Guideline-based expert interviews

The conducted experts interviews are categorised as systematised expert interviews focusing on an exploitative generation of information (KRUSE 2014:

169). The methodical procedure of the guideline-based interview initiated with the problem analysis, followed by the ramified construction of the guideline and an adequate pilot-testing phase to correspond to the internal validity of the research (cf. Fig. 6, p. 66). After minor adjustments⁸⁹ to the guideline that was necessary after the pilot testing in the first field phase, the interviews were conducted and recorded successively.

Except one interview⁹⁰, they have been carried out on an individual basis.

To maintain consistency and ensure quality, the interviews were lead by a single researcher. More than five hours⁹¹ of interview material were collected in fourteen interviews⁹². Three interview protocol logs were noted because two interviews were recorded with a defect audio device. One interviewee preferred a protocol log instead of being audio recorded. Interviews' length ranges from 08:35 minutes to 64:36 minutes. Interviews were carried out during the field campaigns in Norway. They took place in a familiar surrounding⁹³ for the respondents to comply with the methodical-technical aspects (LAMNEK 2005:

325).

• Identifying and soliciting experts

Research at hand aligns the term expert according to KRUSE (2014), GLÄSER and LAUDEL (2009), MEUSER and NAGEL (2009) and BOGNER et al. (2005).

The main attribute of an expert is the high amount of knowledge regarding the

89 These adjustments concerned syntax and comprehensiveness of the questions.

90 This concerns the interview II and interview V, which were conducted with two participants.

In the course of the examination, they were separated into two interviews because one interview partner left the interview earlier.

91 A total of 5,6 hours (334,98 minutes).

92 A reassessment of two interviews and one conservation log, which were conducted as part of the thesis: “Assessment and Impact of Cultural Landscape in a U-shaped valley system”

by LOPEZ (2008) found an entrance to the present study and are considered as full-valued data.

93 In their office, on a camping ground, in one of the case study sites or on a farm.

investigated subject. Experts in the analysis are people in positions obliged with cultural landscape planning and management in the cases study sites and entire Norway. MEUSER and NAGEL (2009: 37p) ascribe an expert the institutionalised competence to construct reality. An expert can enforce relevance and action regarding cultural landscape management, within the respective organisational and institutional context. Furthermore, BOGNER et. al (2005: 46) argue that an expert has the technical know-how and process and interpretation knowledge at disposal. Such knowledge refers to the experts' professional field of action and is not only delimited as specialist knowledge (GLÄSER and LAUDEL 2009: 11pp). KRUSE (2014: 176) apprehends this kind of experts as methodical-relational, implying that the research objective decides about the question who is an expert. In contrast, KRUSE (2014: 176) acquires the typecast expert out of a sociology of knowledge. Based on the sociology approach, the expert is conceived due to the structure of knowledge that is described by MEUSER and NAGEL (2009: 75p) as special knowledge. Special knowledge is distinguishable from context knowledge or operational knowledge (KRUSE 2014: 176). Persons are considered as experts because they own specific knowledge, special information and experience due to their comprehensive insight in the research field or the research aims and objective (MEUSER and NAGEL 2009: 37). Furthermore, it can be differentiated between experts with process knowledge due to their operational and praxeological knowledge. To conceive the term expert, persons with abstract-reflexive knowledge of context can be distinguished from people with knowledge about the general overview on the subject (KRUSE 2014: 177). There are experts in the current investigation linked to organisations or administration units and experts, who are non-organisational and non-institutional. Peculiarly in the study at hand, such differentiation is important because experts with a general overview on the topic provide valuable information about formal institutions, for instance. Therefore, experts are considered:

– As an observer with access to privileged information due to their function, and/or,

– to stand out due to their individual effort according to voluntary work with cultural landscape management, and/or,

– Have particular interests in intended cultural landscape development and management.

All selected interview participants acquainted with the topics on the current state of the discussions regarding the research subject due to their expert position.

Moreover, they are aware or part of the social interpretative frame, political discourses, collective orientation and the diverse patterns of action regarding cultural landscape management. Interviewed experts in the present research can report on the cultural landscape change because they are:

– Functionally related to the matter.

– Individually affected (by the effects of the cultural landscape change).

– From economic valorisation of cultural landscapes.

– The present research is interested in the entire expert with his/hers individual orientation and preferences in the context of the person or in the collective context of life. This requirement is made, because the interviewees can:

– Combine more than one expert in one person. Farmers, for example, work part time on the farm and are employed by Stryn Municipality, probably dealing with cultural landscape matters on an administrative level. Furthermore, they generate income in tourism that is vastly founded on the spatial qualities of cultural landscapes with a cabin or camping ground.

