Data Collection

III.6.1. Fieldwork Duration and Scope

The period of data collection extended over two years, including twelve months of the

‘preliminary phase’, when the project bid was being first discussed as a possibility, a consortium was being formed, and the funding bid was being prepared (beginning in May 2004) and thirteen months of the actual project duration, counting from the date of the approval of the project proposal by the EC in May 2005 until June 2006 when the consensus building and knowledge-sharing phase of the project ended. This was seen as an appropriate point to terminate the data collection as the project moved on to the

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implementation stage which was not directly relevant to the research agenda. It was also seen as economically inefficient and professionally untenable to sustain involvement after the project had ceased to yield relevant data.

The intensity of data collection reflected the intensity of the work done by the

participants in relation to the project: in the first twelve-month period the participants were hardly active and the available data consisted mostly of e-mail exchanges. The most intense period of fieldwork during this ‘preliminary phase’ occurred at the beginning, i.e. between May and July 2004. This was when the South UK region became involved as a potential partner in a future EU RIS consortium. During that period there was a peak of activity around the organisation of an international event promoting Western Poland as an innovative region, which was attended by a delegation from South UK.

During the three months surrounding that event, I had the opportunity to participate in seventeen meetings between various representatives of both regions and in two plenary meetings including all the potential EU RIS participants. I also observed the

proceedings of a two-day conference on innovation, including presentations by the South UK delegates and Western Poland stakeholders. Apart from following the official agenda, I also accompanied members of the South UK delegation during their ‘time off’

and participated in social occasions, such as lunches or dinners. On those occasions I took the opportunity to speak with all the delegates about their respective organisations, their interests in coming to Portovo and potential involvement in the EU RIS

partnership. In the remaining months of the ‘preliminary phase,’ I met with the lead delegate from RDAR in Riverton on five different occasions to talk about the

developments regarding the EU RIS project bid and was also included in all relevant e-mail traffic.

Once the funding for the EU RIS project had been granted, the involvement of the participants intensified and so did my fieldwork. During those thirteen months I conducted direct observation and participant observation of the EU RIS project: I took part in all the meetings and events associated with the project with the exception of some local meetings that took place in Western Poland in relation to specific tasks during the time in between scheduled plenary events. However, I also took part in those kinds of meetings when they were concerned with the SME matching task, in which

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South UK’ RDAR was formally involved – those were the occasions when I acted on behalf of Winfields as a liaison onsite in Protovo. Overall, during the 13 months following the commencement of the EU RIS project, I participated in:

- four plenary Project Management Unit Meetings;

- three two-day events, including the project launch during a regional innovation conference, an ‘off-site’ plenary workshop in Western Poland, and the Western Poland delegation study visit to South UK;

- twenty-two bilateral meetings with the Western Poland partners as South UK liaison;

- four ‘behind-the-scenes’ meetings;

- six local RDAR meetings in Riverton;

- two research meetings with PUT representatives (better to understand their RIS-A strategy);

- four formal dinner events;

- a significant number of informal conversations and social gatherings of various sorts.

My overall approach to data collection was to take every opportunity to find out more – whether it was by chatting during a comfort break in a meeting, or taking part in

lunches, dinners, and any other social gatherings ‘after hours’. Apart from data

generated from direct and participant observation I also had access to all project-related e-mail traffic and project documentation. I also gathered data from official project documentation and related European Commission documents, as well as from six formal interviews with key project participants. This approach ensured data sources triangulation (Yin, 2003) so that it would be possible to identify converging lines of inquiry arising from different sources of data and to verify evidence across data sources, thus strengthening the validity of the findings. Having access to multiple sources of data also made it possible to cross-reference between different pools of data to trace

complementary information necessary to build a holistic picture from the case study (Stake, 1995). The diversity of the methods of data collection also provided a good degree of method triangulation (Yin, 2003), which helped strengthen the validity of findings (Creswell, 2007; Yin, 2003).

III.6.2. Participant Observation and Direct Observation

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The bulk of the data was collected by means of direct and participant observation, which is also consistent with the practice research tradition (Marshall and Rollinson, 2004). By ‘participant observation’ I mean the ethnographic field research method whereby the researcher (and not the practitioner) engages in the practice of academic interest to her and takes an active role in the production of that practice (alongside other participants) in order to reach an intimate understanding of that practice in the light of her research interests and, through that understanding, to advance theory. Participant observation offers the kinds of intimate insights that are of utmost relevance to

researchers interested in studying knowing in practice. It allows one to develop abstract academic knowledge from knowing as it is tacitly experienced in practice (Kostera, 2007). This relational knowledge (Park, 1999) is as close as one can get to

understanding knowing: once disengaged from practice, one no longer has direct access to knowing but only to the knowledge derived from knowing, both tacit and explicit.

