Exploratory Study 1i: Exploratory in-depth Interviews

The justifications and reasoning for the in-depth interview Phase 1i and how each of the projects featured in Chapter Seven was selected to act as an illustrative, detailed case will be presented. The exploratory qualitative interviews were designed in order to understand from a team perspective more about the antecedents and factors that lead to

interorganizational team effectiveness and NHS-SME innovation outcomes. The selection strategy for these qualitative interviews is presented, as well as a discussion of a suitable sample size. A schedule for the interview themes is presented in Appendix 3.

5.1.i Project Selection Prior to Qualitative Interviews:

It is important to present both a logical grounding of the reasons for selecting case projects for qualitative interviewing and also to create sound frameworks to support these interviews (Miles and Huberman, 1994). Qualitative data can provide a “source of well- grounded, rich descriptions and explanations of processes in identifiable local contexts” and this qualitative stage of data collection provides the opportunity to further explain the findings in the literature and during the initial exploratory observation period. In-depth qualitative interviews with case projects have been selected as they provide the opportunity to refine the survey used in Phase Two as well as to explain further some of the findings from the survey data, by exploring the projects in more depth (Ragin & Becker, 1992).

The exploratory nature of the research has involved collating a range of data from exploratory discussion and informal meetings, websites, policy documents, observations,

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survey data as well as some post survey interviews (Yin, 2014). Interviews were a suitable qualitative data collection method as the previous discussions with the project leads and contacts have been extremely fruitful, but this will be collated with information collected during the Phase 1 exploratory stages. The researcher has taken time to develop strong networks and the respondents have been keen to have the opportunity to raise their opinion of the current situation of NHS innovation and adoption.

In order to harness this wealth of information available to the researcher, as well as ensuring that the respondent is getting the most out of participating in the research; interviews have been selected as the most appropriate technique to use. This highly detailed technique relies on a strong rapport and the interviewee feeling comfortable enough to offer detailed information.

5.1.ii How many projects should be explored in depth?

The question of how many case projects should be explored during interview should be answered prior to exploring how to select them. By performing any sort of selection on the cases, we are limiting the scope of the detail that can be obtained. However, due to time constraints as well as possible attrition rates during longitudinal studies, a subset of the 15 cases will be selected to be explored further. A single project would only represent a single exemplar of interorganizational innovation on-going between the NHS and SMEs.

It is evident from the exploratory ethnographic data, that a single interview in one project would not give sufficiently clear insights and detail for an individual to gain a good understanding of the context or the many ways in which medical device projects and interaction between the SMEs and NHS can take place. A single project would not provide insight into the various mechanisms and incentives used in promoting these alliances or in the structure of them. This is also rare in academic research, particularly if the project is not being examined in

Chapter Five: Research Paradigm, Strategy, Design and Methodology

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much more depth, or being used to test theory. For example, Baldwin, Hienerth & Von Hippel (2006) utilise a single case study only, however it is used in order to test practice against the model formulated in the survey.

This choice to use multiple in-depth interviews which demonstrate diversity between themselves (Miles & Huberman, 1994) mirrors much of the interorganizational innovation project research (i.e. 4 cases: Lettl, Herstatt & Gemuenden, 2006).

5.2.iii Individual Interview Techniques and Analysis Strategy

The interviews were semi-structured, with a set of key questions and probes into specific themes that had been identified in the ethnography data and from the literature review. The advantage of only having a semi-structured interview meant that there was no order, and the interviewee was able to take the conversation to where they wanted. This also meant that while specific probes on themes were present in each interview, other emerging themes could naturally be found in the conversation. The interview schedule can be found in Appendix 3.

Becker (1998) presents four different analysis techniques for case studies, which can also be applied to in-depth interviewing analysis. The most appropriate of these is that of analytic induction (Angell, 1936) which explores the data in a case by case approach in order to build theory and answer an “important problem”. When analysing the interviews, attention must be paid to the previous exploratory qualitative phase in order that the observation based work may be built upon. Becker (1998) explains that ethnography data aims to develop interconnecting, wide and generalizable evidence. Moreover, narrative analysis seeks to widely explain a large proportion of the context and these sections will be presented in Chapter 6, the first of the findings section.

In analysing the interviews, a case by case approach is useful, however abductive reasoning (Miles & Huberman, 1994) will also play a part. The confirmation of presence or absence of particular variables can be carried out whilst observing combinations (Becker,

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1998). A cross-interview comparison will also add depth to the understanding and explanations presented while the initial case by case approach will provide awareness of case specific conditions. Thereby the interview by interview analysis will first provide the “particular” while the cross-interview analysis will provide evidence for the “universal” (Silverstein, 1988; cited in Miles & Huberman, 1994).

When coding, the transcript themes were coded over several iterations in order to ensure the same theme was consistently pulled out from the data, and that any emergent themes were clearly understood (Kotlarsky, van Fenema & Willcocks, 2008). Each interview was coded separately, so that codes were not searched for between each interview at first. This was important to ensure that the themes were being viewed as unique to the project and therefore with different connotations for each project. The codes have been structured into categories for presentation in Chapter Seven. These categories have been selected as they sit commonly across each of the case study projects, although within the categories there are differences between the projects evident in the themes encompassed within them. Following these individual project case summaries, the data is then pulled together in broader themes across the four projects involved in the interviews in order to understand the data in a between case-study discussion.