INTERVIEWS PROCEDURE AND DESIGN

In the second phase of the study, 29 in-depth interviews were undertaken in order to collect rich qualitative information. As discussed in the interview sampling procedure care was taken to select participants from diverse organisations in terms of their size, professional membership and location. A semi-structured interview schedule with open-ended questions was developed to elicit opinions and narratives. Prior to contacting potential participants, the semi-structured interview schedule was tested on two practitioners from two different organisations who offered their help in the pre-trial process. They were both highly experienced in marketing research and held the positions of research manager and director. Their feedback and advice helped the researcher to adjust and revise some of the questions in terms of content, layout, and clarity.

Potential interview participants were contacted by phone. Representative participants who are regularly involved with and develop a constant personal customer relationship with their clients were considered and approached. Rather than looking for a specific job title, the selection process was based on the nature of the activity they undertook. As such, interview participants had job titles such as Research Director, Senior Account Director, Account Director, General Manager, Senior Project Manager, Manager, and Owner.

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During the initial phone conversation, the purpose of the research was explained, along with the amount of time required to undertake the interviews. All those who agreed to participate in the interviews were asked to sign a Consent Form which was designed for this purpose (see Appendix 4). Follow-up emails were sent including the Participant

Information Sheet and the Consent Form. These documents were also made available

in hard copy at the time of the interview and a signed consent form was collected from each participant.

The interviews were originally planned to have a duration of approximately 1 ½ hours. The average length of the interviews turned out to be approximately one hour. The interview length varied from the shortest being 35 minutes to the longest being 1 hour and 15 minutes. It was common at the commencement of an interview session for the participant to apologise that as due to being busy they were not prepared to be interviewed for more than half an hour, but once committed, they were willing to extend the interview time. In the case of the shorter interviews (three in number) not all questions which were intended to be addressed were covered – e.g. questions related to codes of ethics‟ use (this is because the participants had no awareness of any codes of ethics; in these cases, the researcher focused on understanding how the participants were dealing with ethical issues when they occur).

All participants were individually interviewed by the researcher. Only in one case two individuals were interviewed at the same time – these were two practitioners from the same organisation who expressed their willingness to both assist with the interview at the same time).

All 29 participants agreed to be digitally recorded. At times, notes were also taken by the researcher; however, these were limited in order to allow her to focus on the answers given and to ask pertinent additional questions without slowing down the interviews. This approach also enabled the participants to speak with more confidence and freedom. All of the digitally recorded interviews were transcribed by a professional transcriber who signed a confidentiality agreement.

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The 29 interviews were conducted over a sixteen month period, lasting between March 2007 and June 2008. A period of break was taken around December 2007 – February 2008 due to end of year and season holidays when most marketing research practitioners were not available for interviews.

For the 29 participants, the demographics of the interview sample are as follows:

Gender: A total of 66% of the participants were male (19/29), while 34% were female (10/29);

MRSNZ membership (organisational and/or individual membership): 59% of the organisations the participants worked for were members of MRSNZ (17/29), while 41% were not (12/29); Interestingly, however, 67% of them had an individual membership (19/29) while 33% were not individual members (10/29); Two participants were employed by an organisations member of MRSNZ but they were not individual members, while three of them had an individual membership but the organisation they worked for was not a MRSNZ member;

Position: All participants held a managerial position within the organisation, a position that enabled and required them to work closely and maintain good relationships with their clients.

A detailed casebook of participants and their attributes is illustrated in Section 4.7 of this chapter.

4.6.1. INTERVIEW STRUCTURE DESIGN

The semi-structured interview schedule was designed based on the previously developed research questions, with the intent of generating rich qualitative data that would provide the researcher with an in-depth understanding of the relationships established by marketing researchers with their clients, in relation to perceived ethical issues and individual ethical values and norms. The semi-structured interview schedule appears in Appendix 5. Open-ended questions were used to entice the participants to share opinions and narrate experiences they had in client relationships, and ethically loaded situations that appeared in these relationships (see Appendix 5). A semi-

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structured form of the interview schedule was determined to be the most appropriate one in order to maintain a certain degree of consistency among each of the interviews and, at the same time, to retain some degree of flexibility in interviews.

The interview was structured in four main parts. At the beginning of the interview, prior to stepping into the four main parts of the interview, participants were asked to describe the organisation they work for (e.g. research activities, type of clients and projects they are involved in) and their position and responsibilities. This enabled the researcher to obtain a general understanding of the participants‟ role in the organisation by asking non-threatening ice-breaker questions, as well as to assist the researcher in developing a trusting relationship with the interviewee.

The themes and questions used in the interview were developed from the research questions and the literature review which led to the development of a conceptual framework for this study. Within each part of the interview the researcher sought to understand the participants‟ views and opinions around concepts that were proposed and examined in the conceptual framework (i.e. code of ethics, trust, credibility, affiliation/accreditation, personal values and beliefs, organisational values, and so on). Within the qualitative research approach new avenues of information could be explored if the participants highlighted themes not previously covered in the conceptual framework, or that appeared to offer fresh perspectives that could add value to the understanding of the topics under investigation.

Consequently, the four parts of the interview have been designed to cover the following main topics of discussion:

Knowledge and use of codes of ethics: Part one of the interview addresses the

participants‟ general awareness and use of codes of ethics. Participants are asked if they are familiar with the organisational and/or industry code of ethics (MRSNZ‟s code) and if they make use of the code in solving ethical issues with their clients. They are also asked to describe what kinds of practices they use to enforce the codes and to implement them in the organisation. These questions attempt to provide answers about how aware and familiar marketing research practitioners are with codes of ethics, if they

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use them in their dealings with clients and what measures are put in place by the organisation to make sure codes are used and enforced. The „use of codes‟ issue is revisited and re-examined in the last part of the interview.

General client relations: Part two addresses ethical issues encountered by practitioners

when dealing with clients. It asks participants to describe the type and nature of ethical issues encountered, their relationship with clients, the level of trust between them and their clients, and asks for participants‟ opinions about factors that generate trust between the two parties. The role of MRSNZ and affiliation to MRSNZ is raised here as a factor which may generate good and trusting business relations.

Personal ethical values: In part three of the interviews, several questions were designed

to examine participants‟ personal values, investigating the extent to which they use personal values in conflict resolution with clients as opposed to written norms available to them in the form of codes. Participants were asked to explain the extent to which they trust their personal values in their relationships with clients and the extent to which they use common sense when they face ethical situations. They were also asked to recall and describe situations in which their personal values were in conflict with those of the organisation they worked for, and to explain if the organisational values stated within the codes are similar with their own ethical views and positions.

Incidents and resolutions: The last part of the interview addresses incidents between

practitioners and clients and ways they came to a resolution in these circumstances. The questions were designed to re-examine in more depth participants‟ behaviour when confronted with ethical issues. They were first asked to describe an incident between them and the client in which they faced ethical dilemmas and then they were asked to explain how they dealt with the particular situation (i.e. what was their reaction and what measures they took to solve the issue; in particular, they were asked to recall if they referred to the code and what tools they used in crisis situations in order to maintain good relationships with the client).

All questions were naturally tailored to suit the interview participants. When the semi- structured interview questions were adequately covered, the interview concluded with

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giving the participants an invitation to offer any thoughts or comments of their own. This provided the opportunity to explore any emerging themes. When these themes were examined then the structure of the interview could ensure that all areas were covered.