I took the approach of being a ‘peripheral member researcher’ (Adler and Adler, 1987), i.e. participating only in non-core activities (as explained in Section III.5. above). Even in the course of participation I was very much focused on the observation: the ultimate objective was to gain a relational understanding of the practice, the facilities and frustrations that the participants experienced in their work. However, at no point did I attempt to ‘go native’ or to set aside my own social conditioning to be able to represent the ‘true meanings’ of others. Rather, I followed the advice of Churchill (2005: 6, emphasis added), who argues that the ethnographer “must possess the empathetic capacity to enter the mindset of these people [the participants] and see the world both as they do and as he or she does simultaneously.” This kind of conscious cultivation of empathetic understanding proved to be a valuable resource both in directing my

attention in collecting the data and in disciplining and safeguarding my analysis against the temptation of formulating theoretically attractive but far-fetched interpretations.

Aside from the bilateral meetings in Western Poland and Riverton, my fieldwork took the form of direct observation. Kostera (2007: 128) describes the position of a

researcher conducting direct observation as that of a ‘guest’ and recommends direct observation as a method that “provides the researcher with the possibility of keeping a distance and, at the same time, getting closer to the field.” This was exactly the

approach I took to direct observation: I was being a ‘guest’ and was accepted as such by the participants. I enjoyed unconstrained access to all project proceedings, both formal

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and informal, and any requests for additional information or documents were always granted. At the same time, I did not take part in the discussions or become involved in any of the proceedings but tried to maximise opportunity for observing, noticing, and recording as much as possible without being unnecessarily obtrusive and breaching the conduct becoming a guest.

The most valuable data was obtained from direct observation, for instance the

transcripts of interactions during Project Management Unit (PMU) meetings yielded the best examples of boundary reification through discursive practice, which would have been difficult to capture by other means. Apart from PMU meetings I observed other plenary, multilateral and bilateral working meetings, workshops and presentations as described in Section III.6.1 above. I also participated in ‘behind-the-scenes’ meetings devoted to political manoeuvring and coalition building. In addition to that, I took part in a number of informal meetings, such as lunches, dinners, chats over coffee or drinks.

With regard to these informal occasions, the distinction between direct observation and participant observation was admittedly more blurred in the sense that I did take an active part in those informal conversations and social occasions. The difference was that I was still being a guest and was being treated as such.

III.6.3. Writing in the Field

I recorded the data from direct observation of formal meetings and events ‘live’ by taking notes and close-to-verbatim transcripts of the most relevant fragments of the meetings by touch-typing on my laptop. Laptops were commonly used by the EU RIS participants in meetings so that did not constitute a disruption. I was also able to take detailed ‘live’ notes of one of the ‘behind-the-scenes’ meetings. When taking

simultaneous transcripts or notes was not possible, e.g. during participant observation and on most of the social occasions, I took detailed notes as soon as possible after those meetings. After all meetings and discussions, I took notes of the semiotic clues

(Atkinson and Delamont, 2008) offered by the participants’ behaviour, tone of voice, body language, appearance, the general atmosphere of the meeting, the seating

arrangement, décor, artefact, etc. I also made annotations commenting on anything that might be useful in understanding what was hidden between the lines, e.g. an earlier comment which seemed relevant or a previous event that may have been causally related.

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In addition to the above, I also wrote a research diary, which included my impressions, intuitions, associations with theory, and questions arising. The diary helped contain and make explicit any sources of bias, deal with any perceived contradictions or confusion and gave an outlet to distractions arising from thoughts and observations unrelated to the research agenda. Research or fieldwork diaries are commonly used for such

purposes in ethnographic research (Kostera, 2007). Thus data from observation was not only recorded in the field but also already undergoing the process of progressive

focusing, analysis and interpretation (Stake, 1995).

III.6.4. Interviews

I conducted six semi-structured interviews with representatives of the organisations participating in the EU RIS project. The reason why there were not as many interviews as partners in the project was that I did not have access to the Governor’s Office, which was an ‘arms-length’ partner and only sporadically delegated different representatives to EU RIS meeting. Consequently, there was no-one who would be willing or able to talk about the project from an insider’s perspective. A maternity leave taken by the

representative of PU was the reason why there was no available interviewee from that organisation who would be familiar enough with the project to be able to provide relevant information. All the interviewees were the lead representatives of their

organisation who had knowledge of the entire history of the project and participated in most or all of the relevant meetings. They were all at middle-management level and held significant responsibilities in their organisations, which meant that they were experienced in working on inter-organisational and inter-national projects and supervising the work of others on such projects.

Taking advantage of the fact that I was equally competent in both the natural languages used by the participants in the EU RIS project, I took the decision to conduct each interview in the native language of the interviewee. Welch and Piekkari (2006) recommend this approach to cross-cultural interviewing on the grounds that it helps establish rapport with the interviewee and facilitates contextualization between the interviewer and the interviewee. It was also my intention to make sure the participants’

freedom of expression would not be inhibited by the need to use a foreign language.

Finally, I took the approach of seeking an equal power relationship with the

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interviewees, which may have been compromised if the interviewees’ linguistic competence was not on par with my own (Welch and Piekkari, 2006).