– They have an individual perception regarding the functions cultural landscapes have to cope and the related management efforts that have to be made to secure or expand variant qualities of cultural landscapes.

To these matter of facts, the study at hands is engaged in the holistic view of each expert to gain explicitly the individual orientation and preferences on which the expert knowledge is based. The central aim is to the effect to obtain information about informal institutions influencing the experts action.

Access to experts was established in multiple ways. Multipliers, especially in institutions and organisations, were proposed and contacted. Gatekeepers

(KRUSE 2014: 255) named and stated possible interview partners because of the hierarchic organisational structures in the administration, for instance.

Further, experts were researched, contacted and requested for an interview via the internet. Pursuing LAMNEK'S (2010: 325) principle of theoretical sampling, interview partners were also sampled by casual recommendations or mediation during the interview (KRUSE 2014: 255). Other contacts to interview partners were already existent from the beginning of the research process because of previous research conducted by the author. Furthermore, the study at hand is associated with the SedyMONT project by the Norwegian Geological Survey (NGU) in Trondheim. Contacts with key informants were instituted during the field campaign with the assistance of the personnel of the project as mentioned above in the case study sites. Interview requests were sent to representatives of the varying levels of administrations⁹⁴, farmers, committed entrepreneurs⁹⁵, representatives of the farmer associations, national park administration, national park rangers and interested local inhabitants with accurate information about the subject. A heterogeneous group of experts was gained during the process.

With the collected interview samples, an expanded insight concerning the interaction of formal and informal institutions regarding the management of the common and heterogeneous good cultural landscape is given.

• Guideline development

In the context of the present study, the guideline is considered as a frame to keep orientation throughout the interview process (KRUSE 2014: 169). The possibility to ask ad-hock-questions was given anytime because a textual compliance to the guideline is not required in the performed approach.

Variations are part of the open research process to gain as much knowledge as possible (GLÄSER and LAUDEL 2009: 115). Despite, the openness of the interview course gives the expert the opportunity to talk freely about adjoining subjects. By provisioning the data analysis and concerning the theoretical presumptions, topics and meta-questions were developed within the interview guideline construction. This procedure emerged helpful to keep continuity

94 State, county and municipality.

95 Businesses and people working in tourism (such as hoteliers, camping site and restaurant owners).

through the instrumentation and analysis process with a focus on the study aims and the study objective. Information about the applied topics, meta-questions, the category development and the applied interview guideline are enclosed in the Appendix(cf. CHART 3, 4a, 4b, 5 App.). The decision to use a guideline was advantageous. Besides the methodical compliances, the guideline served as a planning tool throughout the communication process (GLÄSER and LAUDEL 2009: 114p). The interview language is English and it is neither the mother tongue of the interview partners nor the interviewer. To that, the guideline transpired as an instrument to achieve and support a comfortable conversation atmosphere as the interview partners were worried about answering the question in proper English. The guideline gave the interviewees the possibility to install to the English language. Most interview participants asked for the guideline in advance to prepare adequately for the interview. Their primary concern was the fear of having a lack of vocabulary during the interview process. Furthermore, the guideline functions as a supporting tool in the process, instead of being a methodical prerequisite.

Henceforth, data evaluation and analysis of the present research is sustained by qualitative content analytical methods. According to the central aims and the study objective (cf. Chap. 2.9, p. 61p), various data analysis methods were applied and explained in the ensuing paragraphs.

• Interview processing

The interviews were recorded with an audio recorder and transcribed verbatim.

Following transcription rules are applied:

– Standard spelling and no literary circumscription.

– Non-verbal statements are not transcribed, only in case, they ascribe the comment a differing meaning.

Incomprehensible passages are marked. Each question and answer is filed with timestamps. Transcription rules as employed in the present study follow practical aspects. Interviews were conducted in English with non-native speakers. In all cases, the interviews took place with individuals who have a sufficient knowledge of English language. In the event of lack of vocabulary, the interviewees were encouraged to use the Norwegian expression instead. This

procedure helped to keep interruptions clear during the interview process.

Missing English terminology was translated in the transcript and marked as translated in the transcription process. Non-verbal expressions, such as breaks are accounted for the non-native interview language, language issues and consideration for proper language. The interview transcripts were smoothened⁹⁶ to paraphrase in comprehensible English. An interview protocol encloses each interview, giving information on:

– The interview arrangements (disposition of the interview partner, – The overall condition (length, place).

– Disruptive elements.

– Comments on the interviewing course and the post-interview phase.

The evolution process of the interview guideline questions is displayed in the Appendix(cf. CHART 4a, 4b App.) and specified in the following paragraphs. The assembled data corpus⁹⁷ was entered its entrance into the MAXQDA⁹⁸. Employing MAXQDA promoted the process of organising, re-arranging and managing the sizeable amount of data significantly.