Interviews with Employers

A small sample of employers in the UK and Greece consisting of a small number of senior public sector academics and managers mainly from the private sector, were interviewed. Again pilot interviews were carried out; which informed the interview approach to be taken with the Greek employers137 of doctoral graduates outside the academic sector. While the academic sector has traditionally been considered as the ‘destined’ workplace for PhD graduates, and employers such as universities and research institutes for science and engineering PhD workforce could easily be identified, identifying non-academic sector employers was not easy. Some employers in this study did not participate because they did not regard it relevant to them or the intermediaries (HR representatives) were not able to acknowledge or

understand the importance of PhD graduates in the workplace, as highlighted in previous research (Jackson, 2007; Souter, 2005). It was evident that some HR representatives did not have experience of recruiting PhD graduates and were not able to comment on specific benefits of this workforce. On reflection, it was considered important for future research to include supervisors or line- managers in R&D or respective departments that seek doctorate holders.

137

UK employers are more engaged into activities linking university research and business than Greek employers. Thus, it is proposed to interview UK employers first.

173

Pilot interviews

Two interviews with UK employers138 were undertaken as pilot interviews. Both were identified in a university PhD careers’ fair. The respondents encountered were subsequently interviewed by phone and the interviews were recorded to allow for later assessment of how far the questions had worked as open, simple and comprehensive. It was considered that it would be useful to pilot the interview schedule with UK employers since previous research indicated that they were more likely to have sophisticated human resource management departments and procedures than their Greek counterparts. While the

interviews were initially used as a test to refine the interview schedule, they were also included in the dataset because they proved to work effectively and provided some useful comparable perspectives on the doctoral labour market to those given by the Greek employers.

Selection of respondents

Identifying both UK and Greek employers outside academia posed challenges since there is no readily available information on employers who are interested in recruiting PhD graduates. The selection of employers was done on criteria such as: high R&D activity; high R&D expenditure; specific targeting of PhDs and industrial classification139 where possible in order to acquire a diverse picture of different industries (please see tables 4-12, 4-13 below).

138

One employer was in manufacturing sector (semiconductors industry) and the other belonged in the services sector (actuaries).

139

The employers did not have to fit all the criteria. It was very difficult to identify companies that were specifically targeting PhDs because there is no readily available information on this issue. However, through the questionnaire and the interviews with PhD graduates, information

174 The initial approach adopted was to explore which companies focused on R&D activities that may have provided employment opportunities for members of this highly skilled workforce. This kind of information was provided by the EU industrial scoreboard140 which outlined European companies investing heavily in R&D information allowing for a comparative approach in UK and Greek companies. Inspecting the EU Industrial R&D Investment Scoreboards of 2006, 2007, 2008 Greece (as an EU country) had a very small number of companies being included within this Scoreboard.

The UK has hitherto been the leading European country with the most R&D intensive companies (headquarters) within its boundaries. The number of UK R&D companies across the previous three years ranged from 327(2006) to 321(2007) to 289 (2008) covering a wide range of sectors141.

A random selection was undertaken within the scoreboard to cover as many employment sectors as possible related to science and engineering. Formal letters with request to undertake a brief interview were sent to 20 UK

companies and eight in Greece142.

on employers were disclosed which was used to identify further employers. In two cases, interviews were undertaken with both the employer and the PhD graduate employee.

140

The EU Industrial scoreboard include the 1000 EU companies which invest the largest sums in R&D in the last reporting year e.g. the 2006 EU scoreboard includes the data for the year 2005/06.

141

Pharmaceuticals and biotechnology remaining the biggest sources for inward R&D investment, according to the UK trade and investment agency (for more see

http://www.ukinvest.gov.uk/UKTI-publications/4046342/en-GB.html).

142

Telephone contact was pursued before sending the letters to identify the HR representative of the company and address the letter to him/her. Thus, telephone enquiries and research over

175 In addition, a more informal approach was adopted with the UK employers. The careers service at the University of Warwick organised career fairs for Warwick students and graduates. Attendance at a PhD employers’ networking event and in a science and engineering fair enabled PhD recruitment and perceptions on this issue to be researched and gathered. At the same time, there was an opportunity to establish contact and pursue a telephone interview.

