Design of Data Collection Protocol

Data necessary for the construct of case studies was obtained from multiple sources: in-depth semi-structured interviews with banks’ management, banks’ public documentation, as well as observations from banks’ official websites and banks’ official social media pages (Schell, 1992). The combination of multiple data sources according to Scholz and Tietje (2002) and Yin (2003) and allowed for data triangulation, providing stronger validity of data and “substantiation of constructs” and emerging propositions (Eisenhardt, 1989, p. 538). This enabled to obtain comprehensive understanding of the strategies of each bank and to construct rich and descriptive cases (Yin, 2003; Stavros and Westberg, 2009).

The processes of collecting and analyzing observations about banks’ social media pages were described in the Section 3.4 of this chapter about the Observation Study. Therefore, the procedures for identifying, gathering, processing and analyzing data from social media will not be discussed here, in order to avoid excessive repetitions. Instead, the next sections describe the processes and measures taken for conducting the interviews with the bank managers and for collecting the relevant documentation.

3.5.5.1 Key Informant Interviews with Managers

Process of identifying and selecting the key informants

“Key informant interviews” are interviews conducted with a number of individuals representing the organization of interest, selected according to pre-defined criteria (Dorussen et al, 2005; Knapik, 2006; Patton, 2002). The concept of the key informant interviews is based on the assumption that the specific knowledge sought in the case study is found in the experience and expertise of certain individuals representing the organization as a case (Eisenhardt, 1989). Thus, this interviewing approach assumes that only the “key informants” or “elite” representatives of the organizations possess the adequate level and scope of knowledge required for exploring in depth the studied

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phenomena (Knapik, 2006). Literature on the research in bank marketing, RM in the retail banking sector as well as online banking communications documented the value from utilizing the key informant interviews for the construct of case studies (Hughes et al., 2007; Kapoulas et al., 2002; O’Loughlin et al., 2004).

Participants for the “key informant” interviews were purposefully selected in order to maximize the discovery of the themes and constructs (Patton, 2002). These pre-defined criteria for identifying key informant interviewees allowed to approach the individuals capable of providing elaborate answers to the research questions (i.e. people who play prominent marketing roles in the organization and have extensive working experience.). This also allowed preventing “the chance of discovery failure”, which often endangers qualitative studies, due to participants’ lack of knowledge related to the research questions (Silverman, 2004).

For the purposes of this research, the key informants were identified as the top managers of the banks, who are decision-makers and possess first-hand insights on the banks’ marketing approaches and social media strategies. Key informants were considered to be holding titles such as: Marketing Director; Relationship Marketing Director/Manager; CRM Director/Analyst; Director/Manager of Retail Business; Customer Experience Manager; Marketing Analyst/Research; Digital/Online/Internet Communications/Web 2.0 Manager/Officer, etc. The underlying assumption was that people responsible for these areas of banking operations possessed the most relevant and in-depth knowledge on the phenomena of interest to this research. In addition, it was assumed that in order to possess in-depth knowledge about organization’s operations and strategies, key informants held five or more years of professional experience working for the bank, in order to be able to elaborate on the bank’s history of marketing approaches and initiatives.

Department managers were preferred interviewees for this research, as opposed to other lower-level bank employees (e.g. front-desk tellers, branch staff etc). Although bank tellers and front-desk employees have direct contact with retail customers on a daily basis, these employees typically do not have access to the administration systems of social media accounts. Typically, these accounts are in the hands of employees specifically designated for social media community management, overseen by top management (Guinan et al, 2014). Front-desk employees typically do

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not possess the required knowledge about the efforts invested by banks into social media or how social media is strategized and operated. Thus, including front-desk employees in the sample was perceived to not have the potency to contribute to the sought knowledge, and preference was given to top managers.

