Interviews

An interview is one of the methods that could support researcher to collect valid and truthful data. It is a suitable and valuable method to gain detailed information about particular personal feelings, views and opinions. Furthermore, it can also confirm that the interviewee understands what the interviewer is actually asking, therefore improving the final value of information (Carmona, 2013). However, using interviews can be associated with bias due to different lines of questioning based on the skill of the interviewer (De Silva, 2009). There are many types of interviews, which are varied in

70 their style and are based on the choice of the researcher and on the nature of the problem under study. However, Saunders et al. (2012) thought that interviews could be categorized into three groups:

1. Unstructured interviews; 2. Structured interviews; 3. Semi-structured interviews.

Unstructured interviews: In this form of interview, the questions are not prepared or planned; therefore, the interviewer uses his/her previous experience to drive the interview. The main advantages of the unstructured interview are that it can be carried out in a short-time notice and there is flexibility because questions can be asked in different areas. On the other hand, since the questions are unstructured, the collected information could be irrelevant to the subject of the research and/or useless.

Structured interviews: planned questions are considered in advance and generally cover all the problem’s aspects. The main advantage of this approach is when the same questions are asked to each selected individual, the researcher achieves a well-trusted collected data that participate on robust results. The main disadvantage of this approach is the inflexibility to explore areas of interest/concern that may arise during the interview.

Semi-structured interviews: This includes a mix between the interviewer’s experience and planned interview questions. Key advantages of semi-structured interviews include:

 Flexibility in asking questions and explore more areas of the research;  Much freedom is given to the interviewer;

 Allows the researcher to explain ambiguity, or incomplete answers that may face the interviewees.

Key disadvantages of semi-structured interviews include being expensive and time- consuming, especially when large number of participants are present. Also, the mood of the interviewer could affect the interaction with the interviewee and, hence, may affect

71 the validity and reliability of the research. A semi-structured interview technique was selected in this research because it is a data collection process that allows the researcher to use previous information of the topic to be examined while producing rich qualitative data about the phenomenon under study (Sekaran, 2003). According to Easterby-Smith

et al. (2004), the primary reason of the interviews was to get understandings of the meanings of interviewees to the matters under investigation within contexts that were not organized in advance by the researcher. The same author recommends the avoidance of a completely unstructured style, as an unstructured method would surely end in the interviewees having no picture in mind of what issues or matters the researcher was concerned about, and the researcher would have no clear understanding of what questions the interviewee was answering. Consequently, some structure for the interviews is necessary.

In this study, all interviews were conducted at the workplace to facilitate the process. In accordance with the ethical approval for this study, all participants were given anonymity (Appendix 1).

3.7.1.1. Development of the Interview Protocol

The reliability and internal validity of the data depends on the design of questions and the strictness of the pilot testing (Saunders et al., 2012). Therefore, having all the above mentioned facts in mind, questions were established according to the subsequent techniques:

● The interview questions were developed from the survey results and the literature review;

● Questions were modified subsequent to a pilot study;

● Directing the final reviewed questions.

3.7.1.2. The Interviewees (Research Sample)

In qualitative research, the number of interviews is flexible and there is no need to be exact with the number of respondents before starting the research, it is all dependent on the replication reasoning. In this context, many experts in the area of methodology, such

72 as Yin (2009), Saunders et al. (2012), and Collis and Hussey (2014), mention that the qualitative researcher must carry on interviewing respondents till the researcher reaches saturation point or replication. Overall, in qualitative research, the guiding principle for choosing the sample size should be the concept of saturation (Mason, 2010).

According to the above discussion, the researcher continued interviewing without knowing exactly how many respondents would be interviewed until the study reaches saturation point and the obtained information is satisfactory. To reduce the problem of bias, which is usually associated with interviews, the information from interviews have been triangulated with other sources of information.

In this study, interviews were conducted with leading industry practitioners, approximately 10 managers who are involved in projects. Interviews with managers were used to better understand data requirements at various lifecycle stages of a building (e.g. for energy management of a building, for optimise spatial utilisation of a facility). Table 3.5 presents the details of those 10 interviewees interviewed for the case study.

Table 3.5: Interviewee Groups

The Interviewees and Their Positions Location (Organisation)

Senior Executive Al Madinah Regional Municipality

Executive Engineer Al Madinah Regional Municipality

Assets Manager Al Madinah Regional Municipality

Senior Administrator, Buildings Al Madinah Regional Municipality

Manager, Operations and Maintenance Al Madinah Regional Municipality

Manager, Project Implementation Unit Al Madinah Regional Municipality

Director, Operations and Maintenance Al Madinah Regional Municipality

Assistant Manager, Maintenance and Operations Al Madinah Regional Municipality Facilities Manager, Project Implementation Unit Al Madinah Regional Municipality

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