In Greece, employers were followed up by telephone conversation to arrange a meeting either by telephone and where possible, face-to-face. It was

extremely difficult to persuade employers and managers to participate. The economic crisis in Greece during the data collection phase did not facilitate in engaging company representatives.

Finally, six interviews from four companies included in the R&D scoreboard were undertaken with Greek employers. In addition, four additional interviews were conducted with HR representatives of companies with a good R&D reputation and/or specific targeting of PhDs in the Greek market.

the internet were undertaken to fulfil this challenging task. In addition, follow up was crucial in getting a few of them accepting the request.

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Table 4.12 Characteristics of Greek employers-participants in this study

ID Ownership of

company Personnel Sector

Sector distribution

Type of company E1 Greek 500-999 Defense electronics Manufacturing Multinational

E2 Foreign owned 1-49

(Branch) Consulting Services Multinational

E3 44% Greek ownership,56% free float shareholding 1500+ Manufacturing of machinery and equipment Manufacturing Multinational

E4 Greek 1000-1499 Food technology Manufacturing Private

company

E5 Greek 500-999 Pharmaceutical Manufacturing Private

company

E6

51% Russian (foreign) 49% Greek

1500+ Telecommunications Services Multinational

E7 Greek 500-999 Pharmaceutical Manufacturing Private

company

E8 Foreign owned 51-249 Pharmaceutical Manufacturing Multinational

E9 Greek 250 -499 Cosmetics Manufacturing Multinational

In terms of UK employers, the following interviews were undertaken: eight brief interviews within the venue of a PhD networking event at the University of Warwick and four in-depth telephone interviews. These were initially aimed at informing the interview approach with Greek employers and understand the main issues regarding recruitment of PhD graduates. While these employers were likely to be favourably biased towards PhD recruitment, they were

considered appropriate because they were interested in the PhD labour market and had had experience with recruiting PhDs. The data collected fulfilled the initial aim. During the analysis, interesting differences were identified and informed the analysis of the data collection from the employers in Greece. A

177 detailed casebook of UK and Greek employers is included in Tables 4.13 and 4.14.

Table 4.13 Characteristics of UK employers participants in this study

ID Ownership of

company Personnel

Sector

distribution143 Type of company EUK1 UK 1500+ Services Multinational

EUK2 Foreign owned 1500+ Manufacturing Multinational

EUK3 UK 250 -499 Services Multinational

EUK4 UK 250 -499 Services Multinational

EUK5 Foreign owned 1500+ Manufacturing Multinational

EUK6 UK 250 -499 Manufacturing Multinational

EUK7 UK 1 – 49 Manufacturing Multinational

EUK8 UK 1500+ Manufacturing Multinational

EUK9 UK 250 -499 Services Public sector

EUK10 UK 500-999 Services Private company

EUK11 UK 1500+ Manufacturing Multinational

EUK12 Foreign owned 500-999 Manufacturing Multinational

Design of interview guides

Interview guides were developed in English but were translated and slightly modified to take account of the Greek context. The guides were developed with reference to interview protocols employed in other studies (see Purcell and Elias, 2006; Souter, 2005) and aimed at investigating the experience and perceptions of employers relating to PhD recruitment. More specifically, the

143

The sector classification of the companies that participated in the study was based on the NACE classification which has taken the acronym from the French name “Nomenclature

générale des Activités économiques dans les Communautés Européennes” (Statistical classification of economic activities in the European Communities). NACE is a pan-European classification system which groups organisations according to their business activities. More information on the definition of NACE can be found in the website of European Commission:

178 interviews explored to what extent employers took account of the particular skills and knowledge that a PhD graduate might have acquired, how they perceived the PhD in terms of its role in knowledge and skills development and more broadly, the benefits or the concerns that might entail for the non-

academic sector, to what extent they were specifically targeting PhD graduates from natural sciences and engineering and the rationale behind this targeting (see Appendix II for the interview schedule). The interviews were transcribed and key selected passages were translated into English. They were imported, coded and analysed with the help of NVivo software.

Ethical issues

Since much of the data gathered was personal and related to ‘sensitive’ issues, it was of pivotal importance to guarantee anonymity to the participants in both the survey and the interviews. The invitation to participate in the

research outlined ethical considerations to the participants who could refuse to participate and withdraw at any stage. Consent was obtained to record of all the interviews.