According to Yin (2003) and Hancock and Algozzine (2006), one of the key issues when devising the field procedures for the conduct of case studies is the accessibility to key informants. Key informants were discovered by searching for contacts on the banks’ official websites, by utilizing college alumni networks, as well as by referring to online social networks, such as LinkedIn, which contain databases of professionals. As stated by Miles and Huberman (1994), qualitative studies are advised to follow a “conceptually driven sequential sampling”, where early informants guide the researcher to other comparable or contrasting cases and relevant information-holders, who contribute to the building of theoretical insights. Such “opportunistic” or “snowball” sampling is deemed appropriate in qualitative research and especially in the case studies where knowledge is often in the hands of a small number of people, who are often key decision makers and are unique sources of information (Miles and Huberman, 1994). Thus, recommendations and referrals were also employed for identifying interviewees and for gaining the access to the bank managers of interest. According to Darke et al (1998), this strategy helps to gain greater interviewee’s responsiveness and enhances the chances of the targeted individual’s willingness to participate in the research. Table 7 provides a summary of the managers who participated in key informant interviews.

Table 7: Key informant interviewees - summary.

Case

Study Interview participants Brief participant profile and role in the organization

Bank A

Code: Bank A, Manager 1 Head of Department of Marketing & Sales

o Responsible for bank’s marketing and promotional activities;

o Responsible for management of regional accounts

Code: Bank A, Manager 2 Regional Manager

o Responsible for the management of bank’s regional operations

Bank B

Code: Bank B, Manager 1 Director of Distribution & Operational Marketing

o Responsible for banks’ marketing strategies and execution of promotional campaigns

Code: Bank B, Manager 2 Director of Retail Banking Division

o Responsible for the management of bank’s retail business segment and network of branches o Responsible for overseeing customer service

and loyalty programs Code: Bank C, Manager 1

Head of Online Banking

o Responsible for the definition and implementation of strategies in the online sector (i.e. bank’s

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Bank C Business Development website, online banking application) and online customer experience across bank’s online platforms;

o Responsible for monitoring the adoption of bank’s market offering based on market trends;

o Responsible for online marketing initiatives and activities (in collaboration with external agencies).

Code: Bank C, Manager 2 Executive Director - Retail Channels Management Division

o Responsible for online banking service channels, management of remote and self-service banking services, customer support services and mobile banking

Devising Interview Guide

Interviews with the key informants were conducted in a semi-structured, open-ended format (Scholz and Tietje, 2002; Silverman, 2004; Yin, 2003). Open-ended, semi- structured format of the interviews enabled obtaining the information in the “raw” form, with interviewee’s own personal vision on the subject. This allowed gathering valuable and original examples, insights and nuances that might not be have been discovered using other highly structured research methods (Carson et al., 2001; Patton, 2002).

Interviews were conducted with the use of an interview questioning guide, which was designed specifically for the interviews with the key informants. Interview questioning guide contained a list of open-ended questions, devised to initiate the discussion with the key informants and to guide the discussion across topics that are pertinent to this research (Patton, 2002). The open-ended format of the questions allowed interviewees to elaborate on the answers and to provide detailed responses, based on their own personal opinions, experiences, knowledge, and perceptions (Knapik, 2006).

Questions were devised based on the knowledge gathered from the relevant literature, but did not contain overly complex and formal academic terms and phrases, in order to avoid confusion and potential bias (Wengraf, 2001; Knapik, 2006). Questions were designed to address bank’s current RM strategies, bank’s online marketing policies, bank’s implementation of social media etc. This allowed keeping the focus on the relevant topics (for instance, not going into an in-depth discussion about marketing for corporate clients, which is outside of the scope of this research),

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while still providing a flexibility and freedom for interviewees to express their own viewpoints and to establish the connectedness among topics (Dorussen et al, 2005; Patton, 2002). However, when devising the interview guide, caution was paid to avoid formulating questions that would lead interviewees onto particular answers and that would introduce researcher bias (Patton, 2002).

