (Finnegan, 1996, p. 147).
3.7.1 Choice of Research Methodology
As the research methodology usually embraces a various number of methods that can be relied upon by the researcher, the following section describes the techniques chosen for the purpose of this study.
3.7.1.1 Interviews
From a systematic process perspective, the analysis of the online survey results was done before the in-depth interviews were conducted. This sequential measure sought to ensure interview questions have been properly primed. The interview methodology used the semi- structured interviews, instead of the structured or unstructured interviews. Semi-structured interviews are based on the premise that the interviewer has a loose assemblage of questions to start with; the idea is for the interview sessions to achieve predictable consistency, and generate the required data. While the interviews were driven by the survey responses, the actual interaction, nonetheless, left sufficient leeway for the respondents to take the conversation in any direction they deemed it relevant, which response corridor yielded very important information that could have been missed had structured interviews been used (Dearnley, 2005). In total, ten interviews were conducted for the research component, with the transcripts included in the Appendix 4. The interviews were conducted with nine key informants and one non-key informant, and were held at the respondents’ workplaces, being recorded on the voice notes function of a smart-phone. Upon the completion of the sessions, the interviews were all transcribed, and were sent back to respondents to verify the accuracy of the transcripts (Galletta, 2013)..
The in-depth interviews were undertaken in Doha, Qatar from September 3th to October 28th, 2015, including the ten compelling development themes raised by key informants during the interviews.
117 3.7.1.2 Online Survey
In the last few years, the online survey, which is also known as: Web or Internet surveys, and which include such products as Zoomerang, Survey Monkey, and Questionpro, is considered as a highly convenient research tool according to Buchanan and Hvizdak (2009).
Furthermore, online survey tools enable researchers to generate and deliver surveys to subjects/participants in a convenient, expeditious manner, while producing results in synchronous time, so that respondents and researchers can watch data results being compiled promptly (Buchanan and Hvizdak, 2009).
In the current research, the researcher chooses online survey (i.e. Survey Monkey Program) as the second method for data collection. The survey was conducted from July 23 to August 31, 2015.
3.7.1.2.1 The design of online survey
One of the critical challenges of a survey based-methodology relates to the intricacies of designing the schema of questions to be used. There are several key parameters to address with regard to survey design, such as biased questions, ambiguous questions, double clause questions, the length of the survey, and whether or not the survey can produce all information necessary to meet the research objectives. Drafting the correct questions for the survey constitutes the most difficult task in the process. The major pitfall to avoid in framing the survey is introducing a biased question; which is more difficult to discern than it might initially appear, because the bias can very often be subtle (Sudman and Bradburn, 2012). There are techniques to avoid bias in questionnaire formulation, one of which is avoiding leading questions based on a false premise, like a question: “How strongly do you agree that the best place for women is in the kitchen.” After having avoided any obvious leading questions, some other tests can be introduced as follows: ask whether a person could reasonably disagree with the premise of the question asked; if a respondent cannot reasonably disagree with the question, it is biased (Sudman and Bradburn, 2012); and raise a test for assumed or implicit knowledge within a question, which may be conveniently done in a technical piece of work. If there is a terminology requiring an advanced degree of knowledge to understand its context, then the question needs to be reworded to avoid misunderstanding
118 (Sudman and Bradburn, 2012). It is also necessary to avoid asking two questions in one, where there are two clauses in the question, as that will skew the results (Rossi et al., 2013). The survey design risk that confronted this research relates to a fundamental assumption that respondents have reasonable amount of knowledge about the Qatar Vision 2030. While most people in Qatar might be aware of its existence, and might know its broad outlines, they may not necessarily understand the objectives, context, and detailed composition of the national strategy. With this anticipated issue, the researcher had to ensure that there was a clear approach to asking respondents how much they know about the Qatar Vision 2030, and directing them appropriately if they were uncertain. Having avoided all potential survey design issues, the research exercise proceeded to the predetermination of the range and format of questions that were actually used in the survey. The survey in this case was deployed online, which medium afforded the opportunity to use a wide variety of question structures including yes/no, short answer, ranged responses, sliding scales and tabulated options (Rossi et al., 2013). Also important was the relative ease in deploying survey logic, which allowed directing respondents to different questions in the survey depending on the answers they give to preceding questions.