The interviews provided the opportunity to verify my interpretations and intuitions about the events against the explicit statements of the participants’ perspectives as well as to gain some insight into the events in which I was unable to participate directly.

Thus I was interested in both obtaining some factual information and insights into the interviewees’ authentic experience. I was aware of the fact that each of the participants had access to different aspects of the project and had different attitudes, levels of involvement, and different insights to offer. Consequently, I took the approach of conducting semi-structured interviews to allow the participants to offer information and to make sure they would not be constrained in formulating their own perspective

(Silverman, 2001; Denzin, 1970). For the same reasons, I tried to be as unobtrusive as possible in conducting the interviews and to allow the interviewees to speak freely about the issues that were interesting to them. At the same time, I chose not to go to the extreme of being entirely passive so as not to impose silence on the interviewees or cause them interpretive problems (Silverman, 2001). I was also aware of the tense political atmosphere on the project and did not want the interviewees to feel pressured to talk about things they may not have felt comfortable with.

Due to these considerations I decided to start each interview by asking the interviewee to tell me the story of the project from its conception to the moment of the interview (six months into the duration of the project). I also asked everybody to tell me about any critical incidents they could recall that might have occurred during the project. This proved to be a good strategy as it allowed each interviewee to tell their own story of the project and did not make them feel pressured by the questions. Other questions I asked were directly related to what was being reported by the interviewees and were aimed at clarifying their statements, deepening their accounts, and relating the information they provided to issues of particular interest to me, such as collaboration, knowledge sharing and the experienced difficulties.

Whilst I had prepared an interview guide (see Appendix 1), this was primarily for my attention and I was careful not to constrain the flow of the interviews by insisting on asking the exact questions I had prepared. I predominantly used the guide as a reference for me to check on the progress of the interview and mentally ‘tick off’ the issues that

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had already been covered during the course of the interview. This open approach to the semi-structured interview is recommended by Silverman (2006) as suitable for

supplementing data from prior participant-observation. Indeed, I found that the open approach to interviews resulted in the interviewees’ volunteering thoughts, reflections, and stories through free associations that shed far more light onto the pertinent issues than could have been gained through a more formal and structured framing of the interviews.

The interviews lasted from 45 minutes to 2.5 hours. All interviews but one were taped, transcribed and translated into English. The two participants from IDRC who were involved in the EU RIS project wished to be interviewed together and preferred for the interview not to be recorded. This interview was documented by taking notes during the conversation, and the notes were translated into English. I started each of the interviews by thanking the interviewee for their time and informing them that the purpose of the interview was purely academic and that the information obtained from the interview would only be used for academic purposes and not in any way disclosed to other EU RIS participants. I informed them that ‘academic purposes’ would include my doctoral thesis, conference papers and presentations and possibly peer-reviewed journal

publications. I also explained that their names would never appear in print or be mentioned in any other way and that the names of the project and all the organisations participating in it would be changed for the sake of ensuring maximum anonymity.

I also assured the interviewees that they were free to terminate the interview at any point and refuse to answer any question that they might not be comfortable with. None of them did. I then asked for permission to record the interview using a tape-recorder, which was granted by all interviewees except those from IDRC. Notwithstanding that, the most interesting insights were offered after the tape-recorder had been switched off at the end of the interview. These insights were treated as confidential and not included in the transcribed material though, unavoidably, they would have influenced my

thinking about the relevant issues. Prior to beginning each interview and after finishing the interview, I also gave the interviewees the opportunity to ask any questions they might have, which none of them did.

III.6.5. Documentary Sources and Physical Artefacts

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The documentary sources I was able to draw upon in collecting data included the EU RIS project proposal submitted to the EC together with its appendices, the consortium agreement and appendices, the GANT chart specifying the timelines for completion of work packages and tasks, budgets, memos, minutes of meetings, official reports, EU RIS website content, brochures, RIS-related European Commission documents and website content, e-mails and e-mail attachments, training materials, and PowerPoint presentations.

Data from e-mail exchanges served the purpose of clarifying and confirming or

disconfirming insights from other data sources regarding the explicitly stated intentions, hopes, difficulties and limitations of the participants and their organisations, their priorities and differences of opinion. They also helped establish a clear timeline of events. The official project documentation (including the original proposal, the

consortium agreement, the minutes of meetings and periodic reports) was also useful to the monitoring of the temporal aspects of the partnership but the key value of this type of data was the semiotic insights it provided, e.g. by exposing the contrast between the rhetoric of collaboration, knowledge transfer, and consensus building and the actual practice of boundary work and symbolic struggle for distinction apparent from the field observations.

The artefacts that informed the data collection and analysis varied from the project logo to the food served at official dinners. The project logo caused a lot of controversy, highlighting the inherent tensions in the project; exemplifying the differences in habitus between two groups of participants; and revealing in an explicit way the boundary work that was being done between them. Similar insights were gained from the discussions around the artist’s design of a statuette to be used as a reward in a competition

organised as part of the project for the SMEs in the region. Other interesting artefacts

organised as part of the project for the SMEs in the region. Other interesting artefacts