The guide was also formulated to include the questions pertaining to the particularities of each bank. It became evident that it was useful for the researcher to familiarize herself with bank’s websites and (where possible) social media channels before conducting the interviews. This allowed the researcher to demonstrate the awareness of bank’s online presence and to address the informants with specific and to-the-point questions, which enticed an in-depth and engaging discussion. Similar tactic was advocated by Knapik (2006), who proposed that researchers should prepare a summary organization’s activities beforehand and to present it to the informants to encourage comments and discussion. As suggested by Knapik (2006, p. 89): “One

possibility I see is for researchers to place previously accumulated knowledge on the table, so to speak, for active critique, that is, to ask participants to consider what fits, where there are gaps, what questionable assumptions might be at play, and what meanings might be contested when this knowledge is placed alongside their experiential expertise.” This proved to be useful for establishing rapport with the

informants, helped demonstrate to them the depth of the research, and helped engage informants into discussions.

The questioning guide served to guide interview narrative and was primarily used as a reminder to the researcher of the areas to be addressed during the interview discussions (Wengraf, 2001). Although the guide provided a list of questions to be tackled during the interviews, the researcher exercised the liberty to re-formulate the questions when necessary and to introduce new probing questions as new themes emerged during the interviews, which were worth exploring further (Wengraf, 2001). Interview questioning guide is provided in the Appendix B.

The process of conducting interviews and collecting interview-based data

Interviews were conducted in 2012. Both in-person and remote interviewing tactics were utilized (Knapik, 2006). Although in-person interviews and face-to-face discussions with managers were preferred, this was not possible in all cases,

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especially in talks with the managers abroad (e.g. Bank C is located in Romania, hence it was not feasible for the researcher to meet the managers in person). In these cases phone-based interviews were used as an alternative. When possible, in-person interviews were conducted in managers’ offices, in order to allow participants to conduct discussions in their natural working environment (Knapik, 2006). Interviews lasted on average 60-90 minutes, were conducted in English and were audio-recorded (with the permission of each participant) for the purposes of further data extraction, processing and analysis.

Data collected during the interviews was also complemented with online correspondence with participants via emails. The emails contained extra information about the banks and clarifications of the statements made by participants during the interviews, to ensure the correct interpretation of the narrative etc. When necessary, a list of additional questions was devised and sent to participants via email for further elaboration and additional inquiry. Darke et al (1998) advised to incorporate online interactive means of communication that allow timely, efficient and undisrupted exchange of information between the participants and the researcher. This allowed managers to think over the questions and to provide the answers at their own pace. Participants were responsive to this format of communication. Although essentially lacking the element of spontaneous interactivity that occurs during in-person interviews, online questioning offered a good alternative for communicating with difficult-to-reach informants (Darke et al, 1998).

3.5.5.2 Collection of Documentation

Case studies also entailed collection of the documentation issued by the banks. Data collection included gathering information from the documents and archives of each bank (Hancock and Algozzine, 2006; Yin, 2003). Documentation collection included gathering data from:

online sources: online documents and reports from banks’ webpages, documents and reports from the websites of baking associations (containing information about the banks under study), articles from online journals on financial services and banking;

bank’s public records: official documents and reports produced by the banks for their stakeholders (e.g. annual statements, financial reports, performance

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reports, marketing research reports, white papers, manifesto etc), corporate newsletters, press releases.

Documentation was collected for the purposes of data triangulation (Eisenhardt, 1989; Yin, 2003). Documentation was used to corroborate data gathered from the interviews with bank managers and to provide hard evidence about banks’ practices, campaigns, results, metrics and marketing activities.

The material was discovered primarily from banks’ official websites, as well as from the websites of the Central Banks and financial associations in the banks’ respective countries. Documentation was retrieved and saved in its original form into PDF and Microsoft Word and Excel documents for further retrieval and processing.

Next section describes how data was processed and analyzed for the purposes of constructing the case studies.