A great deal of work has been done in marketing and communications relating to how best to build response rates in surveys, and how to avoid people failing to complete surveys or recording inaccurate responses. Brevity is critical, both in the overall survey length and the length of individual questions; it needs to be measured not just in terms of word count and number of questions, but also based on the length of time necessary to properly complete all the questions (Easterby-Smith et al, 2009). Hence, the research survey was quite limited in the number of questions introduced, with each question being designed to signpost a point of interest later pursued in the interviews. The survey data collection method used the Survey Monkey platform, which was also used for the analytics of some of the survey results; a copy of the survey form is provided in Appendix 1. The survey respondents were sourced from the personal and business contacts of the researcher.
The case study was driven around four particular industry segments; healthcare, oil, finance, and education. There are a number of reasons for selecting these particular segments, apart from the fact that these industries are the largest sectors in Qatar. Oil and finance represent Qatar’s two most developed industries, while healthcare and education represent two
119 emerging industries that are expected to be important sectors in terms of developing a more broad-based economy in the future. The integral analysis used in the industry appraisal depended largely on the informed ability of the researcher to discern and address key differences between the more mature industries and the emergent ones. This key competency applies to the ancillary analysis of the capacity of international organizations engaged in oil, gas and finance, and also of domestic companies operating in the health and education sectors. As a foreseeable benefit, the integral context of the research help demonstrate the importance of international cooperation to building capacity in Qatar. All the people selected for the survey and interviews were human resources professionals, or were in management positions covering the human resources function in their respective organizations. The process of sourcing these people was relatively easy, since most of the respondents are known to the researcher through professional and personal contacts. While it is not unlikely that the survey may be perceived as having a built-in bias as it involved a selected population of respondents limited to those mostly known to the researcher, it should be noted, though, that the number of respondents was sufficient to avoid any outliers to skew the data set as a whole, or provide results that are unrepresentative of the data at large. This sufficiency of survey respondents had been correctly anticipated and it is exactly the reason why the option to source additional respondents through professional networking resources was ultimately cancelled. The survey ran through a number of weeks, with invitations and reminders sent at periodic intervals to ensure maximum return (Lauer et al., 2013). The response rate for the survey was more than 80%, which would have been totally unrealistic had the participants not already been acquainted with the researcher and had the project not been explained to them (Creswell, 1994). With regard to the importance of informed consent, although it is a key ethical consideration discussed in the tail-end section of this chapter, it is notable to mention at this point that the survey reflects full compliance with the protocol. On its front documentation, the survey presented a detailed explanation and an invitation to ask any questions, which was done for the sake of simplicity. The completion rate of the surveys was 100% which was particularly gratifying, even if the respondents were known to the researcher, as it reflected the fact that the data analysis became much easier by not having partial responses (Sudman and Bradburn, 2012). There were no reported problems with accessing the survey or any lack of understanding of the questions.
120 3.7.1.3 Focus groups
Surveys and interviews were not the only methodologies considered for data collection. Given the nature of the material sought, consideration was given to running some focus groups with several stakeholders, an option offering a number of advantages over interviews. As in interviews, focus groups can be used to pick up key themes generated in interactions with respondents; but the added dynamics of debate among participants in focus groups often allow for much greater analytical depth of responses than what interviews can elicit (Berg and Lune, 2004). Furthermore, there is enormous logistical benefit to running two or three focus group sessions only, which can accommodate a total of up to twenty participants, rather than conducting twenty separate interviews. On the other hand, finding a mutually convenient time and venue for all parties to a focus group interview can also present logistical difficulties. Beyond logistics dimension, the conduct of focus group interviews requires considerable degree of facilitation and communication skills on the part of the focus group moderator to keep the sessions on track, and resolve any potential conflicts among respondents (Collis and Hussey, 2009). The researcher did not feel confident enough to undertake such a task, though the point was rendered moot by the likelihood that the respondents in question would not have gone ahead with a focus group environment. The research is no poorer for not having done focus groups and the trade-off with the focus of an interview is probably a valuable one. A number of other alternatives were considered but none offered the neat connection of the survey-interview approach, including the facility of triangulating the data in the analysis process to anything like the standard of the chosen approach.