Focused coding – Creating categories and concepts

After initial coding, an additional eight research participants were identified by research partici- pants themselves whom to interview next to gain information for a specific field of expertise from subject matter experts. Follow-up interviews with the subject matter experts were interviewed to express their views and experiences in the context from their own “world” of reality.

Additional data collection and data analysis followed the initial process where initial coding for each interview was completed (see Figure 4.3). Then after each interview a MEMO was written to give some thought about the current research context, who to interview next, would it be appro- priate, and any gaps or findings uncovered so far.

Focused coding takes place interactively; key points coding was used (Glaser, 2017) to code sentences and paragraphs. Thereafter, line by line coding (Charmaz, 2006 & 2014), which was first coded by using descriptive coding (Hogan, & Coote, 2014). The codes that appear the best are chosen first and then merge with others to form categories. The categories are, therefore, generated from the data. The initial and focused coding almost reached a saturation point after twelve interviews. No significant new concepts were uncovered by research participants with the same role as ones who were interviewed before. Where additional supportive interviews were held with some participants with other IT roles, only a few more detailed codes and categories were found, which strengthened the theory from that specific angle. Categories that emerged were validated by cross-checking have ten additional informal interviews but did not yield new findings. Due to the vastness of the different domains and different teams another very short focussed eight informal coffee sessions and observations were held with other participants not interviewed before to validate the research findings. This was to ensure that if the same findings would occur if asking the same questions towards someone else but working in the same depart- ment as the original participant chosen.

Focused coding will uncover those codes that relate to a common theme, pattern, anti-pattern according the actions, re-actions, experiences of subjects within the context of the phenomenon. As new codes are uncovered it confirming similar codes and strengthen them to form categories of similar codes. A constant comparison of codes is done to examine the data, forming categories

49 and concepts. Therefore, focused coding takes place interactively; the codes that appear the strongest are chosen first and then merge with others to form categories.

Figure 3-6 - Focused coding

The categories are, therefore, generated from the data. The initial and focused coding almost reached a saturation point after seven interviews. No significant new concepts were uncovered by research participants with the same role as ones who were interviewed before. Where additional

50 supportive interviews were held with some participants with other IT roles, only a few more detailed codes and categories were found, which strengthened the theory from that specific angle. Although the researcher has not used axial coding per Strauss and Corbin's formal procedures, I have developed subcategories of a category and showed the links between them as I learned about the experiences the categories represent. The subsequent categories, subcategories, and links reflect how I made sense of the data. The Researcher did apply an open flexible method of axial coding as described by Charmaz (2006). Axial coding provided a means to find or determine relationships between categories by first relating subcategories to categories to look for dimen- sions or properties and then use these properties to link categories. It was also a means to find the most significant pattern of data-forming categories. It was a means to sort the data into groups that were related. A way to organise the data could be to focus on specific conditions or circumstanc- es, actions or interactions and consequences. The naming of the categories also changed as the conceptual level got elevated. The conceptual names of categories had to ‘grow, in other words constantly aligning with the data. The researcher therefore had to be theoretically sensitive to the forming of categories.

The researcher basically asked what the processes underlying this phenomenon were or experi- enced as well as what the consequences or factors of this process were. What were the thoughts, perspectives on, feelings and behaviour of the participants in the context of the phenomenon? Memo-writing happen after each interview and during the coding and after the coding process. This assist with the reflection of what the data represents, to understand if overlapping codes merged into higher level codes called categories and similarly also the merging of categories into concepts. and reflexivity Memo-writing assist with having an account what the thoughts, ideas was of the researcher after each interview but also documenting any awareness of actions, events or emotions by the research participants. This also assist the researcher analyse where the gaps are in the data, which domain of interest still need saturation and which categories can form into theoretical concepts.

The iterative process of using a combination of focus, axial coding and memo-writing helped to form the theoretical concepts from the data. While identifying the data elements that do need refinement the researcher use a strategy called theoretical sampling to actively collaboratively with the research participants get insight whom to interview next until saturation point has been achieved.

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3.8.3

Theoretical sampling

Grounded theory is an induction process whereas the data is collected, interviews are transcribed immediately, the data is analysed, coded and categorised until saturation point has been reached. During the data analysis, the codes that need further investigation gives guidance on the next “step” of the process which could be one of many options, depending upon what the constant comparison process revealed or indicated direction. During analysis, a new data with new categories had been added with new codes if saturation point had not been reached yet. Additional data collection could take place or if a saturation point had been reached, then the grounded theory process was finalised where after the findings and discussion of the research study were written.