Ethical Considerations

Walsham (2006) notes that interpretive studies in IS often involve ethical tensions and issues. Even so, he further argues that literature in IS has not fully reached an acceptable level for guiding researchers on ethical issues. The author discusses three areas of concern with regards to ethical issues and tensions: confidentiality and anonymity, working with the organisation, and reporting in the literature. With respect to confidentiality, the author suggests that the names of the interviewees and the positions they hold in the organisation must be kept confidential. Walsham also notes that organisations have increasingly become sensitive to information that is reported about them. He suggests that the real name of the organisation must not be disclosed in research outputs to prevent readers from making leads in identifying the participating organisation.

With respect to working with the organisation, Walsham (2006) notes that there is usually some ethical tension when carrying out the actual field work. He notes that there is often a gap that exists between the expressed purpose of the research, in written or verbal form, and the broader agenda of the field researcher. As most management are reluctant to discuss political and internal conflicts in the firm with an outside researcher, Walsham notes that this creates some ethical tension of whether to include such sensitive topics at the beginning of the research or engagement with the organisation. Another ethical tension within the organisation regards reporting ‘bad news’ about local staff to senior management. In some cases, there are

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fears of creating tension in the organisation when the main purpose was merely to undertake research. The author suggests that it is better to relay bad news in phases, or what he calls ‘sugar the pill’, or to soften the feedback in a way that suggests that the organisation could take up some opportunities rather than focus on its current challenges. Overall, Walsham advises that the onus is on the researcher to exercise good moral behavior about handling the truth even when it’s bad truth, than to go all out to disclose it as it may hurt a lot of people, the organisation or even threaten further progress in the research being undertaken. Finally, Walsham suggests giving ‘bad news’ in a presentation or workshop than describing it in a written report.

The third ethical issue that Walsham discusses is about reporting in the literature. He notes that this surfaces when undertaking work with practitioners from the organisation being researched on or from organisations that fund research work. In this case, the practitioners may not want a negative image of their organisation to be published with the names of the authors on the published work. Although Walsham appreciates this, he laments the moral dilemma of reporting the truth against what should be contextually accepted. Another ethical issue concerns the relationship between the author and the sponsoring organisations. He notes that conflicts arise when the sponsoring organisations do not agree with the researcher’s interpretation of the study. He advises that under such circumstances, researchers are not obliged to achieve full consensus with the sponsoring organisations or organisation informant, although he claims that writing must be done in such a way as to avoid giving unnecessary pain to the stakeholders.

With the above discussion, Walsham notes that interpretive IS researchers are bound to perpetually experience ethical dilemmas, although he stresses that there is no direct solution to addressing these issues. This study draws upon the recommendations made by Walsham to address and evaluate ethical issues encountered in this research. Examples of the ethical issues as applied in this study are given in section 7.4.

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4.5 Methodological Limitations

Undertaking an interpretive qualitative study introduces a lot of pain and heartache to the researcher in particular those that are introduced during the data collection stage. Keutel and Mellis (2011) add that methodological issues affecting interpretive IS researchers have rarely surfaced in literature. It must be noted that whilst the planning can be done to allow the interview process to run smoothly and in a real-life setting, some challenges are still bound to surface. Some of the challenges I encountered during the administration of field work are highlighted, and the ways that I undertook to resolve them.

The lack of appreciation for research activities by some SME managers prolonged the research process. In some cases this lack of appreciation resulted in interviewees failing to honour appointments. I found it difficult to change to another organisation all together because I had already gathered rich information from a top manager in previous interview sessions. I resolved to persist as advised by Walsham (2006) rather than to insist. I discovered that with time, the SMEs became more familiar with my requests such that they were more willing to attend to my study requests. I also resorted to making telephone conversations and e-mail to clarify certain issues that were not clear during the face-to-face interview.

Some managers were not familiar with the data collection procedure and the time required for the interviews even if this had been communicated and agreed upon prior to the study. Indeed, undertaking of fieldwork depends to a large extent on the researcher as well as the participating organisations whose commitment to the study may be affected by circumstances beyond their control.

