Pilot-Study Interviews

The initial structure of pilot-interviews was influenced by the existing literature reviewed in previous chapters. Consequently the interview-questions were designed according to the theoretical assumptions derived from existing concepts. A fundamental principle of cooperation based on informal institutions and personal trusts in collectivist societies anticipated in current theories is the distinction between in-group and out-group. While trust between in-group members exists in the form of bonding social capital, cooperation with strangers from an out-group requires the establishment of bridging social capital. Guided by this perspective and the lack of literature dealing with Wasta and personal trust, the question emerged: which group is the trusted in-group and how can in-group status be achieved? Particularly literature on other informal institutions outlines the role of trust-building processes as mechanisms to acquire status as a trusted insider. Anticipating that in Jordan tribal structure plays an important role and that Wasta has been considered an intertribal organisation mechanism, (Schlumberger, 2004) it has been assumed that trust exists within the primary-group of the extended family or the tribe and that cooperation beyond tribal boundaries requires the establishment of personal trust, based on a form of Wasta. The questions of the pilot-interviews were designed according to these assumptions. Interviewees initially were asked three questions. 1. Which role is tribal identity playing in relation to

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personal trust? 2. How can trust be established beyond tribal boundaries? 3. What is the role of Wasta in this process? These questions have not been successful and interviewees could not identify themselves with the described scenarios. As interviewees pointed out that common tribal identity would not automatically imply a bond of trust. One aspect is the size of tribes, which make it impossible for individuals to personally know every member of the same tribe, at the same time the premodern concept of tribal identity, although still present in many spheres of Jordanian society, isn´t the overall regulating principle in present day Jordan anymore. One participant of the pilot-interviews considered this strong emphasis on tribal- background outdated. Besides the changing meaning of tribes as modes of social organisation and the large size of tribes which allows degrees of anonymity and prevents social cohesion sufficient for the monitoring of individual behaviour, the meaning of tribal structure varies between different ethnic groups in Jordan. As pilot-interviewees have pointed out, the role of tribal identity is significantly less important to Jordanians with a Palestinian background than to other parts of the Jordanian society.

Besides the conception of the structure of in-groups and out-groups concerning trust which had to be adjusted for further interviews, the use of the term Wasta in interviews also had to be reconsidered since individual associations with that term triggered a bias of answers towards the rent-seeking aspect of this phenomenon.

Further questions of pilot-interviews aimed to identify the role of gifts in the process of trust building. Anticipating this category from existing models dealing with informal institutions as discussed in the literature review, participants were asked about the role of gifts in the process of establishing a new trust relation. Since interviewees emphasised that giving of gifts in a business context is strongly associated with corruption in Jordan, this question has turned out

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as inappropriate and counterproductive in establishing a trustful setting for the interview. Therefore this question has not been considered in further interviews.

Based on the model of personal trust by Yamagishi (2008) which assumes that the greater the cultural and social distance, the stronger the requirement for personal trust, interviewees were asked about the necessity for foreign businesspeople to establish a base of trust. Since the interviewer himself is a foreigner in Jordan, the question created situations which either made the interviewee feel uncomfortable since the answer was considered impolite, or an answer would be given which could not be understood as an insult. Both situations, either receiving a biased answer or creating an uncomfortable setting for the interviewee, did not contribute to the aim of this research. This question was not repeated in the following interviews.

Based on the experiences of the initial interviews the questions were adapted. Since no information was available on trust and tribal identity as well as on role and structure of in- group and out-group identities, a grounded theory approach free of any theoretical preconditions appeared to be the most appropriate methodology.

As interviews evolved, two fundamental questions which turned out to be suitable to explore the researched phenomenon emerged:

“What is the role of personal trust in modern Jordanian business?” and “How can personal trust be established if it is required?”

The aim of question one was to explore the role of personal trust in general and to identify if personal trust has a significant meaning to businesspeople in Jordan and if yes, why. Question two provided interviewees the possibility to describe how they perceived that personal trust is established if it is required. Using this approach no theoretical categories have conditioned the answers of participants. Participants have not been asked about their opinion on Wasta, but

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the categories emerged from the answers given to this question, will be contrasted with existing literature dealing with Wasta.

Considering the negative perception of the term Wasta and the dominant association of the term with cronyism, nepotism and corruption in modern Jordan, the strategy has been to identify the role of personal trust, finding patterns of how personal trust is established if required and analyse the identified structures. In order to avoid any preconception and a bias towards participants’ personal associations, the term Wasta was avoided during the interviews as far as possible.

Following the concept of a semi-structured interview the two questions have the character of “mapping questions” to give participants the opportunity to come up with broad concepts and associations in relation to the questions. The concepts emerging during the interviews were explored by following “mining questions” which asked interviewees to provide more detailed explanations of answers given previously. Since mining questions anticipate responses of interviewees and emerge during the interviews, these questionsvary between interviews and are not standardised. The term Wasta was avoided during the interviews as far as possible, to prevent any bias based on associations of the interviewees with this term. As mentioned the approach of this qualitative research is to analyse concepts and categories that have emerged during the interviews and identify patterns of Wasta in any process of trust-building described by interviewees.

192 8.1.1 Key to Data Analysis Figures

The figures in this chapter illustrate structures emerging from the analysis of the interviews. The illustrations are using the following items:

= rectangular boxes describe categories identified. This describes the highest degree of abstraction in this analysis and summarises the meanings of all in-vivo codes aggregating into this category.

= circles describe the in-vivo codes that emerged during data analysis. These codes summarise expressions made by interviewees but represent a lower degree of

abstraction than the categories into which in-vivo codes aggregate.

The size of items is determined by the containing text through the computer program Nvivo and has no meaning in the analysis of interviews.