The situation of three cases, C7Panda, C8Estate, and C9Autoco is narrated below:

C7Panda: C7Panda had participated in the first interview although the manager’s time schedule was so tight that he could not attend the interview for a period longer than an hour. Moreover, the researcher had also undertaken an informal interview in the preliminary stages of the study. Thus, the managing director assumed that the researcher had gathered enough information about the firm. Further attempts to schedule follow-up interviews were greeted

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with this kind of response from the managing director, such as; ‘I have given you all the information that you need to know about e-commerce in our company, what else do you want to know?’ The researcher was also unable to secure telephone conversations with the

managing director as he declined based on the same reason.

C8Estate: In the case of C8Estate, two managers participated in the first set of interviews. However, it was not possible to secure follow-up meetings because the managing director believed that there were no new issues to learn other than what had been narrated in the previous interview sessions.

C9Autoco: For C9Autoco, the scenario was rather different. The researcher had done preliminary introductory sessions with the general manager of the firm. On the day of the actual interview, another person, a human resource manager, was brought in as an informant as the general manager had to attend to an urgent matter elsewhere. Follow-up arrangements with the general manager could not be secured.

The lengthy process of conducting such a study can be time-consuming and costly. Molony (2006), in their Tanzania study, lamented the difficulty of collecting data in an African environment. Such issues were not fully envisaged in the planning stage of the research strategy. To obtain some credibility with the data that is being generated, interpretive studies often rely on multiple interpretations of the phenomenon under investigation (Klein and Myers, 1999). This condition often applies to much larger organisations that have various roles of users participating in IS. This situation may not be very appropriate in certain contexts due to the limited nature of ICT applications in the firms, such as in SMEs. Nonetheless, the criterion can still be enforced by relying on a key or owner manager who is knowledgeable about e-commerce issues in the firm. In C1Alpha for example, the only knowledgeable manager that could offer some information about e-commerce was the general manager for C1Alpha. The rest of the staff assisted with non-ICT activities in the firm, and there were no other personnel at the decision-making level who understood ICT and e- commerce activities that well. The researcher tried to engage a buyer as an informant, but the

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person was unable to discuss issues related to e-commerce as they were unfamiliar with the topic.

4.6 Summary and Conclusion

This chapter has provided details of the research methodology, with data analysis being in a summarised format. Section 4.1 explored the foundation of undertaking this study by first providing a background of the researcher and her role in this study. Some explanations on the time span and sampling method being employed have been provided. The chapter later provides some details of the data collection procedure, beginning with the interview process, and then followed by the document and web content analysis, direct observation, and analysis of the local business environment. An introductory preview of the nine participating SMEs is given, with details of some methodological challenges. The next section explains how data analysis was achieved, mainly by utilising Miles and Huberman’s (1994) approach and the researcher’s reflexive and analytical skill to derive meaning from the data. Klein and Myers (1999) principles for evaluating interpretive studies were reviewed and applied, followed by a discussion on contribution of knowledge, and the ethical considerations. The chapter ends with a section on the methodological limitations that were encountered during the data collection process and the measures that were taken to overcome them.

The next chapter will now focus on specific case findings from the field work.

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Chapter 5

Presentation of Case Findings

5.0 Introduction

This chapter provides my own construction of the SMEs perspective of e-commerce adoption in the selected six SMEs based on the findings from the interaction I had with them. This is presented based on the conceptual framework which seeks to answer the research questions based on six broad categories. The categories are: the nature and business characteristic; use of ICT and Web Applications; managerial characteristics and perception of e-commerce; factors that affect e-commerce adoption or the lack of it; how the factors interact in determining the level of e-commerce adoption in the firm, and the role of the local business environment with respect to each of the SMEs. Each of the cases is presented with a summary and conclusion of its findings. The following are the SMEs as introduced in the previous chapter: C1Alpha, C2Beta, C3Gamma, C4Teq, C5Home, C6Lodge, C7Panda, C8Estate, and C9Autoco.

5.1 C1Alpha